Did Lulu Poop in the Woods?
Yes.
If you read the first post about the cabin I lived in during most of my college days, you know that said cabin had no electricity, no running water, and, thus, no plumbing.
Similarly, the "main" house was also very rustic, but there were a few amenities. There was a gasoline-powered generator, for example, that cranked up electricity which was stored in four car batteries outside the door. These batteries could power a few light bulbs and, for a blessedly short time, a small black and white television set. Mostly, though, they powered my Tao landlord's power tools. Still, the use of any kind of electricity was exceedingly rare.
As for water, the main house at least had a "system" consisting of barrels and insulation and gravity. There was a barrel on the second floor that held rainwater. This gravity-fed water into pipes in the kitchen sink. Water drained directly to the outside. The bathroom was in the lower, entry-level of the house. This entry-level space consisted of a mudroomy bench, a large wood stove, an old bathtub, an old sink, and a greenhouse of sorts where kitchen herbs and stuff could grow. There were a few steps up into the main house beside the stove. Above the stove was another barrel of gravity fed water that was butted up against the stovepipe. This barrel was insulated and, in the cold months, the stovepipe would heat the water to a reasonable degree and one could take warm, gravity-fed showers and even wash hands in a real sink with warm water!
My cabin had no such luxuries. Water was carried in REI water bags and one of those picnic-type water carriers up the hill to the cabin. There was a kitchen sink for washing dishes that had no pipes--water ran directly out onto the ground. Of course, we used biodegradable soap! When you use water only for washing hands, brushing teeth, cooking, and washing dishes, and there's no chance of water continuing to run as you do these things, you don't use a whole lot. Usually I showered in the student center in Athens. In summer, as I wrote before, I often bathed in the creek. Occasionally, on very special occasions akin to comp'ny comin' on Little House on the Prairie, I heated up a large potful of water and washed my hair in creamy warm luxurious suds.
So . . . what about a toilet? There was an outhouse near the bottom of the hill behind the main house. It was made out of wood but, unlike the outhouse in your dreams, was screened on the private, uphill side (and the away-from-the-house side, too, I think) so you could look up into the woods. There was always a large population of spiders residing in the corners. The toilet bowl was a large plastic barrel encased in a wooden platform and outfitted with a toilet seat. You pooped right into the barrel and covered it with lime. Tao landlord had made some kind of opening in the bottom of the barrel and, somehow, things got somewhat composted before leaching their way into an even bigger hole underneath the barrel and then out into the earth itself. Nothing fancy, certainly, but relatively non-polluting and rarely smelly. It had quite the ventilation system!
One time, Jeff (my college boyfriend and longtime cabin roommate) and I had a party, and all of his mainstream, apartment-dwelling friends from Northwest Ohio came down. After a good amount of partying, one of his funnier friends made a visit to the outhouse. It just so happened that this was during a period of relatively heavy outhouse use. This is pretty gross, but I'm going to say it anyway. Because most butts are built the same way, the poop would form a sort of "mound". Jeff's friend, who was very high, had looked into the barrel, observed said mound, and made his way back up to the campfire. He commented on the mound, saying that, if you took whipped cream and "ringed" the mound most of the way up with it, it would look "just like Mt. Everest." You would've thought this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said, and we were sober as Lutherans. I swear.
There were problems with this set-up, though, for me. The outhouse was far away--about 1/4 of a mile downhill through the woods! This made planning a necessity. When you first felt the urge to go, you'd better start walking, because bouncing down a hill in the last stages of poop labor with a toilet in mind is not the most biologically helpful way to retain solids. I must confess that there were a few times when I just didn't get on it fast enough. As a result, I really did have to poop in the woods, but I was very discreet. To properly poop in the woods, you need to dig a hole. Because there were a lot of big, yet manageable, rocks around, I would venture off to a part of the immediate woods where I didn't do a lot of walking, hoist a rock out of the ground, and dig down a bit further with a handy garden spade (if necessary). When finished, I burned the toilet paper in the hole (the lighter was conveniently located next to the spade and toilet paper) and covered it all with dirt and the rock. Don't worry--I never struck the same rock twice! This is how you should poop when camping, too--and stay far away from water (and bears).
The distance of the outhouse was also a problem in the winter months. You can imagine how irritating it must be to be all cozied up in a woodsmoke-smellin' cabin, reading a book, at night, while the wind howls and the snow swirls outside, and you have to poop. Boots on, coat on, trek to the damn outhouse. (Remember: going down means a 1/4 mile back UP, in the snow, in the dark.)
The second problem was the distance of the outhouse when all I needed to do was pee. I never went all the way down there for that. Instead, I peed camping style all over the woods. In the cold winter months (or on freaky dark nights) I squatted over the side of the porch, hanging on to the corner post. Toilet paper was deposited into a heavy-duty plastic bag (like a Target bag!) which hung on a nail on the porch. Periodically I started a fire and burned it.
The best thing about this kind of bathroom was not using water. We are the only species on the planet that cleans water in an energy-sucking way, craps in it, and then flushes millions of gallons away to be purified again in an energy-sucking way and deposited back into streams. As one of my former teaching colleagues so eloquently put it, we shit in our water glass everyday. And when you just barely pee, and maybe 1/4 of a cup comes out, we flush that away, too, in a mindless waste of 6-12 gallons of water.
In my dream house, I'll have an indoor toilet. Oh, yes, I'll have an indoor f&*king toilet! But it will be a composting toilet of some sort. Oh, yes, it will f&*king compost!
Next question?
If you read the first post about the cabin I lived in during most of my college days, you know that said cabin had no electricity, no running water, and, thus, no plumbing.
Similarly, the "main" house was also very rustic, but there were a few amenities. There was a gasoline-powered generator, for example, that cranked up electricity which was stored in four car batteries outside the door. These batteries could power a few light bulbs and, for a blessedly short time, a small black and white television set. Mostly, though, they powered my Tao landlord's power tools. Still, the use of any kind of electricity was exceedingly rare.
As for water, the main house at least had a "system" consisting of barrels and insulation and gravity. There was a barrel on the second floor that held rainwater. This gravity-fed water into pipes in the kitchen sink. Water drained directly to the outside. The bathroom was in the lower, entry-level of the house. This entry-level space consisted of a mudroomy bench, a large wood stove, an old bathtub, an old sink, and a greenhouse of sorts where kitchen herbs and stuff could grow. There were a few steps up into the main house beside the stove. Above the stove was another barrel of gravity fed water that was butted up against the stovepipe. This barrel was insulated and, in the cold months, the stovepipe would heat the water to a reasonable degree and one could take warm, gravity-fed showers and even wash hands in a real sink with warm water!
My cabin had no such luxuries. Water was carried in REI water bags and one of those picnic-type water carriers up the hill to the cabin. There was a kitchen sink for washing dishes that had no pipes--water ran directly out onto the ground. Of course, we used biodegradable soap! When you use water only for washing hands, brushing teeth, cooking, and washing dishes, and there's no chance of water continuing to run as you do these things, you don't use a whole lot. Usually I showered in the student center in Athens. In summer, as I wrote before, I often bathed in the creek. Occasionally, on very special occasions akin to comp'ny comin' on Little House on the Prairie, I heated up a large potful of water and washed my hair in creamy warm luxurious suds.
So . . . what about a toilet? There was an outhouse near the bottom of the hill behind the main house. It was made out of wood but, unlike the outhouse in your dreams, was screened on the private, uphill side (and the away-from-the-house side, too, I think) so you could look up into the woods. There was always a large population of spiders residing in the corners. The toilet bowl was a large plastic barrel encased in a wooden platform and outfitted with a toilet seat. You pooped right into the barrel and covered it with lime. Tao landlord had made some kind of opening in the bottom of the barrel and, somehow, things got somewhat composted before leaching their way into an even bigger hole underneath the barrel and then out into the earth itself. Nothing fancy, certainly, but relatively non-polluting and rarely smelly. It had quite the ventilation system!
One time, Jeff (my college boyfriend and longtime cabin roommate) and I had a party, and all of his mainstream, apartment-dwelling friends from Northwest Ohio came down. After a good amount of partying, one of his funnier friends made a visit to the outhouse. It just so happened that this was during a period of relatively heavy outhouse use. This is pretty gross, but I'm going to say it anyway. Because most butts are built the same way, the poop would form a sort of "mound". Jeff's friend, who was very high, had looked into the barrel, observed said mound, and made his way back up to the campfire. He commented on the mound, saying that, if you took whipped cream and "ringed" the mound most of the way up with it, it would look "just like Mt. Everest." You would've thought this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said, and we were sober as Lutherans. I swear.
There were problems with this set-up, though, for me. The outhouse was far away--about 1/4 of a mile downhill through the woods! This made planning a necessity. When you first felt the urge to go, you'd better start walking, because bouncing down a hill in the last stages of poop labor with a toilet in mind is not the most biologically helpful way to retain solids. I must confess that there were a few times when I just didn't get on it fast enough. As a result, I really did have to poop in the woods, but I was very discreet. To properly poop in the woods, you need to dig a hole. Because there were a lot of big, yet manageable, rocks around, I would venture off to a part of the immediate woods where I didn't do a lot of walking, hoist a rock out of the ground, and dig down a bit further with a handy garden spade (if necessary). When finished, I burned the toilet paper in the hole (the lighter was conveniently located next to the spade and toilet paper) and covered it all with dirt and the rock. Don't worry--I never struck the same rock twice! This is how you should poop when camping, too--and stay far away from water (and bears).
The distance of the outhouse was also a problem in the winter months. You can imagine how irritating it must be to be all cozied up in a woodsmoke-smellin' cabin, reading a book, at night, while the wind howls and the snow swirls outside, and you have to poop. Boots on, coat on, trek to the damn outhouse. (Remember: going down means a 1/4 mile back UP, in the snow, in the dark.)
The second problem was the distance of the outhouse when all I needed to do was pee. I never went all the way down there for that. Instead, I peed camping style all over the woods. In the cold winter months (or on freaky dark nights) I squatted over the side of the porch, hanging on to the corner post. Toilet paper was deposited into a heavy-duty plastic bag (like a Target bag!) which hung on a nail on the porch. Periodically I started a fire and burned it.
The best thing about this kind of bathroom was not using water. We are the only species on the planet that cleans water in an energy-sucking way, craps in it, and then flushes millions of gallons away to be purified again in an energy-sucking way and deposited back into streams. As one of my former teaching colleagues so eloquently put it, we shit in our water glass everyday. And when you just barely pee, and maybe 1/4 of a cup comes out, we flush that away, too, in a mindless waste of 6-12 gallons of water.
In my dream house, I'll have an indoor toilet. Oh, yes, I'll have an indoor f&*king toilet! But it will be a composting toilet of some sort. Oh, yes, it will f&*king compost!
Next question?
posted by lulu | 6:52 AM
1 Comments:
Here is Lulu's initial post that provided more details about her rustic years in the woods.
I am sure that she would have provided this link herself, if she hadn't spend so much of her tender youth burning toilet paper and crapping under rocks.
What I'm saying is, she's got more important things to do than fiddle with technical niceties. So, I'll do it for her, because YOU deserve to read it all.
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