Sunday... the main story:
(Click for muddy people photo gallery) I wore my old old hiking boots for the mud, and here, above, you see one of them on the last day I owned them. The mud was sticky slick, and it sucked the soles off of both boots! With a slurp! (the soles had started to come off before, and had been glued back - not good enough). It was not only mud, but smelly mud. It definitely smelled like the mud in the animal pens on a farm (think pigpen), and the stink of it meant that I tried very hard not to fall down in it - not easy. Come to find out, there was a reason for the smell, the grass had been fertilized with "Dillo Dirt," which is a compost made from grass clippings and treated sewage sludge (yes, human). Click here for more info on that, and be sure to read the comments. This mudder is fodder for discussion. (:::oh man, that pun stunk worse than the mud:::) Seriously, though... I think it's time for the festival to move from Zilker. No, I don't have any answers.First band on the big AMD stage was Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears (thanks to MrB for his interest in these guys). Outstanding show from a hot local soul band!
Anyway, we slogged our way back to the artist backstage to chill. Did see a few people I recognized back there, Brett Dennon headed into the john, and here in this sneaky candid is Britt Daniel (from Spoon). MrB did go up to young celloist-singer-songwriter Ben Sollee (Sparrow Quartet) to tell him how much we like the CD we bought from him earlier this year, but that was it for schmoozing except for some hiyas to some biz people I've worked with locally. The area back there was covered in hay, which was a great idea!! (Also, wood mulch prevented mud but is a little tough on tender barefoot feeties.) I drank exactly one too many beers, and we headed back out. Went to the BMI stage, saw some friends, and saw Jypsi, a bunch of Nashville cuties. 
That was it for us for the weekend. We were tired, I had a noseful of that mud smell, and we needed to get to our car while the busses were running and Central Market was still open for some odds and ends shopping. Our cat overlords were not happy at being left alone so much over the weekend, but have since forgiven us.
7 comments:
Woodstock
....Austin-style
:)
I would be interested in knowing whether those people walking basefoot in Class A sewage sludge biosolids "Dillo Dirt" suffered any adverse health effects, skin lesions, infections, etc. Many gardeners and other victims have been sickened by use of or contact with Class A sludge biosolids "fertilizer".
http://www.sludgevictims.com/Class-A-sludge.html
US EPA SAYS: Regrowth of Salmonella sp. in composted biosolids is a concern, although research shows that salmonellae reach a quick peak during regrowth, then die off. Composting is not a sterilization process and a properly composted product maintains an active population of beneficial
microorganisms that compete against the pathogenic members. Under some conditions,
explosive regrowth of pathogenic microorganisms is possible. http://www.epa.gov/owmitnet/mtb/combioman.pdf
Class A (Dillo Dirt) sewage sludge "biosolids" is a good source of drugs, pharmaceuticals, steroids, endocrine disrupters and toxic industrial chemicals. EPA's toxics release inventory and other documents reveal that each year billions of pounds of hazardous pollutants are released into public sewers, where the wastewater treatment process reconcentrates them in the sewage sludge "biosolids".
http://www.sludgevictims.com/toxic_in_sludge.html
EPA and University of Wisconsin research has found that sewage sludge may also contain infectious human and animal prions which can cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, Mad Cow Disease, Chronic Wasting Disease, Scrapie, etc.
http://www.sludgevictims.com/pathogens/prion.html
.
Sewage sludge fertilizer should not be used in dairy pastures, public parks, ballfields, playgrounds, and home flower and vegetable gardens. Peer reviewed scientific research has found that plants, including vegetables and fodder, can take up sludge pollutants. Pathways of risk include runoff to surface waters, bioaerosols from dried sludge dust, children eat dirt (and sludge), family pets can track the sludge into homes on their feet and fur and topdressed sludge on grazing lands is eaten by livestock and returned to the human food chain in their meat and milk.
Helane Shields, Alton, NH 03809 Sludge researcher since 1996 http://www.sludgevictims.com
hshields - thanks for the info and links. I am interested in those things too. Personally, I tried to limit exposure (just feet, mostly) and we left in early afternoon so were not caked and baked in it for long hours. Came home and did laundry/showers immediately, including shoes.
Hill, yeah, one or two things in common, anyway (mud and rain).
OMG I am so glad I was not there. To go all that way to sit in the mud, well at least it was warm out.
cool...is smelly mud better than the traditional ACL dust storm?
it's always something, isn't it? I'd say both of them stay in your nose for awhile.
yikes!
Ellie, Friday was beautiful. Of course, your fave band might have been playing some other day.
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