Powerful Lessons from the Dung Beetle

On the subject of becoming a dung beetle. It starts slowly - the transformation that is. Slowly the metamorphosis slowly envelopes your whole body until you have a sturdy shell and you're ready to haul pies. At least that's what it was like for me in this powerful lesson. Let me explain:

Something wasn’t quite right. How was I so off with what I calculated. Here at the garden surveying our 15 by 15 foot plot like a farmer inhaling the elements.  

That’s right, I thought, the planks are twice as high as the original calculation. Meaning, I would need to double my soil purchase to fill the bed to the top.

This should have filled the bed to the top. Instead, what I was looking at was a very meager half full garden bed. It was barely halfway full. We had already spent our budget for the year on this project and then some. It was not as if we had a place in the budget for this to happen. Maybe I could set aside some money in next year’s budget for more.

The answer should seem fairly simple. I just know it but it somehow feels like a moving target.

You know the old adage when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well, something similar can be said for cow pies but I would take it a step further. When life gives it to you, figure out all the benefits from what is given to you and make the best of them. Get to work. Dung beetles get it somehow. Be a dung beetle is a new mantra of mine. Or at least once I figured out the answer. I wasn’t quite there yet.

At many of the garden socials, I mingled and made small talk as one does, about all of the things that are happening all related to gardening. The hope to glean from those who know it best. Asking questions of others as there are many master gardeners in the audience at the community garden.

Asking the right questions is important. This is my first year in the garden after all. When I found out that my dog’s girlfriend’s family has a community plot in the garden, I pelleted them with lots of questions. One of the ones that I stored away for a sunny winterish day was what to use to fertilize your garden. Their response: cow manure in the fall season and sea kelp in the spring.

Fletcher helping me pick up 24 piles of doo doo.

The rabbit hole of questions I asked the internet and the algorithms thought I needed to see led me down the rabbit hole of other uses for cow excrement.

Did you know in certain parts of both Africa and India, cow manure is used to coat the floors and openings to the doors to keep intruding insects and beasts out.  

At first point of research, I paused and scrunched my nose as if the thought was a pile of fresh manure. Once I got over myself, I found a shovel and dug a bit more in the pile of info.

Apparently there are all sorts of positive reasons to use cow manure. The dung beetles got it way before us.  For example:

It turns out that the benefits range from

-       keeping away the creepy crawlies like centipedes or deadly scorpions and other insects,

-       it’s an affordable natural insulation in the walls of homes;

-       the dung contains the bacterium Mycobacterium Vaccae which has anti-depressant capabilities;

-       the cow urine has anti-fungal properties which interlaces with the dung has antifungal properties;

-       the dung is used as a bio gas or fuel;

-       it can be used in the production of paper;

-       last but not least, fertilizer for gardens.

Just to name a few. There are likely more where that comes from. It is a simplistic lesson though. Many might say, what about the smell. Scientists are currently feverishly working on ways to make cow excretions to be less smelly.  

Then the next question I learned was, where was everyone getting their plops for their plots.

Turns out, a local cattle farm sells them for 3$ per 25 kilogram bucket. So I waited for a gap in the liquid sunshine season on the coast and off I went to that farm. There I waited as the local farm hand scooped and scooped and scooped as I asked for 20 buckets full. I shared my newfound knowledge about the benefits of cow dung. He smiled knowingly and gave me extra.

The next hurdle, getting the dung from A to point B.

This is where I became one with the dung beetle in the depths of my soul. I could be resourceful, I could do it. If I could build it this far, I could get it dung. Get it? Nevermind.

Now my garden is piled high with cow poop. I am still probably another 10 short, but I will gladly go back as they are extremely reasonably priced, with my newfound knowledge stored for safe keeping and future use.

Dung beetles redistribute seeds, aerate the soil, help ecosystems recover from disturbances like droughts and overgrazing, plant propagation, parasite suppression, reduced fly populations, increased water absorption and overall soil structure for healthier soil. Ultimately, they also transport dung balls that can be as large as an apple which is roughly 50 times their body mass.

I set to work distributing the bags of cow excrement over and over from my car to the plot. It was a lot.

The takeaways from this story is a few things.

1)    One, the more you think you know, the more you uncover that you have more to learn.

2)    Two, you learn a ton when you ask the right questions.

3)    When life gives you $#!X, figure it out because everything has a silver lining and you might uncover a new use. Even if it is $#!X. Think of it as opportunity.

4)    Be a dung beetle when you have dung given to you.

It makes me think, what ways are can be harvested from this knowledge of others to apply it to some modern day challenges. For example, the pioneers used cow pies for all sorts of things. Maybe they had the right ideas all along.   

Figuratively, I think of the $#!X in life that I go through the same way. Make use of the situation I'm in, whatever life brings. That is, within reason. I will not be making / consuming the dung like the lemons analogy that is for sure. The veggies from the distributed cow pies will be as close as I come.

Stick around for more escapades and lessons learned from my 15 by 15 vantage point in urban gardening.