June 2: Toilet paper and a screw gun

It’s not a likely combination but it’s what’s needed on the first trip to the outhouse. We tack closed the outhouse doors so that the wind doesn’t blow them off their hinges. It seems decidedly unfriendly to lock up an outhouse, but I can’t find a way around it.

I traded my friend Tim, in Seattle, a life time supply of king salmon for his composting toilet. Last year was the first year I tried to use it, in earnest. Yikes!! Euww! Learning curve! It isn’t quite warm enough for the composting to proceed exactly as expected, so my current strategy is to empty it at the beginning of the season. Only. There was a lot of compost in it when I emptied it today and it wasn’t gross at all. I still didn’t want to touch it, though. So I’m starting with an empty drum and will take out the compost again in a year. That’s about the right frequency for many of my housekeeping activities.


I also got the stairs down today. Here is the photo sequence. First, here they are up on the cliff, pointing to the water.

Next step is to tie a line (a good, stout one) from the end of the ladder to the truck. It’s hard to see the line in the photo, so I’ve added in some helpful arrows. More tips:

Tip # 13: at the ladder end, wrap the line around a couple of steps so all the pressure isn’t on that last one.

Tip # 14: start the truck 20 or 30’ away from the bottom of the cliff so when you start to pull, the stairs aren’t trying to come straight down, through the cliff. Instead they are coming out, toward the water until they overbalance and tip down.

If two people are available, it would be good to have one at the top of the cliff able to tie the top of the ladder off just before it tips so it doesn’t get carried away and fall over sideways. I did entertain a vision of having to lift it back up with a come-along.


Here they are, in place. They needed a little adjustment after this to level the steps and after we get a couple of high tides that knock some of the mud out from under them, we’ll need to adjust a little more. But still… usable. I’ve tied them off to a screw anchor above… just in case.


Also got laundry washed today and after a day of eating trail mix and energy bars, I was glad to get some groceries.


This swan came to the little pond behind the cabin at about 11:30 at night. The camera was looking east. Walking across the tundra from the swan to the east behind me, I saw this to the west, in front.