Tuesday, November 06, 2012

The quality of poo is not strained

It's awfully exciting writing without a plan or a clearly defined plot, just letting stuff happen. I'm getting attached to my characters already and I can't decide what fate to let befall the unpleasant husband of one: an affair or redundancy.

I suppose redundancy would hit him more even though she'd be affected whereas an affair would only be fun for him. Yes, redundancy it is. 

This NaNoWriMo lark is really good in forcing me to write and to write freely, to go with the flow. It's very hard not going back and picking out the faults and weaknesses but this is meant to be a first draft; once it's done I can go back and edit to my heart's content. In the meantime I'm letting the characters decide for themselves. Certainly letting them develop into themselves. And I'm finding out all sorts of things and getting the ideas for what comes next because they suggest it.

I had a very productive afternoon and have caught up with target. And I made a nutella cake for Zac's. And we had a lovely long walk out on the Southgate cliffs this morning.

Husband took his poo bag but for a long time we didn't come across any horse poo. There were mountains of cow poo, which led me to ask how he told the difference. (But if I'd thought about it I'd have remembered the little mole who knew it was none of his business and recalled that cows' poo comes in pats and horses' in apples.)

It also led to a discussion about whether cow poo would work as well and why no-one ever collected that. We surmised that horse poo was collected because there used to be horses and carts on the streets so it was easily accessible for town gardeners. 'But farmers spread cow poo on their fields,' Husband said, 'and it's digested differently. Cows have four stomachs. Horse poo is less digested and there's more fibre in it.'

On that basis you'd think cow poo would be better. Anyone know?

You'll be pleased to hear, however, that we did find enough horse poo to make the trip worthwhile. 

4 comments:

Katney said...

If you are gathering the poo for fertilizer (compost, that is) I would venture to say that either is good. Steer manure is favored greatly here because it is most available, although I could perhaps make a deal with my neighbor who has a lovely horse.

Leslie: said...

All I can say is, "WHY do you collect poo of any kind???"

Rose said...

If your new novel has a title anything like this post, you're sure to hook thousands of readers:)

I must have missed something, too, because I'm not quite sure why you are collecting poo! Seriously, if it's for fertilizing your garden or yard, I think either would work just fine. But--and this is important--it needs to be aged first. I can't remember what I learned about this, but it has something to do with all the nitrogen in it; if you put fresh manure on your garden, it could burn the plants. So I hope you have a good place to store all that you've collected so that it can mellow out...like a fine wine:)

Liz Hinds said...

I'll tell Husband that, katney.

For garden fertiliser, leslie! obviously!!

Husband stores it all in his new compost bin, layered with garden weeds and grass cuttings, rose. Just like a fine wine!