The Hill at Oso Lago.

If you remember this post, you’ll remember that we have a 200 gallon poly tank set up for rain catchment. And that has been a good thing, but we were breezing through water pretty quickly, especially when the extended family was here. It takes about a gallon and a half to two gallons to get a good clean flush. Because of this, we had to institute THE RULE. You do know THE RULE for toilet operation when you don’t have running water but are using a regular flush toilet don’t you? Ok, ok… I’ll tell you THE RULE. It’s a little crass for polite company… but whoever said we were polite company? Remember, I warned you. Here goes…

If it’s YELLOW, let it mellow, if it’s BROWN flush it down.

… and there it is… did you puke a little in your mouth? Well, don’t, because Everyone Poops. So with THE RULE in place we’ve been able to cut down our flushable moments to about 4 – 5 a day. With a family of six people we feel this is a real accomplishment. I will be honest that THE RULE has made several OTHER RULES necessary. (Yes, I will list the OTHER RULES here also… but only because you asked).

1. The first being that if you have a flushable moment YOU are responsible for bringing in a bucket of water and flush.
2. The second being that a proper flush is an art that must be learned. You should spend approximately half of your bucket in what we will call the first flush. The first flush does the business work of actually flushing, but the first flush will never actually remove all the fragments of toilet paper and BROWN. If you continuous flush and don’t pause after the first flush you actually get the same results… fragments of TP and BROWN. So PAUSE after the first flush, but only until the “swoosh” sound of the contents is heard. After that the smaller, second flush will swoosh again and leave you with nice clean water… cherish it… look at it lovingly… because it won’t last long. Eventually, someone will go and YELLOW it up.
3. Third, Keep the seat down. Ironically this is the hardest for the ladies to master. We men have years of experience (read: nagging) reminding us… but the women are on the receiving end now. This is important because it helps keep the smell down.
4. Fourth, I have the right and authority to over rule all rules. Why? Well, sometimes, YELLOW is the new BROWN and needs to be flushed down because the mix of TP and YELLOW is just so obnoxious… and yes, I may require one of my children to go fill a bucket. Like I said… right and authority.
   Finally, Men and boys… go outside if it’s at all possible.

So our water usage for toilets isn’t to bad now, but the biggest culprit was in hand washing (believe it or not) because were using one gallon water jugs to pour over our hands. We were using at LEAST as much water washing our hands as we were flushing toilets. It wasn’t very efficient or very smart. But what can you do when you don’t have pressurized running water? I am glad you asked… the solution came after a couple of days and a strong desire for a shower. We had taken the ran shower with success, but it doesn’t always rain when it’s convenient for showering, and to be quite frank, rain showers are COLD. So I began to look up ideas for a solar shower. It’s an idea/plan that I’ve been wanting to do for a while… but I couldn’t get around the cost associated with it. It was going to take some money even “on the cheap”, because I don’t have years of pieces, parts, and scavenged items laying around here. So the next idea was to purchase a solar shower from online or a camping supply company. Any of them that seemed even remotely to be of any quality (as in would last longer than a day with a 9, 7, 5 and 3 year old using them) were pretty spendy. So I thought about it a bit and remember a friend of mine online saying that he had showered with a deck sprayer.
Deck sprayer… hmmm, I think Home Depot had those… So I did a little search and found this. Hmmm, black (solar warmth), poly (hard, durable plastic), 2.5 gallons (big enough to hold a good amount, small enough to handle and move) and only $19.99. Time to make a trip to Home Depot.

Now there is something you need to know about me and Home Depot. [Rant… ON!] We have a love/hate relationship. I love the selection, one-stop-shopping, and price. I hate their customer service. I mean it’s horrible. It’s been a very rare occurrence that I find anyone that works at Home Depot that gives good customer service on the floor. I have a theory for this… when they do have someone that is good at servicing the customer, that is conscientious, and knows the product, they promote that person fairly quickly… thus we (the customer) are left with a lot of folks who just don’t care to learn the products or are there just for a buck. Now I know that’s a broad brush to paint with, and I have occasionally run into someone on the floor who really cared… but like I said, that’s rare. [Rant… OFF!] So I went to Home Depot and bought TWO of the sprayers.

Wow, that was an increase in our comfort of living. Pressurized water is one of the keys to modern civilization. And with these deck sprayers you can have the function of pressurized water and the benefit of semi-modern living. We keep one by the sink and our water usage has gone DOWN and we’ve got increase usable water for other uses. For example, when you wash your hands it’s a fine mist that comes out of the sprayer. You can rinse off your hands completely and still only use about 3 ounces of water. We’ve actually began to use it to rinse our dishes so washing is easier and a final rinse before air drying them, after cleaning. And believe this or not, all six of us can shower with the 2.5 gallons… (less actually) and get an ACTUAL shower. Granted it has to be during the day if you want it warm, but even at night with it cool, the water is such a fine spray that it is not nearly as cold as dumping a gallon over your head. You also have the added benefit of being able to lather up and get rinsed ALL OVER not just where you can splash water or wash with a cloth.

All week we haven’t dropped below 100 gallons thanks to some rains and last night, during some downpours, we actually had an OVERFLOW and awoke to ber 200 gallons of water. Tomorrow, the plumber is supposed to come and replumb the whole house with PEX, I am hoping the job will be about $800.00 dollars, but am expecting to have to spend $1000.00. We are praying the Lord provides it for us and will be happy to have consistent plumbing and running water, but we want to continue to conserve water where we can in the future.