Big Dreams on Laundry Day

Today is a lovely warm Saturday--perfect for doing the laundry. My neighbor stopped by on her way to do her own laundry and told me she had a dream about having her very own water.

Unlike me, she lives in a real dry cabin: she has to buy and haul all her water from The Fill in town.

I'm much luckier. My old belowground tank still has a few hundred gallons of tea-colored water for my weekly "Better Than Nothing" shower and daily washing of dishes. If it wasn't so old and full of sediment I wouldn't have to buy drinking water, but that's minor compared to true dry cabin living.

I told her that her dream is not a First World Dream, but a dream for the whole world. And then I went back to my laundry.

my laundry room

my washing machine (with motor partially exposed)

how to save water

A hard, steady rain fell earlier this month, and when I thought I couldn't take the sound of rain pounding on the roof anymore, I had the presence of mind to run out in the pouring rain and drag my clean 30-gallon bin next to the wood pile to catch the runoff from the tarp. It helps to have a new tarp, but an old one will get nicely power-washed by that much rain.

You can bottle and drink fresh rainwater right away. I filled three 2.5 gallon jugs that way, and stored the rest in the bin.

After a few days I knew debris would begin to affect the water quality, so I skimmed off the leaves, poured it through a colander to catch smaller particles, boiled the water, cooled it, and Brita-filtered it before decanting into the jugs. It took all afternoon, but I got another ten gallons of drinking water and did some laundry with the rest.

Why do I bother? Because I have to buy water. My main water supply comes from a one thousand gallon tank buried in the ground, and an electric pump that draws the water from the tank.  At least once a year, I have a water hauling service come and fill it up (at eight cents a gallon that's about $80). The tank is fairly old, and has about an inch of sediment at the bottom, which affects the water's color. I consider my water tinted rather than tainted: the water has no odor, and is kept at a fairly constant temp of about 40 F due to the insulating effect of the ground.  It's fine for doing the dishes or showering, but I won't drink that water unless I boil it. So I take my portable jugs to the local fill-up place, and I go through ten gallons of drinking water every seven to ten days--another $40 a year.

This is the deal if you live on permafrost-ridden ground: you can't have a sewer system delivering water to outlying areas--so most people here in Goldstream Valley just dig outhouses and leachfields and buy their water, either by the jug or by the tank. We do our dishes using as little water as possible (having a dog or two helps with the prewash stage, so I've been told) and we toss our dishwater from slop pails out on the ground. My sinks and shower drain into a leachfield (when Simon built this cabin two decades ago, he used a backhoe to bury a bus filled with river rocks in the yard, and connected the sink and shower drains to it), but by midwinter the drain reliably clogs up with ice so I just don't use it very much.  I can still take a shower in the winter as long as I stand inside my 30 gallon bin like Oscar the Grouch and catch most of the water before it backs up from the drain all cold and foul smelling. Those who have no such setup must take their showers in town. Tinted water or not, I'm grateful to have my very own hot shower in a place where I can still see moose from my window.

Yes we ain't got no water

O Cabin, My Cabin!

We are in the middle of our very own wood-neck as Joe likes to say.

Yesterday evening we rode our bikes home from dinner at my boss' place, our first rainy night in Fairbanks. About a mile from home, chugging up that last bit of hill in the near pitch dark to our "street" we heard an enormous rattling of bushes to our right. We'd surprised a moose on his or her evening forage, and heard him dash away into the forest. Whew!

But where'd the Jeep come from? That is on loan as of today from my boss, a second car that she's thinking of selling. We're giving her a test drive to see if we like her. The car has been nicknamed Kaneesha. We have a week to decide if we like her. More on Kaneesha later...

Hope the pictures convey something of the warmth and beauty of our new place. And check out that swell outhouse! As far as outhouses go, this is a good one. Don't be intimidated by that burlap flap of a door, either: what I've learned is that an outhouse with a wooden door will warm up inside and create condensation on the walls, floor, and seat, which turn to ice in the dead of winter. So rather than have an ice-coated floor and toilet seat, by keeping the door open, or gently screened, the inside stays dry. Alaskans buy lots of thick blue insulating foam at the local Home Depot that they cut into toilet seats, because this stuff stays warm at any temperature. Also great for blocking up extra windows. Aren't you glad you don't have to worry about that?

Our Very Own Outhouse (with Cabin). All we need is a Pee Pot now...

So we disappeared from family and friends radar while in Northwestern Canada (which must be quite common).

Neither Joe nor me could get a signal on our phones, mile after mile. But, phenomenally, Joe got us to Fairbanks in just 5.5 days of driving. Besides mad road skills, the good weather probably helped. We saw the corn and wheatfields of late summer give way to autumn tinged forests as logging trucks plied the highways, and finally we crossed hours and hours of black spruce and numerous rivers spanned by bridges of all sizes. If you've the time and inclination, a trip up the Alaska Highway is well worth it. Plus you can stay in a beautiful cabin when you get here!

Just by chance on our first morning in Fairbanks I ran into a friendly New Zealander with a pickup truck who just happened to have a cabin for rent a few miles from our hosts' place. We got lost on the way to give it a look, and I ended up calling him on my cell when the road dead ended at a swamp and a mean, burned out shack. "Uh, Simon, we're basically at a dead end road with a burned out shack. Is this the place?"

It turned out we'd gone far past it, and once we arrived, we got to walk in to the unoccupied two story log and cedar cabin. Joe and I immediately fell in love with it. As far as cabins go, it is deluxe. Most cabins are "dry" meaning no running water, and an outhouse. We do have an outhouse, but after looking at several I think it's a good one, and the house itself is solid, beautiful, and snug. It's a dream come true for both of us. Joe had wanted a wood burning stove; I'd wanted free wireless, somehow they came together plus we have hot and cold running water. Our commute is about 8 miles from the University, which is doable in the now beautiful fall weather, but come the first snow things will change. We realize we'll need a vehicle, but as with the cabin, serendipity seems to smile on us. The only thing I regret is that I can't show you this beautiful little House on the Boreal Forest; my camera died and until I can figure out the situation you will have to take my word for it. Or come visit. This is a beautiful little place. We feel very lucky to have found it. Stay tuned!