Out Houses

Boooooo! And Halloween to you! Trust all of you are ready for goblins and ghosts.

It isn’t like Oliver has moved the out house and when the pranksters tried to tip it over……..yes, they fell into the pit!

The conversation to day is about out houses. I am certain all the readers have used one.

When I was little and stayed with my grand parents at their farm in Rosewood, my grand father would say, “I am going to see a man about a horse.” And I always wanted to go along because I loved horses; he always denied me.

When I was little and stayed with my grand parents at their farm in Rosewood, my grand mother would say, “I am going to see Mrs. Jones.” And I always wanted to visit my grand mother’s friends, but she said no.

And then, one day, I climbed up on the counter and watched my grand father amble out the back door and go in the out house.and shut the door behind him. After he came back inside, I went out and looked in there and I will tell you there was no room for a horse and he had been using code and so had grandma.

When I stayed there, I used a chamber pot. But after watching my beloved grandparents, I announced I was going to see Mrs. Jones about a horse. They both giggled and as usual, grandma covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed.

I was annoyed by the smell and the lack of toilet paper as I knew it. I suppose I was wearing my disgust when I told them there was no toilet paper, only a catalog. She told me that if you wrinkled up the paper long enough it got soft enough to wipe.

The other grandmother had a privy too. SHE HAD REAL PAPER.

At camp, we were assigned sometime during our stay to clean the out house. We had to wash down the seat and floor with bleach water. I am not certain which odor I detested the most. I have since learned that the white stuff on the bottom was lime to keep the odor down and the flies away.

For those of you who never used an out house.....The average outhouse was three to four feet square by 7 feet high. Many were single holers, but often they were double holers. In the last century, hotels often had outhouses with a dozen holes. And at least one hotel outhouse in Montana had a two story outhouse with a plank from the second floor going over to the second floor of the outhouse. The `droppings' fell through a 1 foot channel down past the first level into the hole.


Outhouses were easy to build. They were nothing more than a wooden shell with a roof, a floor and a front door. Inside was a 2 foot high box built into the back half that went from one side wall to the other side and came out from the back wall about two feet. In the top of this was an oblong hole about 12 inches by 10 inches. The outhouse was set over a hole that had been dug, usually about 5 feet down into the ground. When the hole got full, a new hole was dug near by the the structure was moved; the dirt from digging the hole was used to fill in the old one.

I was hopeful to get away from such inconveniences but when one is in need a port a potty somewhere along the lake shore or along the way to and from the lake is a welcome site and that it no Halloween!

My bright son says now we used a portal potty. That means we say BRB to our web cam to go use the flush-type version.

Halloween in two days, do you have your out house ready?

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