Living Without Plumbing

Tony and I are coming up on a month in the new house and we still don't have plumbing yet. We're hoping to get the bathtub and toilet installed in the next few weeks as long as finances cooperate, and I'll have to hold out on the vanity I want for a little bit longer. Until then I thought I'd share how we're getting by without indoor plumbing. If you had told me four weeks ago that we would be getting by comfortably without plumbing I would have told you that you're crazy. Oh! Here's an updated photo of the house.

Each day we fill up a 5-gallon water container that has a spigot at Tony's work or a friend's house. We have 3 of these containers that we rotate through. We have it set up on a bathroom sink/counter that was given to us by Tony's mother and step-father that had been salvaged from an office building that was torn down. Why am I not planning to use this counter top in this house? It's because of space. We plan to put in shelves or cabinets on either side of the vanity since the bathroom is so small so we have a place to store linens. This counter top we are going to save for another small house we plan to build in future years. The sink drains into a 5 gallon bucket that we saved from adhesive we used to adhere the OSB on the floor to the insulated panels they are set on. We use this water for ornamental plants. For dishes, I have a wash basin that I use and that water is generally safe enough to water my herbs and tomatoes.

For showers, I found a camping solar shower for $6-7 at Walmart. We fill it with 2-3 gallons of water each morning and let it heat up during the day then take showers just after dark before we head off to bed. Our house is located down the side of a mountain in a secluded area so there is very little chance of anyone seeing us. They'd have to hike down or drive down the hill and we'd know they are coming. Tony also built a platform for us to stand on while we shower.

When we started building the house back in October 2010 on the weekends, we simply trekked off into the woods to take care of our "business". Now that we've moved, we use a bucket we purchased at Cabela's years ago for when our house in Texas had septic problems. We use a corn husk based cat litter that is biodegradable and compost that waste with waste from the cat box that once it's broken down I'll use as fertilizer for my ornamentals.

The only thing I'm not really able to do at home efficiently is laundry, so every Tuesday I make the hour drive to Fort Smith, AR and do laundry at a friend's home. Once we have the plumbing set up, then we will haul water at first from the local rural water company or a neighbor that we'll purchase water from. I bought several 300 gallon water storage units earlier this year that we'll store the water in. Later this summer we'll set up a captured rainwater system so we don't need to haul water except in times of drought.

Getting by without the indoor plumbing and learning to conserve water has been a blessing. Once we have the captured rainwater system set up I'm confident we will get by comfortably again and not have to stress over water. I love the idea of knowing we will have little impact on the water tables and help preserve that water.

Leveling the Posts

This weekend it rained all day Saturday so Tony and I went to Fort Smith to buy some lumber and check out the town. I'm so happy it is only an hour away. It is the same drive I'm accustomed to making now when I go to Denton and a shorter drive than I make to Fort Worth and it has all the same chain stores I'm used to shopping at (Target, Hobby Lobby, etc.) but still has a lot of mom and pop stores and hole in the wall restaurants. There is also great coffee at a local chain Sweet Bay Coffee Co.

Saturday afternoon Tony and I drove back to the pad where we are building even though it was raining and there was a chance the Suburban would get stuck on the pad because of the rain. Tony bought a very nice wench for the Suburban a few years ago and he was excited about trying it out. Bad thing was the wench gave out after we were halfway back up the hill and he had to wait until Monday evening to rescue the Suburban when the ground had dried. Tony made me wait an hour in the Suburban with him while he tried to get back up the hill before he finally gave up. I'm so glad I keep a knitting project or book in my purse just for situations like this.

Sunday morning Tony and I went back to the pad and decided to start running mason line so we could mark each of the posts where they were level so we could cut them in order to start work on the floor support. Tony wanted the posts a minimum of 6 in off the ground and we didn't realize that there was such a large slope on the pad, so one corner of the pad was off by several inches.  In this photo you can see on the left hand side the posts that are too short.

We were feeling frustrated by this and decided to go to lunch and talk about the options for rectifying the situation. Rather than pulling the posts and redoing them, Tony got the idea to build a large square out of 2"x6"x8' boards, two boards thick, that he can lay along those six posts, raising it up the six inches they are short and helping spread the load across the posts. He will be building that box next weekend.

Taking the same idea of spreading the load across the posts instead of having one post take more of a load than another (like the corner of the living room where the TV will be), he is planning to lay 2"x6" boards flat across the posts, run some more boards perpendicular then build the floor joists on the support system.

About the best shot I could get of all the posts, the Suburban was stuck in the perfect place for me to stand and get a full view. Having all the posts in place I'm now able to visualize everything. The far right corner is the bedroom, near right corner is the living room which will be open to the kitchen to the left of it. The near left corner is going to be the utility room/pantry (the room I'm most excited about), and the far left corner will be a closet with the bathroom between it and the kitchen.

 Stringing the line so we could level the tops of the posts:

Tony sawing the posts:

Laying the boards:

 An idea of what they will look like when they are all done:

Finally a shot of twilight as I'm driving down the mountain Monday morning on my way back to Fort Smith to meet a friend:

We're finally building!

Things have been crazy lately. After buying land in Oklahoma almost 2 years ago we are finally starting to build a small 624 sq ft cabin. The cabin itself is 20'x28' which is 560 sq ft, then we are building an 8'x8' mud room/laundry room on the front porch to help keep cooling costs down in the summer.

In April of last year we had a pad flattened and a pond dug, and aside from laying grass seed we hadn't done any more work until last weekend (Oct. 2 & 3). We got about half of the posts set and this weekend (Oct. 9 & 10), Tony got the remainder of the posts set. He's been receiving help from his best friend Quinton and Quinton's two oldest sons, Bubba (Quinton, Jr.) and Nick.

Here are some photos I took when I was up there the weekend of the 2nd & 3rd:

Here are Quinton and Tony measuring out and marking where to set the posts.

Tony, Quinton and Bubba are using a post auger to drill the holes for the posts. The auger cost $30/day to rent.

Completed hole.

Completed set post.

Half the posts set. In this photo, north is at the top, south at the bottom, east on the right and west on the left. Tony this weekend added another row of posts on the east side to extend the cabin out another 4 feet and added the 8'x8' section for the laundry room on the south (west) side. The posts are set 4' apart. The kitchenette will be on the SW wall, living room SE corner, bedroom NE corner and bathroom NW corner.

Harvesting Onions

Yesterday we had some very heavy rain, our local area got about 3-4 inches and our yard flooded. I went out to check my little garden plots today and most of my onions had been washed up after being under water yesterday. The roots were the only thing holding them in place. About 1/3 of the tops had fallen over as well, so today I have been trying to figure out what to do next. Do I harvest them, try to anchor them back in the soil or leave them as is?

Since onions are one of those plants that can be harvested at any time I decided I am going to go ahead and harvest the plants with the fallen stems over the next week, I anchored some of the onions whose tops had not fallen but the entire plant had been washed up, and I'm leaving the others. I'm taking a wait and see attitude right now. I only have about 30 onion plants right now and as often as I use onions I can easily go through these in a couple of weeks since they are relatively small bulbs (larger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball).

From what I've been reading, in Texas onions are harvested in May when 2/3 of the tops have fallen on the entire crop, where they are then pulled and laid in the sun to cure (outer layers dry to protect the inner layers), then the tops are cut off and they are stored or the tops can be braided and the onions hung until pulled off for use.

I feel that I've been fairly successful with the onions and I'd be comfortable planting them again in the future, so I think I'll plant many more in future years. It'll be a great money saver since I use them almost daily in my cooking. 

Here is my onion plot when I went to check on it today before I started playing around in it. I also have a yellow squash and zucchini planted in there two in the bare spots where onions didn't make it. When I tried stepping into the middle of the plot to help prop up a couple of the onions I ended up sinking down about 8 inches into the mud the soil is that soft right now.