True Believers Take a Piece of Zeke’s Heap

A light drizzle Monday disrupted plans by Mountain View Cemetery to begin hauling away Zeke the Sheik’s Gargantuan dung heap.

But it didn’t discourage dozens of Zeke’s friends and amateur gardeners from coming by for their own piece of the pile.

All morning, well-wishers were lined up in front of the 30-foot-high mound next to Zeke’s Altadena farmhouse, hoping to salvage some of the steamy, chocolate-colored soil by shoveling it into pickup trucks, garbage cans, buckets and sacks.

Some paused to sign a petition describing the one-acre jungle of fruits and cacti fueled by the fertilizer as “an educational experience.” Others shelled out a few bucks for T-shirts featuring a photograph of a turban-clad Zeke--the alter ego of 47-year-old Timothy Dundon--framed by one of his earthy musings.

“I’m here because I believe in the pile,” said Jim Helliwell, 35, a ceramic tile setter and organic gardener from North Hollywood, as he loaded his van with dirt. “To me, this is something sacred.”

At first, cemetery officials, who years ago gave Dundon permission to spread the fecund mass atop one of their vacant lots, said they would send out a work crew to haul away what’s left of the pile as soon as the weather breaks. But later in the day, they were given a 10-day extension by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which has condemned the hill as a health hazard and illegal dump.

A Pasadena Superior Court judge on Friday granted the cemetery a temporary restraining order blocking Dundon, or anyone else, from interfering with the removal of the mound.

“He’s probably not a bad guy in his own funny way,” Cranston P. Montgomery, an attorney representing the cemetery, said of Dundon. “But the county is concerned that what he’s built there is not entirely sanitary or desirable.”

Montgomery said he was drafting a letter to Dundon, indicating that the dirt would be taken and spread over a vacant lot owned by the cemetery about a half mile away. He said Dundon would be given access to the soil if he wants to continue sharing it with friends.

But Dundon, who 17 years ago began cultivating the mixture of household garbage, animal droppings and lawn clippings from Mountain View’s graveyard, vowed to continue fighting for control of his hill.

A Pasadena public relations specialist is donating her time to his cause. And the stream of support continues from people who would rather haul the richness of the mammoth heap to their own homes than see it go to waste.

“The county wanted to kill this,” said Dundon, standing in the rain next to his creation. “But life is indestructible. It’s like the pile is having babies, sending out the seeds to make little piles everywhere.”