The View from the Outhouse
Good morning from Silty Slough. This year is rapidly winding down. Soon I will have to be retrained to write 2024, just after getting 2023 mastered.
Woke up a couple minutes after what I read on my phone as 6 this morning. It is clear and bright out. The dogs want to go out and I might as well go to the outhouse. The snow was crunchy and I could feel the hairs in my nose frosting up. I’m in my pj bottoms, t shirt, and Crocks. No socks but I have the winter Crocks that are fur lined. I didn’t have to tell Mayor Cooper and Teddy to come in. It must be really cold out. When we got inside I checked the temperature on my phone with the Weather Underground app. Silty Slough reporting station KAKSKWEN7 if you are interested or even if you aren’t. 27 below zero and the time was actually a little after 5. Must be a different time zone upstairs. Anyway it is colder than a well diggers arse in the Klondike. I’m in trouble, I hear footprints on the stairs and I haven’t started the coffee. Jess is already in the dark kitchen looking for coffee. Luckily the coffee pot wasn’t loaded last night and ready to brew, so I get a pass. I’ll wait till later to get in trouble.
Jess arrived last Saturday on the helicopter with more stuff to cook for the holidays. She and Kari have been cooking nonstop. Cookies, cakes, ham, soup, all kinds of bread and rolls. You name it. We went to the neighbors on Christmas Day for a get together. Took a whole tub sled full of food, had a great time, and didn’t bring too much food home, so they are at it again. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast a couple mornings ago. Macaroni and cheeseburger soup-no Velveeta allowed. Yesterday morning it was quiche with biscuits and homemade jam. Last night was Carne asada. I’m waiting for prime rib and lobster night. I saw it come off the helicopter.
Last night they started making Panettone. I heard them talking about setting an alarm at 1 am to do something in the process when I went to bed. Tomorrow I have to make sure I have a full 100 pound propane bottle hooked up. I would be in deep doo-doo if it ran out in the middle of baking a tasty treat.
Jess is here until the 4th, if I keep up this eating pace I will need to walk to Deshka Landing pulling a groomer.
28 below now. Temp going down and bathroom scales going up.
With indoor plumbing I guess some of you are wondering what I was doing in the outhouse. Let me rephrase that. Why am I going outside in the cold to the outhouse. While I was on my last trip, Kari told me the toilet and shower were draining slow. Then a later report was bring a snake it isn’t working at all. I don’t like snakes that is part of the reason I live in Alaska. So on Steve Gahan’s advice I went too Ferguson and got a couple bottles of Clobber. This stuff is just pure sulfuric acid I think. Instructions are to put on a rubber suit, gloves, and goggles. Poured it down the drain it boils and bubbles a bit but doesn’t go down. I wait a couple days for the acid to neutralize so I don’t kill the snake and try it. No worky. I’ve been outside and checked all the inspection tubes, nothing frozen. So I have Jess bring 4 more bottles of Clobber. Poured one in each drain after I removed the toilets and one in each of the cleanouts outside. Still no worky. There is a clean out downstairs where the drain goes through the wall. This is the lowest point in the system. So far I haven’t been able to talk Jess or Kari into removing the plug so I can run the snake in it.
Christmas Day Roger gave me a balloon that hooks on a water hose. You put it down the drain turn on the water, it inflates, seals off the pipe, and shoots water out the end to blast the clog away. Same thing the doctors had in mind to do to my heart except it was too plugged up. Instead they split me open like a fish and did it right. Anyway back to the sewer. I put the balloon in the first clean out outside and it seemed to help. I did the second one on the other side of the tank. I guess I pushed it in too far and it hung up on the inlet to the leach bed. Anyway I can’t pull it out. So now I have a second block in the system. Can’t get the Kubota to it because the snow is so deep. Probably a good thing. I can just see ripping the system’s gonads out by its vocal cords when I hook the hose to the Kubota bucket and pull, so I cut the hose, folded it over and put the cap back on the clean out. It’s 8 degrees out here and I’m not having a good time. I guess I will wait until the end of May and dig it up. So now it is back to the outhouse and showers over the garage floor drain. I’m thinking I may have covered the outlet to the drain up, because with indoor plumbing we won’t ever shower in the garage again.
In town I could just call someone. But that’s not the way it works 60 miles from the end of the road. You the man. I could write the rest of the day because I’m not going outside, that is unless the generator quits.
I think it is time for Lars to call me to fly a long fictitious trip. (Hint hint)
I better get going. I think the women have something ready for breakfast.
I hope all of you don’t spend as much to inflict pain and suffering to myself like I do, just to say we live way off the end of the road. But after all I have a million dollar view on a sunny day. Show me the money.
From Silty Slough I hope each and everyone has a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!!!!
Thank you Lord for your many blessings!!
I’ll be in touch
Blue skies!!
The View from the Outhouse 