We spent yesterday at the Rideau Camp. Attila alternately shovelled crushed stone, removed small debris from the large pile of logs and dead trees for me to burn, and stacked the cedar logs that he extracted from the large pile. Occasionally he would bring a few armfuls of dead branches over to the camp fire area, for me to break into pieces and burn. My task for the day was to burn the debris.
We also tackled emptying our compost toilet buckets into our humanure composter on Saturday. We gathered all the needful things, the full buckets, the long handled brush, liquid soap, and some loose hay that we had stored in “Winnie”. We had prepared the bed of the composter on a previous trip the Camp, so everything was set up and ready to go. I emptied my bucket first, I have my own bucket! Then Attila dumped his bucket. We were prepared to deal with some pretty horrendous aromas… and there were none! No bad smells, not even a whiff. We rinsed our buckets and dumped the rinse water on the deposits, still no smell. Then we used soap and the long handled brush to wash the buckets and lids, and dumped the wash water onto the deposits. Finally we covered the deposits with a fresh layer of straw, then lay the heavy metal rack over all. The metal rack will prevent animals, such as the neighbour’s dog, from digging the whole thing up!
I am extremely impressed with the composting toilet system!
We used 12 litres of water to process a whole summers worth of waste for two people. Years from now we will have rich compost for shrubbery.
We have been using our five gallon buckets “as is”, no seats. Eventually I would like to build seating for our buckets, but there is no rush for that.
Now, you may ask, what is “Winnie”?
The outbuilding that Attila built to house the compost toilet buckets is called “Winnie”, after Winnie the Pooh.
We doused our fire around 4 p.m., then packed our things and headed for home. The day had been quite chilly, and it sprinkled rain on us as we ate our lunch, but otherwise was cloudy and dry. We were grateful to get home to a hot spaghetti supper and our own warm beds.
Today Attila prepared a turkey dinner, including dressing, gravy, potatoes, squash, and green beans. It takes Attila most of the day to accomplish this, and I NEVER complain!
Worldly Distractions
Weather
17°C
Date: 9:00 PM EDT Sunday 2 October 2016
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.5 kPa
Tendency: rising
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 17.2°C
Dewpoint: 14.9°C
Humidity: 86%
Wind: S 13 km/h
Quote
“While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.”
Seneca
5 BC – 65 AD
I would never complain if a husband of mine prepared even a peanut butter sandwich for me, let alone a complete turkey dinner! E-gads! That is herculean! He must enjoy cooking. I have tried to switch jobs with Paul for years… me doing clean-up and HIM cooking, but he always nixes that idea. I can’t remember him ever preparing me food of any kind in over 30 years. Ever. Oh, once or twice I asked him to go up and get us a sub sandwich because I did not want to cook… but that was very rare… now I call and get delivery, so he’s not involved.
Bex, Attila likes to cook, and he likes his own cooking better than anyone elses. So we share the kitchen. This works for me.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a seriousl downside to this sharing of the kitchen, I was used to running the kitchen in my own efficient, clean and tidy way. Attila has not adopted or adjusted to my way of doing things, which can keep me biting my tongue at times. Still, the alternative of cooking everything myself is much less appealing than keeping the smile on my face when things aren’t quite the way I like them.
It is interesting that both of my daughters married men who cook. Both sons-in-laws do housework as well. This always surprises me because when my girls were growing up I was responsible for almost everything. They certainly don’t take after their mother!
I had quite the chuckle over Winnie the Pooh. 😀
I’m also lucky to have a DH that shares in both cooking and house-cleaning.
Sounds like you had Thanksgiving a week early (for Canadian Thanksgiving). We have a turkey for this coming weekend. I celebrated US Thanksgiving for a number of years while living here in Canada but now I’ve lost the feel for it as no one around me is celebrating it.
You caught that Teri! I am going to paint a board with the name Winnie on it and hang it above the door.
Men who cook and clean, worth their weight in gold!
We are planning on doing some visiting on Thanksgiving weekend, not for dinner, and so we had our Thanksgiving turkey dinner on Sunday, enjoyed it a lot, and will be eating leftovers for almost a week (and enjoying them!).
Attila’s family are all US citizens, living in the US, and they celebrate US Thanksgiving, but we haven’t shared that with them. It seems so very close to Christmas!
US Thansgiving is close to Christmas, very true. To me, it was the beginning of the Christmas season. The two big family holidays bookended holiday prep, Christmas shopping, holiday visits and parties, holiday cooking and the watching of myriad holiday specials on TV. And then New Years was basically the final farewell to the holiday season, the time for a deep breath and finally snuggling down for that long winters nap.
Because I grew up with that schedule, Canadian Thanksgiving seems too removed from Christmas and I find I can’t sustain my Christmas spirit that long.
The feel of the season you describe is new to me Teri, this is probably how my US in-laws experience the holiday season as well. I have never associated Thanksgiving with the Christmas holiday season. Thanksgiving for my family has always been about harvest season, bringing in the crops, and of course big turkey dinners.