dog poop, redux

A while back, I wrote about how I have started using newspaper to catch-and-pick-up dog poop on our doggy walks.  I have to say, I still love this method.   Then, in February, I got the following email:

Hello MiserMom, 

This week I tackled the topic of dog poop on Sustainable [City] page.  In the course of my research, I found these awesome dog poop digesters that work like a mini septic tank, turning the poo into a ground absorbing liquid via natural enzymes and bacteria that is added to the tank now and then.  AND (drumroll) they are not expensive!  

Huzzah! 

Have you heard of them?  I know, from my avid reading, that you use newspaper to collect waste, but do you compost from there?  How do you do the poo?   

Have a great day!
La Grasshopper

I love emails that include both "dog poop" and "huzzah".  Of course, I wrote back promptly.

Dear Grasshopper, 

We put our dog poop in the hot tub. 

I wouldn't recommend this method to most people.   It just so happens that about 15 years ago, we tore out the fiberglass liner for our outdoor hot tub, removed all of the electrical machinery and pipes the went to it, and turned the remaining brick circle into a giant leaf pit.  This is the place we compost stuff that is not going into our garden.  It has some of our many leaves, and also big sticks, and (shhh don't tell my husband) turkey bones or meat scraps (buried VERY deep to not attract animals), and also dog poop. 

When I was a kid, I used to dig a pit in a corner of the dog yard and toss dog poop in there, with a layer of dirt on top. I mostly did that to be lazy, because I was *supposed* to put it in a bag in a garbage can and then haul the can around the house to the street, but I hated lugging that big, smelly, heavy thing.

My Grasshopper wrote back:

I had to reread that first sentence twice to make sure I'd read it properly.  HA!  I imagined a soupy mix of foamy poo being pushed about by jets, but it says something of my esteem for you that I was already convinced that you had discovered some cutting edge homemade system for recycling waste.

Maybe I also love emails that include both "soupy mix of foamy poo" and "esteem for you".

A hot tub you really, really don't want to lie around in.
Really.

I also love having email buddies that I can write with about sustainable pooping (animal or otherwise).   Because buddies like that make dreary days much brighter.   And that's no . . . joke.