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Thursday, April 17, 2014

O is for Outhouse




Oh boy…the outhouse, what a smelly place.  What farm would be complete without one?  Probably not many of you reading this have ever used one as your primary bathroom, but we did.  Sometimes life on the farm was primitive when I look back on things we endured during those years.

Once we moved into the sharecroppers shacks from the Colonial trailer (much like an Airstream), it was a couple of years before anyone added the addition onto the shacks doubling them in size and adding an indoor bathroom.  What a luxury this was, yet our grandparents had an inside bathroom in the farmhouse way before this, but Papaw was very set in his ways.  He refused to use it for months, preferring the outhouse instead.  He didn’t fancy new ways, he would always say, and was happy with things the way they were.

Outhouse and calf shed demolished after Hurricane Carla

The outhouse had its place on the farm until the early 1960’s when Hurricane Carla blew it over, along with a calf shed.  I think this forced Papaw to use the inside bathroom.

We lost part of the chicken coop, the screen door to the house, and part of a big tree among other things during the hurricane, but it was probably a blessing in disguise.  The shacks were still standing when we returned home, so the situation could’ve been a lot worse.  That was the only time we ever had a direct hit from a hurricane.

8 comments:

  1. I remember after our house flooded in 2010, I read about all the other Nashville floods over the years. Back when the city used to flood in the early 1900s, people didn't rebuild...they lost everything and moved elsewhere and started over. It put it all in perspective.

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  2. Stephanie,

    Thanks for reading and commenting. We never had our house flood, which I'm thankful for. It wasn't much of a house, but had no damage at all. All of that was outside. I can't imagine having everything destroyed. That would be devastating. We were always putting plywood up over the windows or taping them before the big storms. I guess that helped.

    Sunni

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  3. Hi Sunni, thanks for the visit and the comment. Outhouses were quite a norm in olden days. Too bad that the hurricane blew off the outhouse.

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  4. Rachna,

    Thanks for stopping by. Yes, you won't find too many outhouses these days.

    Sunni

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  5. Nope, never used an outhouse as a primary bathroom, but when I went to Girl Scout camp, we had latrines and we all took our turn at latrine duty (cleaning them!). My husband's childhood friend though had an outhouse. He said during the winter, you'd think twice before going to the outhouse in the middle of the night because the seat would be covered with ice. Brrrrrr ~
    Thanks for visiting my blog!
    Wendy at Jollett Etc.

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    1. Wendy,

      I was in the girl scouts too and we also had latrine duty. Thanks for stopping by.

      Sunni

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  6. There was a period when we didn't have any running water until we built our own water system, but we didn't use an outhouse. We dug a hole and went outside. This was really bad for one of my aunt's friends who visited. It's hilarious, but kinda gross. It involved tons of fire ants crawling up something that was still attached, LOL!!

    Random Musings from the KristenHead — O is for Opposite Brain (and Opal)

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    1. Wow, Krisen, I'm already laughing and I haven't even heard your fire ant and outhouse story yet. Outhouses are gross, but usually there's a good story or two attached to them.

      Sunni

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Sunni