outhouse

It’s done – and we still have an outhouse!

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My brother and his wife are amazing. Incredible. Awesome. Especially my brother, who took on a very physical, long and dangerous job that took about 6 hours.

Wow.

As for me, I wasn’t much help this time, even if I had been physically up to doing more. It really was a mostly one person job, but I was still recovering from a very rough night. I over did it yesterday, so my plans to start digging holes to plant the walnuts went out the window. I always take painkillers before bed, just to be able to sleep, but I also made sure to treat my legs and hips with Tei Fu lotion, and got a daughter to do my left arm, shoulder neck and back.

It wasn’t enough.

Aside from the usual stiffening of joints that happens whenever I am sitting or lying down for any length of time, I got hit with a Charlie Horse. I had just gotten up to go to the washroom when it hit. My left thigh went completely out of control. Very painfully so. I had no choice, though; I had to walk on it. I did manage to grab the tube of Tei Fu lotion, though. Thankfully, the way the house it laid out, I had a lot of things I could use to support myself as I made my way to the bathroom. The girls must have heard me struggling, because I soon heard a knock at the as my older daughter asked if I was okay. At that point, I was very carefully massaging the while sitting on the toilet – there are body parts you really don’t want this stuff to come in contact with! I told her what was happening, and she waited at the door for me.

As I was struggling to walk out of the bathroom, my thigh muscles suddenly released. Like some sort of spring giving out. It only lasted a few moments, but those few moments of relief were amazing. Then it was right back to struggling my way back to bed, this time with my daughter helping me along, then helping me get more painkillers – I couldn’t take any more of my prescription ones, so it was just extra strength Tylenol – before helping me get back into bed. She even made sure I have my phone close to hand so that I could message her for help, if I needed to. Thankfully, by then, the cramping had pretty much stopped. My left leg is still feeling weak from it, though, and it’s been almost 20 hours. Short but vicious! The rest of the night was heavily disrupted, but at least no more cramping.

Which meant any plans involving physical exertion today went out the window.

I still found myself getting up early, because the inside cats were getting rambunctious. So they got kicked out of my room so I could feed them, then feed Butterscotch and Freya separately in my room.

I wasn’t the only one who had a rough night. We have discovered another food that makes my daughter sick, but we can’t figure out why, since none of the ingredients are problematic. It’s just stuff chicken breasts. We’ve tried different fillings, and every one of them make her sick. So she was up all night in pain and wasn’t able to finally fall asleep until about the same time I was getting up – and she usually gets up earlier than I do!

Anyhow, I very slowly did my morning routine, which included lots of attention from these guys.

Kohl has forgiven me for the bad haircut!

My morning rounds now includes splitting a can of wet cat food between the extra little food and water bowls I got for the traps and setting them where the kittens can reach them. Even the bitty baby has started to eat, though I think she would much rather be nursing! Brussel has been leaving them more often, even if it’s just to hide on top of the cat cage, under the platform. The white and grey mama still hangs around, but won’t go in if I’m around – and we still have no idea where her third kitten is. Or if it’s even still alive, to be honest. I’m just assuming it is hidden away somewhere, and mama’s dividing her time between her secret next and the sun room.

While putting the transplants into the portable greenhouse – and leaving the door tied open, as it was already getting quite hot in there – I figured I could use the black garbage can heat sink to refill the watering cans.

Well, I now know why the heat sink wasn’t been working much.

There was just a couple of inches of water left in the can.

I don’t know where the leak it, but it’s obviously a very slow leak. I refilled the garbage can, along with the watering cans, then checked it later in the day, and it was still looking full.

Once my rounds outside were done, I managed a breakfast, and that was it. I knew my brother and his wife were planning to come out, but I just couldn’t stay awake. I figured I could lie down for an hour and be good.

Two hours later – just past noon – I finally woke up. I found a message from my SIL, letting me know they were here. I still needed to do a dump run, but made sure to go over to their trailer to say hello. My brother was already bringing tools and supplies to the tree on the outhouse.

I had one bit of a surprise, though. Before heading outside, I decided to test the septic ejector again. (I noticed we have water seeping into the old basement, and the sump pump reservoir is getting full. Time to set the fans and blowers up again, soon!) I turned the pump on manually and it seemed as if the fluid was swirling actively in the filter, as if it was actually draining. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, though, so I shut it off (making sure to set the valve back to the diverter) and went to check the ejector. I figured if it did start draining, it would be wet on the sheet of metal we have to divert the flow towards the low area.

What I found was the cap completely off of the ejector! Did it somehow get blown right off? I was sure my brother had screwed it back on after he’d added the thawing fluid.

Then I found them sitting on the old oil drum he’d set up nearby, so use as a table.

As I was heading back to the house, I saw my brother carrying a ladder from the barn and he came over. He told me he’d poured more of the thawing fluid in – after confirming the stand pipe and venturi pipe were still full of ice – and had left the cap off so the sun could warm it more. The fluid level had dropped from when he’d poured it in, though, which was a surprise. He topped it up again.

After that, he returned to setting up by the tree on the outhouse, while I brought the truck to the yard and loaded it up for a trip to the dump. I also grabbed our empty water jugs, so after going to the dump, I then went to town to refill them and pick up a few groceries, including the ingredients I needed to make a chili.

By the time I got back, they were both at the outhouse, setting up straps and trying things off around the tree. My brother wanted to cut the top of the tree free high enough above the roof that it wouldn’t hit the roof as it feel. It was secured at the top, so it wouldn’t hit the ground, either. He still had lots of set up to do, though.

After unloading the truck, I headed back out in time to see my brother was in the process of using a chainsaw to cut loose the top of the tree. This required cutting wedge shaped chunks out. There were ratchet straps and ropes all over to ensure the tree couldn’t fall onto the house, couldn’t roll to the side, and securing his ladder. Once he reached a certain point, the job was finished by pulling on some ropes to get it to crack the rest of the way, before it was finally free.

We did pause in between things for something else entirely, though. While I was in town, my brother got a carrier message notification. There’s only one person that this message could be from; someone who’s phone number is blocked on my brother’s phone.

Our vandal.

We took a break so my brother could play the message back for me.

Wow. Just… wow.

He had some new ones in this message. Apparently, my brother has broken some sort of dude code by letting us live here and not allowing our vandal to come onto the property. The code! He broke the code!!

He just wants to walk on the property, he said. Because he spilled his blood taking care of the place… Then he went on a rant about me and my daughters. He won’t use our names, even, but just calls us the “fatties”.

He hasn’t seen my daughters in years.

He had plenty more vile things to say about us. Nothing new in that part.

What caught all our attention, though, is his comment about my brother having sold their property. According to our vandal, that makes my brother a millionaire now. ???

The question is, how did our vandal find out about the property sale? The only person that could have told him is my mother – and we know he’s been dropping by her place unannounced a lot more frequently. It now seems like he goes there after every chemo session in the city? Which would explain some of the horrible things my mother said about my brother, the last time I was with her. Our vandal is poisoning her mind, and she’s letting him do it.

He brought up that he was dying of cancer, of course – then said that he was going to beat the cancer, and there would be retribution.

*sigh*

My SIL thought he sounded drunk again. Which wouldn’t surprise me. His mental state seems to be getting worse in general, though.

After that listening to the message, it was back to work. For me, that meant going inside and getting a chili going in the Instant Pot. It’s the first time I’ve used it that way; usually my daughters use the rice cooker function. Once it was set up, I was able to go out and give what little help I could. My brother had cleared away a number of branches, so I dragged those over to the burn pile – which we can’t burn, because of the seasonal fire ban. In the process, I found he’d cut away some of the poplar saplings that had sprung up since I’d last clear the area.

Some nice, straight and flexible lengths. I’d actually been eyeballing them before, and had intended to harvest them to use in wattle weaving.

I set those aside. After I’d cleaned up the rest, and there was nothing I could help my brother with, I pruned off all the twigs, trimmed them, then sat down with a knife to debark them. I noticed some of the poplar we used in the wattle weave bed actually started to grow, so I wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again!

I didn’t finish stripping the bark on off of them, though.

By this time, my brother and his wife had gotten the top of the tree free, and it was hanging from the straps holding it near the top, where it was stuck on another tree that kept it from crushing the outhouse entirely. He had been trimming things and working to lower it down to fall in a certain directly, only for it to slip a bit – and catch the chain saw. It’s just a little battery operated chainsaw, so it stopped running on its own right away.

Getting it free, however, took at least another hour, a stack of old tires with their rims, and a jack-all to lift the weight.

Eventually, though, he got it free.

During this time, they did stop for a meal and hydration, at least, after they had gotten the bottom of the tree down to the ground.

A frustrating thing while doing on this is, we’ve spent the last year + dumping the stove pellet litter behind the outhouse to compost. I chose that location because it was out of the way and mostly out of view behind the outhouse. The tree that the fallen spruce was caught on is basically coming out of the middle of the pile. An older part of the pile, at least, so it was more compacted and starting to decompose, but it still meant my brother had to walk over, set ladders over, and work over, a big pile of sawdust full of cat mess.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after much effort, many trips up and down ladders, and much trying to figure out how to safely get things done – and this really was quite a dangerous job – it finally got done.

The tree is down.

The first photo above is the part of the tree that was handing and took so very long to get safely down. It’s actually the middle of the tree – last weekend, my brother was able to cut the very top off, and it’s still standing on its end, leaning against another dead tree. Basically, it was brought down in roughly thirds.

In the second picture, you can see the bottom of the tree. That section alone probably weighs about 300-350 pounds.

The last picture is what the inside of the trunk looks like. This tree has been dead for many years, so there was time for this rot to start hollowing out the trunk from the base. It took two very wet springs, which standing water flooding the area behind the garage and all around the outhouse, for it to weaken enough to get blown over in the wind.

Of course, now I’m thinking, what can I do with it? There must be something useful that can be done!

The trunk does have a crack running the length of it, though, so that limits things.

My original plan had been to have this tree taken down, leaving a stump tall enough to use to support a table and seats, like some of the stump benches I’ve already made. As we were cleaning up, my SIL and I took a break and found ourselves sitting on the trunk and I realized, having a bend there really would be very handy. I could use the wood to make a rustic bench. I’ve seen some photos of benches made from logs that might actually work. It depends on how bad that crack is, really.

All in good time, though.

I’m just to happy the tree is finally down – and we didn’t have to sacrifice the outhouse! We had intended to repair the roof before this happened, anyhow. Considering I was basically going to remove the moss covered and rotting shingles, then laying plywood down directly over the original roof surface to make a larger roof with more overhang, not a whole lot of my plan needs to be changed.

By the time they were done, it was coming up on 8pm, and they still had lots of packing up to do before heading home.

There are so many things they could have been doing on their weekend, but instead, they spent the last two weekends working on getting that tree down, without destroying the outhouse.

They are just so awesome!!!

I am so glad they are out “landlords”. 🩷🩷🩷

The Re-Farmer

Wow, we are so fortunate!!

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The winds are still blowing like crazy right now. I headed outside to check on things. I hoped to do a bit on that garden bed, but the soil is still just too wet to sift.

The plastic on the box frame was starting to blow loose and I was trying to find ways to fix it when I heard a cracking noise.

The dead tree by the back of the garage was blown over, right on top of the outhouse!

Thank God the wind wasn’t blowing the other way, or it would have landed on the garage!

Looking at the base, there’s basically no roots left! I don’t know how long this tree has been dead. Just that it was already dead when we moved here. My guess is, many years of water pooling behind the garage and around to the outhouse simply rotted away the roots until there was next to nothing to hold it in the ground. At least, not with winds like we’re having right now!

My younger daughter came out to see what the noise was and we talked about it for a bit. There’s nothing we can do about the tree right now. Once things have dried up enough, we can tie a rope around the trunk and pull it off with the truck. Waiting for the ground to dry is going to be important, since we’ll otherwise just be spinning tires in the mud and tearing up the yard.

Dragging it off will totally demolish the outhouse.

Well, so much for our “second bathroom”. We won’t need to patch up that roof and give the outside a paint job anymore, though the inside looks real nice. 😄

We still plan to build an outdoor bathroom with a composting toilet, rather than a pit, and it was going to go in a higher area. An area we are now having to walk through standing water to get to. The spot I was thinking would be good to build in is basically in an open area leading into the spruce grove, near where the compost pile is right now. It is very wet, but the plan had been to build up a pad of packed gravel, first, so it would be build on a raised and level foundation that drains real well. I didn’t realize at the time I was considering this, just how much that would be necessary!

But first, we need to cut down the dead trees, as some of them need to be felled into where the outdoor bathroom will eventually be.

Now I’m wondering if we’ll be losing any more trees today!

The Re-Farmer

Under water

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While doing my evening rounds today, after we reached a high of at least 10C/50F (warmer than predicted), I noticed the “lake” behind the garage had noticeably grown.

This morning, it had just reached the metal sheet that was laid on a layer of gravel. Now, I could see it surrounding the outhouse.

From the back, you can just barely see that there is water under the metal grate that’s holding the folded wire mesh in place.

I’d checked inside, and the pit under the outhouse is full of water, right up to the floorboards.

I see no sign that the groundhog that had dug a den under the floorboards had dug its way out from under the outhouse. From what I’ve read, their mating season is in March. Perhaps its den had a “back door” somewhere.

There has been an outhouse in this spot for as long as I can remember, but it’s really not a good spot for on, because of how low it is.

I did note that the spot we intend to build an outdoor bathroom, where the compost pile currently is, has no standing water. It’s wet, to be sure, but not muddy. The path to the house also has no standing water, though there are low spots nearby that do have snowmelt collecting in them.

If we were building a pit style outhouse, I wouldn’t have it that close to the house, but since we’ll essentially be building a shed with a composting toilet in it, that can be taken out at any time, we won’t have the issues one would have with a pit.

We’ll still be making sure to have a layer of gravel and sand under the base that will raise it above grade.

But first, we’ll take out a whole bunch of dead spruce trees that will be felled into that direction. Once those are all cleared out, we can build in that spot.

Knowing where the snowmelt collects this time of year plays a big part in a lot of our decision making!

We are still getting weather alerts for next week. How much of it will hit us, it’s hard to say, but the predictions for how much snow the Southern areas of the province will get have been changing. When I first saw the alerts, they were saying up to 20cm/8in. Then they started saying as much as 30cm/12in. Now they’re saying some areas may get as much as 40cm/16in! Which blows away any record snowfalls for that weekend.

Of course, I get a different story, if I look at other apps. One of them predicts far more milder weather, while another predicts the storm will be passed a day earlier than others.

Pray that the storm, whenever it arrives, is much less severe than predicted. I’ve got a nephew that’s supposed to be driving in from another province, with his wife and children, including their new baby, the day the system is supposed to hit.

The Re-Farmer

Our “second bathroom”; painting the floor

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As our day warmed up in the afternoon, I took advantage of it to get some stuff done outside. Now that the sign’s lettering is done, I used the paint, which I chose for its durability, to get the floor of the outhouse painted, first thing.

The first thing to do was remove the remarkably heavy piece of … whatever the stuff is called … out, then sweep and scrub the floor as best I could. Unfortunately, there are cramped spaces on either side of the door frame that I just can’t get into. At least not without making efforts I’m just not willing to make for an outhouse! LOL

I just painted over the crud. I figure, if it’s stuck to the point I can’t get it out with a brush, it can stay there.

Of course, in the time it took for me to turn around and set the paint can and brush down, a leaf blew onto the wet paint!!

I was able to reach it without getting into the wet paint myself, though. :-D Then I quickly closed the door before more leaves blew in!

I don’t think I’ll bother with a second coat. If you look really hard, you can see some of the mint paint through the blue a bit, but most of this will be covered with the mat. I just wanted to protect the wood, really, and I think this will be just fine. If it isn’t, we can always add another coat next year, when we get more of the mint paint. The girls want to give it a final coat in semi-gloss.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to redo the roof before winter, so I’ll probably cover it with plastic before the weather turns, though at the state it’s in, it probably won’t make much difference if we don’t.

Which means that, once the paint is dry and the mat is returned, our emergency bathroom is now done for the year! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our “second bathroom” – little details

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While things were still pretty wet from rain this morning, I used some of the stuff I picked up yesterday and worked on the outhouse.

The chain latch was something we already had in the basement, and the handle was something I picked up yesterday. I got a second one that I put on the outside of the back door into the garage, so I don’t have to pry that open with my fingers anymore. :-D This door is kept closed from the outside by a piece of wood that spins on a nail in the door frame. Turn the wood over the door and it holds it closed, rotate it 90 degrees and it basically just pops open. When we get around to replacing the hinges and rehanging the door so that it is straight, it should close better again, but for now, it needs a way for the door to stay closed while someone is inside!

I didn’t find the switch plate LED light I was after, so for now, I just screwed in a cup hook and hung the LED light I’d already brought over for use in here. You can see the sunlight on the wall from the door – and the reflected light from the mirror, too! The switch plate light I’m after can be mounted either with screws that fit into slots on the back, or with self adhesive velcro strips. When it’s mounted, we’ll use it to cover the hole I made with the cup hook, and the hole left behind by a nail from before. I was going to put the cup hook in the pre-existing hole, but it seems that there is a piece of metal broken off inside the hole!

There was enough light in here with the door closed that the auto-flash did not turn on when I took the photo. :-)

The main thing I wanted to do was add the second shelf, not that I have brackets for it.

Of course, if there is a shelf, there must be something on it!

I rifled through the garage again and found these miniature picnic tables. I believe they are condiment holders. They have larger holes cut into the table tops that look big enough to hold those round mustard and ketchup squeeze bottles, and a pair of smaller holes look like they could hold salt and pepper shakers. There were a few of the same flowers I used to decorate inside the mirror cabinet, left in the garage, so I grabbed them, too.

It occurred to me while I was working that the paint I picked up to do the lettering on the sign would be perfect for the floor in here. I’m in no hurry to do the lettering, so the floor boards will probably not get painted until spring.

I had been concerned that things would start raining again, but the sun came out while I was working on this, which meant I could get the stuck tree dragged down, and finish the high raised bed!

That will be for my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our “second bathroom”; footing

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Today, temperatures dropped quite a bit from yesterday’s warmer than forecast day. We reached a degree or two warmer than forecast, with rather high winds. I used it to do a bunch of jobs outside. One of them was to finish putting rigid insulation around the bottom of the house, in preparation for winter. The only area I didn’t finish was around the back tap for the hose, since we will be using it for a while longer.

We seemed to be short some insulation pieces, though. My daughters had brought them from summer storage in the old barn for me, so I went to see if maybe some pieces got missed among the junk.

There wasn’t any, but I did use the opportunity to grab some stuff I decided to use on the floor of the outhouse, with an extra piece for outside the door.

I’d noticed these scrap pieces a while ago and thought they were some type of black, high density foam. Sort of like the super durable stress reliever stuff used on shop floors. Well, that’s probably what these were originally used for, but they turned out to not be foam, but some sort of synthetic rubber.

The pieces I grabbed had already been hacked to smaller sizes, though still bigger than the outhouse floor. They also turned out to be far heavier than expected, for their size.

I trimmed one of them to fit on the outhouse floor, then washed them down with a hose…

… and discovered they were actually blue!

I didn’t scrub them any more than this, because I really don’t care about their colour. What scrubbing I did was good enough for the outhouse floor!

I didn’t bother trimming the second piece at all. This stuff is not easy to cut! It just got a bit of a cleaning to get the big stuff off. This piece is to for a non-slip surface on the metal sheet that’s covering the gravel used to patch and fill the hole was under the door.

I had trimmed the rough edge on the piece of inside, then cut slits to match the door frame, so it would fit around it.

This stuff should work well to protect the floor. If one of the boards ever does go, it’ll keep a person from having their foot go through! Plus, it’s not so thick that it would make it uncomfortable to sit while using the… facilities. ;-)

Though it does look like we’ll need to paint the floor, after all. Which will get done when we’re ready to paint the outside, which is a project for next year.

The Re-Farmer

A bit more colour

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We used to have big Christmas bows on our main gate. When they started wearing out last year, I wanted to replace them but it was a time when we weren’t allowed to buy “non-essential” goods during Christmas. So my daughter and I used things we had to make a wreath. Since there was only one, it would have gone in the middle of the gate somehow, but we never did figure out a way to attach it securely. It’s been sitting in the sun room, taking up shelf space, ever since.

Until this morning.

It juuuussst fit between the shelf and the ceiling beam, snug enough that it holds itself in place.

More colour in the outhouse is definitely a good thing. :-)

I’ve also figured out where I want to put the second shelf. I just need to pick up some shelf brackets for it. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: our “second bathroom”, done for now!

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Well, we’ve done as much as we can with the outhouse for now, and I think it’s turned our rather well!

The first order of business was to paint the shelf boards.

The longer one was the one that got painted on one side, and the edges, yesterday. I decided to paint the remaining section of the board, too, for a future shelf after we get more shelf brackets. After a cleaning and a sanding of the rougher edges, it gone one side and the edges painted, too.

Leaving those to dry, I put up the shelf brackets, living them up with the top of one of the boards.

That screw in the top corner was a real pain in the butt to do. There’s almost no space for the screwdriver! I also put the screws to attach the board part way, so that when I came back later, I’d only need to bring the screwdriver.

I noticed one of the girls had moved the mermaid toy into the middle shelf (I’d put it on the bottom). Remembering that there were some fake flowers in the garage, I went digging around and found some small ones to put beside her. :-D

After giving the shelf boards a couple of hours to dry, I came back later to put up the longer shelf board.

We wanted the shelf to be pretty high up, but when I tried to put it in place, I found it was narrower than where I’d checked the fit, before! Not by much, though, and I was able to jam it in and screw it in place.

That done, it was time to paint. Since there was so little paint left, the first thing that got done was the other side of the second shelf board, then the inside of the door. The back wall was done as high as the shelf, and the wide walls on either side of the seat box were done.

There was just enough paint left to do the wall joists in the middle, and the final dregs were used to paint the inside edges at the bottom boards under the joists. I’d painted the tops, but not the inside edges before. One of the boards only had half an edge along most of its length; a chunk seemed to be missing! LOL

Then I cleaned off the paint brush on the toilet lid again. :-D

After washing up the paint supplies (including the empty can; I figure we can reuse it for something), I took a couple of decorated terracotta plant pots we’d found when we first cleaned out the sun room and put them on the new shelf.

Gosh, that looks so much better!!

The girls are already talking about getting another gallon of paint to add another coat in the future. Other than adding the battery operated light inside, whatever we figure out for the floor, and eventually replacing the toilet seat, it’s basically done on the inside. Oh, and the latch for the inside.

While waiting for the painted shelves to dry, I took a closer look at the outside.

This is one of the hinges that needs to be replaced.

Why does it have four different screws???

The other one has three different screws.

I also took the metal thing that had been in front of the door, to cover the hole that was getting bigger, over the wire mesh at the back. I didn’t even bother to level it or anything. That can wait for when we actually paint the outside.

I also looked at the roof, thinking ahead to when we fix it up. There’s quite a lot of rotted edges on there. :-/ One of the things I wanted to do in repairing it was making an overhand above the doorway. We definitely want to have it overhang the roof trusses, too. After they have been reinforced because of the rotten edges!

It would be good if we can get that done before winter, but we shall see. After the roof is done, we’ll work on painting the outside. The front of the outhouse is white, but the other three sides are a pink. It may have started out as a red, but there’s so little left, it’s rather hard to tell. You can see some of it in the above photo.

The girls want to keep the pink. :-D

By the time we’re done, this thing is going to be downright adorable. Plus, it will last longer, until we build the outdoor bathroom we have planned.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: our “second bathroom”, inside and out

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I’m a sucker for punishment.

The plan was to head over to the outhouse, quickly do a second coat of paint until we ran out, then get back to working on the bread baking.

Instead, I kept adding more things to do, and by the time I got inside, I had to get my daughter to continue the bread baking, as I was no longer physically able to do it. Which is what she is working on now, as I write this blog post!

While looking for something else entirely, I found a pair of wooden shelf supports and instantly realized that they could be painted and used to put a shelf in the outhouse. So when I headed out to do the second coat of paint, I also poked around the barn and a shed to find a thin board wide enough for the supports. It was about six feet long, though, so I basically held it up to the outhouse door from the outside, and eyeballed where to cut it to fit along the back of the outhouse. It ended up being just over half the length of the board, so I figured if I was off with the longer one, I could still use the slightly shorter one.

It ended up being just a hair too wide to fit between the corner posts. A few swipes with a micro plan and some sand paper was enough to get it to fit perfectly!

That done, I sanded the rough edges, then scrubbed and hosed it down before setting it aside to dry. Then I added a second coat of paint, just to the seat box inside, before painting the shelf supports.

I’m thinking I might paint the rest of the board, too. If we get more shelf supports, we can add it onto one of the side walls.

It took a while for the washed shelf board to dry, so I decided to give the mirrored shelf a scrub down, too, then once that was dry, I hung it back up inside the outhouse.

Rolando Moon decided she absolutely had to be on top of where I was putting the tools and screws! The violent beast went from demanding I pet her, to attacking the hand that was petting here, making me bleed! I did manage to get the screws with washers out from under her, though.

I just wanted the washers, though. There were just two, for the top screw holes, which are slightly wider than the bottom ones. I used new screws to hang the mirror back up. After washing the blood off the new screws and washer, from the wound Rolando Moon gave me!

Previously, it had been hung up right against the centre joist, but I chose to centre it between the corner and the joist, instead.

Then, I just had to do it…

I just had to put the little mermaid I found while I first emptied and cleaned out the outhouse, inside the cabinet.

She lives here now.

:-D

Once we’ve picked one up, the LED battery operated light switch will be mounted directly opposite the mirror.

By the time this was done, the shelf board was dry.

After removing Rolando Moon, I got the one side painted. Tomorrow, I will paint the other side. By then, I should be able to mount the shelf supports, using the boards on the wall to make sure they are level, then attach the shelf board once the paint is dry. Only then will I continue doing the second coat of paint inside, until the can is empty. If I end up not doing the ceiling, or the narrow parts around the door, that’s not going to be a problem. As long as the areas that are most likely to get scrubbed in the future get a second coat, it’s all good.

Since I could no longer work on the inside, I decided to work on the outside, and empty the pit of groundhog gravel.

The wire mesh on the back was held in place by being hooked onto two bent nails, that were nowhere near each other. You can see one at the top right. The other is barely visible, near the bottom left. It didn’t take much to remove the mesh.

There was a second, smaller piece of mesh, partly buried until a thick layer of grass and roots.

*sigh*

That took some doing to move out of the way.

I thought I would be able to remove the two bottom boards by taking off the smaller pieces on the side, then pulling them off. They where, however, thoroughly nailed in place, with old and rusted nails that were not about to come out. So, I instead dug out my jig saw and used it to cut a piece off the bottom.

As you can see, it’s solid gravel against it! I ended up having to cut a second piece off. I was then able to start shoveling the gravel out, and when I could no longer get the shovel far enough in before the 2×4 across the bottom stopped me, I used a garden hoe to move more gravel closer, then shoveled some more.

I never did reach the … compost… layer. I did hit a lot of rocks, though! I emptied it as best as I could, without removing the more recent… deposits.

Then it was time to cover the hole back up.

I put the two pieces of siding back, then screwed the bottom one to the 2×4 behind it. The next time we need to get under there, we can just remove the screws and the boards will easily pop out again.

I then folded the smaller piece of wire mesh to fit the opening. I found a scrap piece of board with screw holes already in it, so I used that to fasten the mesh in place. The wire is folded at the bottom and weighted down with rocks. Critters can still get in if they really wanted to, but this is temporary. When we get to painting the outside, we’ll make things more permanent, perhaps replacing the cut boards with a hinged flap that can be latched to keep the critters out. Who knows.

I have no idea why that other large piece of wire mesh was used to cover almost the entire back of the outhouse. It really served no purpose, since only the gap at the bottom needed to be covered. Even the smaller one on the bottom couldn’t keep the critters out.

I was able to fill the wheelbarrow with clean groundhog gravel! If there was any chance the shovel full I pulled out wasn’t clean, it went onto the nearby cat litter compost pile, instead.

The clean gravel was put to good use.

It was enough to make a thin layer on top of the boards in the path between the new low raised bed boxes. The bigger rocks went up against one of the boxes, where there is a larger gap, then it all got spread out and hosed down, so that the finer particles would wash into the gaps between the boards below. It seems to be more clay than sand and gravel, though. We will still need to add more, but this is a good start.

And that was it for today!

Deciding to include a shelf added at least an extra day to finishing the inside, but I think it will be worth it. I’m more happy about getting the pit clean up over and done with for now!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: our “second bathroom”, first coat inside, done!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

After a quick run out to hit the farmer’s market, and then town, I decided to finish painting the inside of the outhouse while there was still enough light.

I’m glad I did. :-)

Here are the “before” pictures.

I had a few drips, while working on the top and ceiling. :-D

It was a bit tight to get photos of the inside, front!

There are a LOT of nooks and crannies around that door frame.

I actually started with the door. I figured I should get that done first, just in case it needed to get closed at the end of the day, so it would have more time to dry.

Then I worked on the most difficult areas around the door. For such a small amount of square footage, it took quite a while to get that done! Painting the inside of the door frame turned out to take quite a while, too, as there are a lot of gaps that I needed to squeeze the brush into.

Once the front was done, I methodically worked my way to the back. Of course, I found more staples and tacks that I missed! :-D

Since I wasn’t planning on taking off the toilet seat, once the sides were done, I painted the seat box under the toilet seat first. The lid leans against the back wall when it’s open, so I wanted to give the paint at least a little while to dry before having to close the lid again. On the plus side, there are only 2 points of contact under the seat, so even if still wet, closing the lid wouldn’t mess the paint up too badly.

Here are the “after” shots.

This time, I remembered my phone has a “panorama” setting. LOL

Yeah, I painted the toilet lid. Sort of. It had so many drips on it, I just went ahead and used the lid to get excess paint off the brush. :-D

And here it is, with the painted door.

While doing a second coat will take a lot less paint, I suspect we will need to buy another can. Those nooks and crannies took a lot more paint to cover than expected. Especially when I came across wood that had pieces fall out, or had a very rough finish. One of the beams supporting the corner still had bark on it, and winding gouges on the surface from insects. All of this ended up needing extra paint to get into the various holes and surfaces

What a difference!

One of the things we’ll have to do is put some sort of non-slip… something… on the metal sheet in front of the outhouse. It can get slippery when it’s wet.

After a second coat of paint, we’ll put the mirror cabinet back in – my daughter suggested just putting the old one back, rather than digging out the one in the basement, because then we’d just have to find somewhere to store the old one, anyhow! :-D Also, she noticed we had a chain latch, still in its package, that we can use on the inside, so we don’t have to buy a new latch. It will be mounted on the top cross piece of the door, so I won’t be trying to mount a latch where old screw holes have already damaged the wood. I’ve decided that, for a light, I will pick up another one of those LED, battery operated light switches. We have two of them in the house that come in very handy; one is set up in the bathroom to use at night instead of turning on the very bright main lights, and another is set up in a very dark corner where one of the upstairs litter boxes is kept. When we get one for the outhouse, I want to mount it across from the mirror, to take full advantage of reflected light. We’ll need some sort of dust, critter and insect proof container to keep toilet paper in, and maybe some wet wipes or something. The girls plan to put art on the walls. :-D

The next time something happens and we can’t use our indoor bathroom again, we will at least have someplace pleasant to go! :-D The only other thing is, we now have to empty the pit of all that gravel the groundhog dug up. It will be important to get that done before winter, because if we get any normal amount of snow, when it melts in the spring, we’ll have a big puddle in front of the outhouse, and the back of the garage, and water will drain into the pit again. The gravel is high enough in there, that there is no longer room for it, which would force the water above the floor boards. Mind you, it would probably end up draining into the groundhog’s den, but there is nothing we can do about that.

The main thing was getting at least this first coat of paint done, then digging out the pit. If we don’t have a chance to fix the roof before winter, I want to at least put a tarp or something over it. The rest can be done slowly, as we find the time.

The Re-Farmer