sigh. Mel Brooks found out, too.

Mel made his first movie, The Producers; won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, and earned a little money at it.  Everybody's heard of that one these days, particularly since it was beautifully recycled into a wildly successful Broadway play version a few years ago.

What did he do with his earnings?  He made his next movie, of course.  Which flopped; totally.  Nobody I know has ever heard of it (until I tell them.)  It's quite possibly my absolute favorite movie (and I don't DO "favorites").  Brilliant.  Beautiful.  Chaplinesque humor, mixed with hard social commentary and primal human pathos.  Intelligent.  Moving.  Mel himself has a minor role as well as directs (spectacularly well) - and his line "Master?..." - gets me every time.  He can act.

This was The Twelve Chairs, easily available now on DVD from NetFlix etc.; but a few years ago, almost the only way you could get a copy was by begging- Mel, himself, to run you off a VHS copy.  He'd do it.  He knew how good it was, and was delighted when someone else knew.  But you DO have to have a measurable IQ to enjoy it.  Ergo - commercial flop.  Watch it if you possibly can- nobody I've ever talked into it has been disappointed.

Then (I imagine) Mel said to himself, "Ok, you don't want class, you want cheap commercial humor??  Fine, it's fart jokes and potty humor for you!"   And Blazing Saddles was born - and Mel made LOTS of money.  Bless him.

So, having given you my brilliant, original, and highly intelligent analysis of why we as a species cannot afford to design and build our world for perfect constant comfort- the primary response so far is a) silence, or b) a request for the "prurient" details of frigid potty function!  (apart from BillyM and Heather- bless you).

Ok.  As Milton Berle (or someone) always said - "If you're losing your audience; just drop your pants.  Works every time."  (or something like that).

Ok, you want prurient details?  Fine, I'll drop my pants.

:-)

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Rule 1 - WAIT, until you REALLY have to go, onesies or twosies.  This will make the process faster, a good idea.

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For #1, as in, pee.  In Farbelowzero weather, we still try to pee outside, when reasonable.  Usually that depends on the wind, more than the temperature.  15mph winds at -20 can lead to serious discomfort, pretty quick; when the mere air temperature would be unnoticeable otherwise.

As mentioned in the previous Potty House Posts, (and pics) pee is one of the biggest problems in composting toilet design- there's a lot of it, too much for a PDORS (poop digester of reasonable size) to hold.  You have to do something to evaporate it; like heat everything and run a fan.  Lots of energy used there.  Or- just don't pee much in the composting toilet.

The world would use far far less water, pipe, and energy if we could just get everyone to pee on a tree, whenever possible.  The trees love it, and then you don't have to flush, or pipe, or process, or dispose of.  Granted, this is not a reasonable option inside a city.  Alas.  But it's pretty reasonable for us.

#1 outside is easy for me, pretty much regardless of the conditions.  Just don't pee into the wind.  It's more trouble for ladies, of course.  We do go so far as to keep an area away from the house swept clear of snow, so ladies in residence can squat without dipping their nether regions into snowbanks.  It can be done.  If it's REALLY cold and windy, then ladies are welcome to pee in the THWASPCO; a little pee is no problem.

And it's probably good to remind visitors that "don't eat the yellow snow" is not a joke.

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To go, or not to go?  (hike out, that is)

It's a relative question.  The thing is, a chamber pot of any kind is extra work.  And stinky, and messy.  So far, the people living here have quickly come to the conclusion that they can stand a LOT of cold, before it's so cold they want a chamber pot.  Personally, the only time I've used one is when I'm really ill.  Otherwise- in Minus 40; I'll still walk out to the Potty House.

If you read the comments on the original posts, Spice left this: "I was pregnant in the winter, delivered Smidgen in Feburary. I had to troop out to the potty house on average of 10 times a day in January. It can be done, and it wasn't all that bad. In fact it kept me in better shape for labor!"  It's not that bad. 

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re: #2, as in poop-

I don't drop my pants all the way down.  Now you know, Chrunch, for your visualization pleasure.  (I do figure I owe you there, for all my own fun visualizing your well described gyrations...)

If it's a mere 20 below, I'll just drop trou, sit on the cherry seat, get well situated, then pull the pants back up to cover whatever can be covered.  Yes, I'm wearing a jacket, and a hat.  Bare hands, for dexterity, tucked inside the pants legs while waiting for critical operations.  I know, this sounds clumsy for folks used to doing these operations virtually unclothed- but it's not a big deal, and way more comfy to stay warm.  It can be surprisingly comfy; the THWASPCO is well supplied with good reading material, and even below zero, I can find myself so involved in some reading that I quit paying attention to the cold.  Until it reminds me.

On sunny days in late winter, when the potty house may be quite warm inside, we may indeed just skip putting on the coat- it's cozy in there.

If it's colder than that; like 30 below (coldest I've been here is -42°F, not including wind chill- coldest including wind was -102°F) - I'll probably lift the lid, and sit on the seat with my pants ON for about 30 seconds- to warm the seat- then proceed to drop.

It's really true, you just don't feel the cold in your behinder parts.  Good thing.  Likewise, however, gentlemen; your winky does not have extensive cold sensing capabilities.  I've never had this problem myself, but I had a friend in grad school who reported minor frostbite there when he was peeing outside during some really extreme weather- windchill of -60 or so.  He didn't realize it was happening- it's not sensitive.  To cold.  So be aware.  There's no windchill inside the Potty House, of course.

When it's time for the TP - (water is SO not going to work here) the pants go all the way down again, for easy access.  No big deal.

Typical follow-up on re-entering the actual Little House- jacket comes off, and you spend a minute or two backed up close to the woodstove, re-warming the fanny area, and hands.  Nice.

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There is another inobvious aspect to winter outhouse technique- coping with the poopsicle.

See- if it's really cold, the pit freezes.  So successive depositions of "material" will result in an ever-growing poop stalagmite, known here as the poopsicle.  Some foresight is required- if you wait too long, it can grow right up to... where you don't want it to be.

Hence, we have an old broken axhandle handy; and once every 2 weeks or so, I'll take that, reach it down the hole, and gently whack the frozen poopsicle sideways.  It'll crack off pretty easily (not a lot of tensile strength there) and just fall over, alleviating the problem for another couple weeks, or more, if the weather warms.  But you don't want to forget.

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The path to the Potty House we keep open not by shoveling, but by sweeping with a push-broom.  It's not a matter of removing the snow, but collapsing its structure- in a matter of 6 hours or so, its structure rearranges after being disturbed and it freezes very hard, and makes a good, non-slippery path.  In spring, the hard snow stays longer than the adjacent unpacked snow, and provides us a clean path through the spring mud- until it's too far gone, then the adjacent areas are usually past the mud phase, and can be walked on just fine until the main path is dry.

In case of very heavy snowfall, we'll likely walk to the potty house with snowshoes on a couple times, before sweeping.  That'll pack it down and firm the snow.  No shoveling.

So.  What else do you want to know?  :-)