Day Three of My Journey...

[Maggie]

I dug the latrene yesterday. Far, far away from the camp, it sits in a shady grove of pecan trees. Intead of erecting a wooden building, I decided to build a circular shower curtain rod and place some more lace curtains around the offending one holer. I brought in a basket for the required magazines and Sears catalog.

I was reading Classic Crews yesterday, and in Harry Crews' autobiography section he says they didn't place his Sears catalog in the privvy. It had a hallowed place in the home. He also mentions that he and his friends would make up stories about the models in the pictures. What fun!

I'll look for a source of water today. Man can not live on books alone!

[Stella]

Darn. I was really enjoying the idea that you were diggin' a latrine. We had a one-seater for a couple of years when I was about 7-8 years old. I didn't like sitting on it in the summer for fear of spiders and snakes coming up through the hole to get me! And I didn't like sitting on it in winter, or going out to it, especially in the dark.

Nope--the house, in two sections, was hauled in on a trailer. The two were slapped together and it became one house!

Well, your friend must know by now that it's not always the destination that matters. It seems that his journey is yielding enough pleasure that he is unconcerned with his arrival (else he would be there by now?).

My friend and her husband and kids bought a house in Westminster on 100 acres. They really just wanted the acreage, but they fell in love with the house. She showed me pictures of the small, square, two-story house when they first bought it, and it looked like a speck of paint had never touched the wooden siding that was weathered and gray. They built an "old" house around that one (that old house was solid as a rock--the inspector couldn't get over how well it was built) and it is gorgeous--wrap-around porch and all. It looks like it's been sitting there in its valley for 150 years. Anyhow, the point of telling you about this is to relate one of their experiences as they built. Their family of four and several dogs and cats lived in a pop-up (yes, I said a pop-up) camper for nine months using a port-a-potty. She said when the upstairs bathroom was ready for use in the house, they all had to climb up a ladder to the bathroom window and climb in because the floors on the first floor were being finished. Can you see that? All of them traipsing up that ladder to the bathroom? She should have pictures of that!

[Maggie]

Ah, no Stella. I'm just playing with the writing thing.

How cool for your son! He will remember this adventure for the rest of his life. Did he build the house himself?

We have a friend who has been building for 20 years! His RV its within 10 feet of the moutain home. We figure he will have it completed in another 20 years. :)

[Stella]

So are you really camping?!! I love the reference to your "one holer." Our son, who has been living in a camper for months on his ten acres at the back of his aunt's 200 acre farm, dug a one-holer and erected a frame over it (for sitting on). With the well dug and electricity strung back to the woods where the new house sits (and his adventure over), he's returning to Maryland this week to retrieve his wife and kids.