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Karl Hammer is the founder and president of the Vermont Compost Company in East Montpelier, right up the hill from Montpelier, the state capital. I first heard about Karl from my friend Rosana, who used to be married to him. She told me about how they had puppies one winter, and Karl decided to compost their poop on the floor in the house, which he sweetened with donkey manure and hardwood bark and hay.
Karl started as a vegetable and dairy farmer on a hill farm in Vershire Vermont. He had a business card that said, ‘Have fun. Make money. Save the world.’ How do you make more land better land to make more food for more people? I think it was that question that finally made him leave farming and get into compost production, long before composting was a virtue.
Recently, Karl’s been running a donkey cart into town to pick up food scraps at restaurants and the local coop. Karl has always had donkeys. He loves donkeys, especially the American Mammoth jackstock, which is endangered. And Karl figures the only way to protect them is to give them a useful job to do…to make them indispensable.
I tried to interview Karl a few years ago and failed. He has a mind that connects politics and history and feces and he talks about them all at once and he’s impossible to corral into any one subject at a time. I figured this time I could keep him on the subject of donkeys. But I couldn’t. But it didn’t matter. Karl knows a lot of things I wish I knew.
Pictures and video by Sid Hammer, except the less good pictures, which are mine.
Erica another good show, from now on I will think of Karl Hammer when i poop.
Full of hope! Thank you, Erica and Karl.
Thanks! Learned a whole lot about donkeys today.
I just finished listening to this when the donkeys walked by my house. :))
I’m sure glad I’m not a piece of PVC pipe….but I’d kinda like to be one of Karl’s chickens…..
Karl’s chickens have a brilliant life.
I loved this episode- I wish there were hours more! This kind of interconnected thinking and unapologetic cut to the chase is so refreshing! I know so little about where waste goes- it makes more than perfect sense to spend a lifetime focused on it.
Wonderful!!! Informative, entertaining, inspiring! Thank you both.
Another great episode. Karl reminds me of a dear friend of my folks in Western Mass – largely his age and beard, honestly. But this friend is a master craftsman, has worked with his hands his whole life, building houses and sculptures in wood and stone, and takes a similarly skeptical view of a lot of mainstream practices. And thanks, Karl and donkeys and chickens, for the manure cycles.
So, so inspiring and refreshing. Karl’s comments on his chickens’ life and the merits of a donkey over a Tesla I found especially poignant. Thank you!
I very much appreciate this refreshing, poetic, informative podcast this Sunday morning of an October in pandemic. Thank you so much. Sharing this with my dad and sisters
Karl: I’m so glad you gave up on the idea of ballet and instead turned to entrepreneurship, biology, music, lover of donkeys, employment of chickens , amelioration of soil, philosophy, and spreading of love to all those around you including the animals. In sum, farming is your religion. A much more satisfying life. Congratulations!
I have two friends who are equally enamored with donkeys and will share this with them.
Such a wonderful, funny and informative story. Thank you Erica and Karl!