Loo With A View

With the development of a new kitchen and shower area in the yard, we are in need of a toilet too. I put a few ideas together, mostly a mix between an outside toilet I used while helpxing in Asturias, and the existing toilets used by the campers here and came up with the Cerenety volunteer 'Loo with a view'.

 As with all of our projects, we firstly had to see what materials were to hand that we could use. In this case it was a few solid pallets and some roofing wood, which was all in good enough order to build with and already a nice size when pieced together to make a toilet cubicle. With the sterling help of Dazzer, a pallet floor was set out on paving slabs to keep it off the ground and the structure was built up; a pallet wide on all sides and two pallets high. We left the top half of the front wall open to create the view  through the trees in front and out over the fields. 

We decided to have just two posts in the structure to preserve our timber supply and because in the sheltered place that it sits it does not need to be all that well anchored to the ground. These posts sit on the side of the building and form the door frame. The pallets were all fixed to each other and to the posts with screws, coming together nicely, and certainly seemed strong enough for their intended purpose. 

The door was reclaimed from an old shed, we used hinges that were taken off the old cattle trailer back in the spring and the roofing material was a couple of offcuts from another roofing project. Once we fixed all of these in place it was time to consider the toilet itself. For this I employed the help of Jess, another volunteer here well known for her upholstering skills. I painted up an old steel chair frame and fixed on a toilet seat, the back of the chair was upholstered by Jess in a rather majestic yellow and black striped material. This frame would house the composting container in much the same way as the ones used up in the camping field. It turned out to be a comfortable sit.

The finishing touches were a lick of paint to make the whole thing last that bit longer and a toilet roll holder. We also installed a shelf, which amongst other things will hold a pair of binoculars so the user can really make the most of their time answering the call of nature by looking out over the fields to see what wildlife is in the area. 

 

All in all the project took twelve hours to complete - obviously this included a fair few tea breaks. It is always satisfying to start and finish a project in one day, and it could not have been done without the help and advice of Dazzer (master pallet craftsman), Jess (accomplished upholsterer) and Celli (champion roofer).

Wildlife Pond Maintenance

So, what you don’t think about when you’re bright eyed and full of ecological possibilities, planning your grand dreams of a perfect wild life pond with flowers and reeds, is the fact that one day, in the fairly near future, that wild life pond will have to be maintained.
Given the nature of a wild life pond, this involves getting very wet, very dirty and very cold! Reeds must be pulled and excess weeds must be taken out. While everyone else finds it hilarious to watch a wetsuit clad girl floating around in a large pond for 2 hours in March, it’s not quite so fun for the person who can no longer feel their feet.


In all seriousness though, eutrophication can be a big problem for lakes and ponds, especially those on agricultural land. This is when nutrients from the ground, such as fertiliser, leaches into the pond creating a brilliant environment for plants and algae. Unfortunately when this algae decomposes, the bacteria take the oxygen out of the water, eventually killing much of the wildlife in the pond. For this reason, some plants and algae must be regularly removed from a pond like ours which focuses on filtration.


So, like it or not, I will be bobbing around in my wetsuit amongst the newts and frog spawn for months to come. I may not enjoy it, but I’m told the neighbours are building a viewing platform.





For more information on how to manage your wildlife pond, see the RSPB website.