[GSBN] Fwd: Elephant dung

[Kelly Lerner]

Hi Folks,
With all the talk of blood and floors, I thought I'd forward this  email that I recently received. Elephant dung anyone? Just drop Gavin a line. 

On blood and mud, I remember how carefully the Mongolians collected the blood and used every part of the sheep and goats they killed and butchered. They honored their animals and themselves by not wasting anything. I never reached in and squeezed the heart until it stopped pumping (the Mongolian way of killing the animal), but I helped butcher every time we ate a sheep or goat, including cleaning intestines for blood sausage (made with wild garlic tops). I'd venture a guess that the rural Mongolians would think putting blood into an earth floor was a waste compared to eating it. 

All that said, you're in Haiti and the Haitian should decide what they want in their floors. The french plasterer (his name is escaping me) was starting to look at seaweed additives for plaster when we last talked in Canada many years ago. That seem like a good direction to me if the resource exists locally and blood goes against the culture. 

Kelly "pass me that yummy dark colored sausage" Lerner


> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gavin Wuttken
> To: tom at tomangell.com
> Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 7:28 AM
> Subject: Elephant dung
> 
> Hello,
> We are looking to see if Strawbale/earthen plaster builders would like our elephant dung?
> Thanks
>  
> “What we choose to emphasize will determine our history. If we see only the worst, it will destroy our capacity to do something. If however we remember those times-and there are many- where people have behaved magnificently this gives us the energy to act, and acting in defiance of all that is bad around us is in itself a marvelous victory”. Howard Zinn
> Gavin Wuttken
> DSO Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium
> (253) 404-3676
>  

Kelly Lerner, Architect
One World Design Architecture
509-838-8812
www.one-world-design.com

Have you read Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House? Available in Bookstores across the Universe. 
www.naturalremodeling.com



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