It's that late July/early August slump where it becomes unbearably hot in the tiny house from about 3-11 p.m.

Our thermal efficiency obviously leaves something to be desired. I have these blinds saved on my pinterest board for the tiny house (where I keep track of things for it). BUT--I can't justify that kind of purchase when we're about 2% into the THAUDCTSSR. Our mantra this summer is: toilet first!

 

I've been taking summer so seriously that I am feeling slug-like. Today I started C25K over again and logged 2.5 miles. My body feels like running is a whole new activity for it (slog, slog), but I am looking forward to the point where it comes more easily.

My awesome co-worker made this grilled cheese cake for me in honor of my third work anniversary. We take just about any semi-noteworthy occasion as an excuse for dessert and as a team we sit down for a take-out lunch the last week of the month. Being a vegetarian, I find it hard to order appealing non-meat meals from the local restaurants and usually default to a grilled cheese. And it's always disappointing. But this time I got to pick the restaurant and we had Chinese, but my co-worker decided I should have a grilled cheese, too. It was sweet, not savory, and she definitely nailed the color of processed cheese with that frosting.

 Another co-worker quit without notice last Tuesday morning so I have two jobs until we get a new one hired. Keith's been helping someone frame a house in the next town over, so not much progress has been made in any toilet-related way. The garden, however, needs little attention. It just does its own thing.

This much closer to a toilet

This weekend we made real (aka "actual") progress on the Tiny House Adjacent Urine-Diverting Composting Toilet and Seasonal Shower Room!

The photo above is where the Tiny House Adjacent Urine-Diverting Composting Toilet and Seasonal Shower Room (THAUDCTSSR) will be built, on the northwest corner of the house near the cherry tree. Of course we originally allotted space in the floorplan INDOORS for a toilet/shower combo. But we've changed our minds, deciding we'd rather have that space continue as part of the kitchen with more storage and perhaps a propane cook stove down the line, and a seating area where we can eat meals. (As an alternative to eating in bed!) So the toilet must necessarily move.

 

It only seemed logical then to add a room on that would contain the shower and toilet. Now, not sharing the same heating source as the Main House haha, it will only be a seasonal shower at this point. An enclosed sun shower, basically.

But it's the toilet we're most concerned about right now. Last week when we went to Montana for the bluegrass festival we picked the brain of our friend Mike who is in the solar business re: what it would take to have a solar powered fan in the vent for the THAUDCTSSR. And short of having most of the materials we'll need, we confident on proceeding with the framing. Because it's almost already August!!!

I did offer to dig the holes, but Keith just laughed at me. Instead I helped mix and wheelbarrow concrete.

Keith praises the scientific innovation of the post hole digger. "Digging a round hole with straight up and down walls." A marvel!

Keith built some forms to hold the concrete to hold brackets that will support the posts for the framing.

And I wrote all of our names in the concrete for posterity.

Now we let that concrete cure and probably wait until payday before any serious framing of the THAUDCTSSR gets underway. There are some technical challenges to that part of it, so I hope we figure it out the first time. What are the odds?

R&R at the river

(camping at Lolo Hot Springs for the Green Grass Sustainable Bluegrass Festival this past weekend)

The heat was killing us yesterday and our tiny house is missing some kind of crucial cooling vortex we haven't yet taken into account so July tends to overwhelm. Until we get some window shades ordered, we're at the mercy of a box fan in the window and wishful thinking.

I had the bright idea of taking the dogs to the river to cool off, but there were people there. So we picked the next closest place, the Heart of the Monster.

 

Unfortunately, we found out too late, we had to run the Mosquito Gaunlet to get to the river from there. Keith and I each acquired about 50 new bites, in addition to the ones garnered from the festival this weekend, but the dogs had fun and Lazlo got to go swimming.

Green Grass Sustainable Bluegrass Festival

(See more polaroids from the weekend on my site. I was pretty happy with how these turned out, much better results than last time.)

 DIY lodging

The Acousticals

Crazy Mountain Billies 

AKA Andy P. Bormes of South Dakota
killer on the banjo and great singing style (listen here)

my local contractor

(This shot of Keith was on an old roll of film I just got developed when I sent in our 10-year anniversary camping trip film. A nice surprise! More of my film shots are uploaded on my Facebook.)

Keith is busying starting work on our bathroom - yay! He has the siding taken off the house where the Bathroom Addition will touch, we've drawn up a rough floor plan, and we'll be scouting for some tile when we head over the pass this weekend.

We're going to a sustainable bluegrass festival at Lolo Hot Springs and being that close to Missoula (about 40 miles) means we might as well head to Home Resource and see what kind of treasures we can't live without.

He's also taken out the 2-way  mirror on the east side of the house and we'll be incorporating that into the north side of the Bathroom Addition. And probably another window on the south side (tangential to the porch) for light and/or ambient heat since it will be separate from the house and therefore not heated directly. But really, how long do you spend in the bathroom?

Our composting toilet (similar to this) is going to be an experiment in design and function, but we're pretty set against having a septic system for a number of reasons, so a DIY composting toilet is our first choice.

We can't afford a commercial composting toilet, so after a lot of internet research (as well as reading The Humanure Handbook), we plan on having all solid waste go into a rain barrel that will be vented and urine will be diverted and diluted with water that flows to a planting bed. We'll try worms in the barrel to help break down everything and we're not even sure how long it will take to fill the barrel---though I'm sure there's some sort of calculation available that would crunch those numbers.(Build It Solar also has some great graywater and toilet information.) Like I said, experimental.

scenes from a 10-day roadtrip

(More photos from our 10-year anniversary camping trip to southern Idaho and back in June. Blogger is converting numbers, apostrophes, and the letter "eff" to weird characters, so play along.)

just outside of Pine

 a sheep wagon outside of Pine (right before we ran into, almost literally, a sheep drive)

Adams County Courthouse in Council

Church of the Wildwood in Featherville, where Keith and I were married ten years ago

and where my parents were married thirty-five years ago

elk farm outside of Riggins

Packer John's cabin - John Welch, known as Packer John, ran supplies between 

Lewiston and Idaho City during the Boise Basin Gold Rush

near Lowman, you can see the effects of the Lowman Fire

in the distance is the Simco Road Regional Landfill near Mountain home

a dwelling near New Meadows, down the road from Packer John's cabin

near Riggins Hot Springs Lodge

aforementioned sheep drive outside of Pine

Last Saturday we returned from Lewiston (taking pics of my friend's beautiful baby girl Elly) and noticed Lazlo was acting funny, really lethargic, and we first thought he might have strained a hind leg. My mom said she laid down to rest and Lazlo didn't even jump up on the bed, which is totally out of character. Then there was vomiting and no eating and the vet said, "pneumonia." Oy.

So he's been on a diet of antibiotics and whatever we can convince him to eat (very litle until yesterday) and he was feeling pretty poorly (see: "round head" above). Keith and I both worried about him dying. We're very aware he's not going to be with us forever, but we're definitely not ready for that day yet. It's hard having a sick animal since you can't very easily find out how they feel (short of a rectal thermometer, um...) and the first couple of nights neither Keith or I got much sleep. I woke up every couple of hours to check his breathing and give him some love.

But he's turned the corner now and is mostly back to his old squirrel-chasing self, in short bursts of energy. Except he's getting spoiled on canned food (used to administer the meds after cheese failed to stay in his system) and thinks his dry food is for peasants. He's lost quite a bit of weight in the last week and his collar is loose. He doesn't normally wear a collar, but we have family in town for the weekend so the collar comes out for wrangling.

My Aunt Joy picked up my camera while Keith and I were defending our horseshoe title and I'm always taking photos (therefore never in them) so there's that. For posterity or something.

We played a few rounds of holey board and Team Yellow (my Uncle Jack and Keith) were the defending champs of that game. Aunt Joy (above) was keeping score when she wasn't playing.

Ophelia (the only "bought and paid for" cat among the eight or so on the property and a native of Missoula) thought she needed attention and almost got hit with a washer or two.

 Mom cooked ribs in the Dutch Oven and Keith cooked burgers, chorizos and hot dogs on the grill for about 30 relatives who showed up.

A friend in Kooskia is paying me to weed her garden (it's been overgrown for a year or so) and gave me a bag of garlic scapes, too. I've never heard of them before but she posted some recipes to my facebook that are tantalizing so I think I'm going to try some cannellini bean dip and maybe process the rest and freeze them for soups. Or pesto. Or pizza.

My dad had a rough time of it yesterday when the septic system starting acting up and the only toilet for 30 people was rendered unusable despite his best efforts (and the efforts of several helpers). After 50+ years of smoking a lot, he's eight weeks into being a non-smoker. So proud of him!! Yesterday's stress threatened to derail that achievement, but he held out and didn't give in to the urge! Go, Dad!!

Now there's a portable toilet next to the apple tree in front of our house and even more reason for us to break ground on our toilet, a process we're devoting brainpower to every day, even if we haven't been able to physically start on it yet. Keith's telling me his friend has offered to supply the 2x6s we need for the "addition" in exchange for taking down, painting, and re-installing a totem pole for him. Sounds like a deal to me!

I won two weekend passes to a sustainable bluegrass festival at Lolo Hot Springs in 2 weeks. Most of the bands play Portland often, so that's a good indicator of the quality of music and we might possibly meet up with some of our Missoula friends then, too. Hmm...sounds like summer plans are threatening to interfere with our toilet-building plans. Which. Can. NOT. Happen.

Up against the abrupt edge of reality

Let's just say going back to work Monday after 10 days off was difficult on my being. Today was smoother. Which is a little frightening.

Our trip to southern Idaho was good and happy and mostly uneventful in the catastrophe sense, which is how we judge the success of most of our undertakings.

 Lazlo having a roll while we decide what's next

The dogs were willing participants at first. And Mia is pretty much always game for whatever we're doing since she doesn't want to be left behind. But Lazlo balked pretty much every time we asked him to Load Up.

I can imagine it's not first class riding down the bumpy back roads of  Idaho in the back of a Ranger stuffed with camping gear...no drink service on this route! But they're dogs! (We couldn't get away with that kind of treatment re: children. Probably.)

I mean, a big part of our goal for the trip was to make sure everyone had a good time. So we made frequent pit stops when we were driving, tried to camp a couple nights in each spot without driving much, and camped (all except one night) where they could be off-leash. That's a recipe for dog vacation. Plus carrots and biscuits.

Moseying down the highway, as that's the only speed at which our truck moves forward, I pointed my camera out the window and hoped for the best. I won't bore you with a play-by-play. I hope to post only the best over the next couple of weeks as I work through the nearly 1,000 digital files and 3+ rolls of film, once I get them developed. Keith estimates we traveled over 1,000 miles.

 the first night - just outside Pine

Much like any adventure we take on (and our life in general, I suppose), we didn't have a concrete plan when we left, only a sketch. It's more fun that way. We camped in free campgrounds (thanks to Ray's Guide) every night but one which we spent at Ponderosa State Park in McCall. The cheaper campground was still snowed in so it cost us $25 to camp that night. Ouch! That supposedly included showers in the communal "bath houses" but it was cold and rainy and the one I tested only produced lukewarm water.

sunrise at Pine

firewood for sale by the honor system, fundraiser for a Quinceañera  - oustide Lowman

sheep drive, Friday morning - outside Pine (and soon after was a cattle drive)

defunct art deco radio station - outside Weiser (my dad said his aunt Zelda worked here in the 50s)

We only had one mechanical fiasco (during which Keith changed 3 tires with a lousy jack and a round of firewood and learned our spare only fit on the back axle, ahem) and no health problems, so we are happy to have made the trip and back in 4 pieces. We have to try to plant the garden this week. (I know!) And we're moving forward on bathroom plans...

Waiting to go

We're very much counting down to our 10 year anniversary camping trip---one more week. (Don't think of robbing us while we're gone, like these guys, since my parents will be home. And my dad has guns. And poor eyesight.) Tomorrow we're going through all our gear, with a list of minimum comforts, and we'll see how long it takes to get it down to a size we're okay rearranging and repacking for 10 days. We always take too much. I'd like to make an effort at taking too little.



I decided I'm going to have to practice a little more at my Out-the-Side-Window shots since I'm sure there will be more scenes to capture on the way than Keith is willing to stop for. I've made a list in a moleskine about possible photo ops along the way including a cool old radio station where my great aunt Zelda worked.

house on a hill outside of Grangeville

I checked out Roadside Geology of Idaho and also Roadside History of Idaho which is immensely informative. Definitely one we'll have to buy a copy of for keeps. I had a great Sam Shepard book to finish, but wanted to skim it, the history one, last night and made some notes in the moleskine about Idaho City which isn't too far from our destination. We'll probably try to hit it on the way back. Looks like an interesting place!

South Fork of the Clearwater and Highway 14 outside of Grangeville

One benefit to the endless rain is that everything is still green. Southern Idaho is usually pretty dry and brown in the summer, but I think we'll have some good scenery this year.

I kicked Keith's ass at cribbage last night, but we only played one game so there was no opportunity for "recession toward the mean" (from last night's Radiolab podcast on cosmic habituation). He's still way ahead in our long-term count.