The Trouble with the Toilet...

We need to talk about something before I guide you too far into this search for land and bucolic days lounging on a porch swing.  The bathroom. We need to talk about the bathroom.  When Tammy and I bought our land, I thought it was understood that raw land meant no bathroom. Somehow, Tammy failed to grasp this.

This set up a dilemma. More for her than me, but the secondary fallout of my partner freaking out, is that I have to figure out how to make roughing it comfortable, safe from creepy crawlies, and sanitary.

The trouble with the toilet is that we don't have one on our land.

We can dig a hole

Our ancestors settled in the very area that we now call our country get-a-way. I'm pretty sure that there was no toilet on the land in 1890. I have always known that the first days of owning 12 acres would mean primitive camping only. 

1. We can buy a toilet seat and attach it to a five gallon paint bucket, and call it The Ladies Room. This property is so wooded that it would be easy to hide a makeshift pot in some bushes. However, even I don't like that idea. I have no desire to cart my own waste back to Austin and gently poor it into my flushing toilet.  Nix this idea now.

2. Dig a hole and build an old fashion outhouse around it. Personally, I think this is a perfectly good idea. It would have been cutting edge technology in the late 1800s. If my great-great-great-great grandmother could do it, then so can I. I mean, she wore this long, heavy white dress. The logistics of going at all, in that dress, are hard enough. Tammy, on the other hand, must have come from evolved space aliens who had a modern European toilet on the mother ship. She nixed this idea.

Clear some land, drink some beer, clear some land, buy some gas

I really hate this idea, but it may be the one that wins it. Once the lack of toileting facilities came to the forefront of our land development planning, Tammy reduced our weekend trips to one day. This does not mean I can keep a roll of toilet paper in the pickup for squats behind a yaupon. It means frequent trips to Round Top. It means we will make a stop every two hours or so to go grab a beer and some pizza. Then we might need to run to the gas station for some more chainsaw gas...

In other words, we won't get much done.  I like to get shit done. But this idea holds heavy sway over the other half.

Mother

My mom lives about 30 minutes from our new property. I threw this out as possibility should we want to spend an entire weekend working on the land. Tammy asked a very good question.

"How often does your mother want to see us?"

"Not that often."

This one's off the table.

Buy a camper

1. We can't afford a camper. Tents will have to do.

2. We need electricity to power the pump that pumps the running water, we don't have, from the tank to the toilet in the camper. 

A no go.

Anybody want to rough it with me?

I'll buy the beer!

Has reality set in?

I'm talking about just one thing. A toilet. If you like your fine modern comforts, please consider that you will have to figure out potty time if you buy land.

It's a big deal, y'all.