Ah, summer...Good Humor trucks tinkling tunes in your neighborhood, running barefoot in the grass, swinging in a hammock with the Bobbsey Twins, peeling sunburns, scratching mosquito bites, and endless popsicles. The list could go on and on. Summer for us, here at Provident Heritage Farm on Bench Road in pastoral Bear Lake tucked away in a sleepy corner of Idaho, usually means all of the above AND endless weeding. We arise early to work in the cool of the day and collapse in our beds at night to the symphony of crickets and the occasional passing freight train. Is it as good as it gets? Usually we would nod vigorously and slap another steak on the grill.
Our summer reverie received an unanticipated jolt this summer when we returned from China in mid June to well issues. What went wrong with our well is a subject for another time carried on by someone far more mechanical than I. Suffice it to say that we have had NO culinary water to the camping trailer where Paco and I reside nestled just a smidgeon north of our home or our home where the housesitters currently live in anticipation of our returning to China for another year. So, we're camping. The water is still running murky. We wait patiently for it to clear, but in the meantime we haul water to flush the toilet, haul water to wash our dishes in the camp basin, and haul water which we use to brush our teeth romantically under the moonlight each night. And every so often when we begin to smell each other we sashay down to the neighbors' for a shower or boil up some hauled in water for a spit bath. Does this sound like fun? Our grandson Pete thought it was. As for Paco and Mad, we are getting C-R-A-N-K-Y. Nearly 3 weeks...UNCLE already!!!!!!! But necessity is the mother of invention, and so yesterday and today Paco has been building
this--
First he built the lower platform. Because I am a tiny thinker, I thought we'd buy a 5 gallon solar shower off of amazon and stand here to use it. Au contraire! Up went a tower of sorts! More questions!!!!
But then...
I came home today and caught him in the act of moving our claw foot bathtub. What? You mean you don't have one of these that's been painted and sitting in your back yard for nearly five years?? --Inserting a shoutout to Shelly whose painting skills should not go unheralded.-- Notice one of the claws didn't quite brave the move intact. Who knew Paco was also a podiatrist?? This tub was salvaged from a home restoration of some friends and was originally headed up to the library to be used by the grandkids for reading. Obviously it's been repurposed.
This was definitely a man of vision at work. What I had taken for brooding the last few days was the incubation of a work of pure genius. Hats off to Paco!
Note the compost bin looking on in disbelief through the fence.
This 55 gallon steel bin will heat water very nicely in our hot summer sun.
And then when it gets dark, we'll strip down, grab a towel and scamper through the moonlight...Perhaps it also has potential as a winter hot tub!
Voile'!!!!!!!!! Isn't it smashing?? Ya'll come out! Bring soap! Rubber duckies! No flashlights allowed.
