Dirt should be easy!

Finding dirt to put into the poo-hole composting toilet should be easy, but it's not! It's hard!  It has to be fancy chi-chi dirt or your poo hole won't compost correctly. That's why the thieves at Envirolet get away with charging you $100 for a Box Of Dirt.

Thieves.

The Captain nearly had a seizure when he had to pay that much money for dirt. So, off we went to the Internet to mine it for wisdom. Bio-Let, another composting toilet manufacturing company, has the decency to put their dirt recipe online. It includes all manner of weird and exotic items, like high fibrous blond Canadian sphagnum peat moss, perlite, buckwheat hulls, and dried molasses.  Oh, how I wish that were a joke.

After a bit more digging, we've discovered that most potting soil contains the right kind of peat moss, perlite and garden-variety dirt. Sneaky buggers. Why didn't they just say "potting soil"?!

After still more digging, we've reached the point where we're browsing the inventory at farm co-op stores to source the remaining supplies for our dirt project. We've found everything so far except for the dried molasses. I can find it online, but nowhere that will ship to Canada. By Saturday. Because we are OUT of poo-hole chi-chi dirt, and if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you do Not want to mess with the harmony of your poo-hole. 

We're still going to have to pay for our fancy dirt, but we'll have a LOT more fancy dirt for the same price.

I really hope this doesn't screw up the poo-hole.

GDPH part three, revenge of the poo-hole

I bet you never thought, when you started reading this blog, that you'd be stuck reading so much about our terlet.

When we returned this spring, one of the first jobs to be tackled was clearing out and firing up the poo-hole. The Captain did his work dutifully, and within minutes, it was up and running again.  

After a short time, the dreaded green cloud of poo-hole stink began to waft through the bathroom. Oh no! Not again! The dingdangdongdarned fan had packed it in again. (Remember: one fan draws fresh air into the holding tank, one fan pulls the funky rank moist air out of the holding tank. The air circulation by these two fans is what dries out the glop in the tank and helps it to break down into compost.) I'm guessing you won't need two guesses to figure out which of the two fans packed up on us. When the only fan working is the intake fan, it pushes the funky stink out the seat into the bathroom.  Yuck!

[shakes an angry fist at the gods]

Handy Dad suggested a Red Green repair: We get a big, square, room fan, place it under the poo-hole chute at a 45 degree angle and bwap anything coming down the chute out the far side of the cottage. Of course, the neighbours on that side of us would most likely stop speaking to us rather quickly. (Yes, bwap is a verb.. Go on and try to tell me that you don't know exactly what that means).

Here are some of the technical drawings from that discussion:

 

Handy Dad was joking (when does he not?), but it did give us a good laugh while we contemplated another year fighting the poo hole. 

The Captain donned his coveralls and went back under the cottage. Fortunately the one fan was just a bit stuck after sitting idle all winter, and started spinning again with a little nudge.  Phew! Stink bullet dodged!

I'm sure the neighbours are happier too. 

Back at long last....

You know you've had a hectic weekend at the cottage when you have one, single, lonely photo to attest to the fact that you were even there. At least it's a good one!

I can't believe the May 2-4 weekend was our very first chance to go open up the cottage for the season. What a crazy weather year with all the flooding. You can see in the graph below where the normal peak occurred and then it suddenly surged even higher before dropping. There was no damage for us (the lake can absorb quite a bit of water), but it meant the marina docks were all under water longer than expected.

We were neck-deep in dance competitions anyway, so it's probably just as well we couldn't get to the cottage. I get very bitter when I have to sit in a dark, loud theatre all day when I know the sun and the cottage are sitting there waiting for me.

Since we had some extra time before the boat needed to go into the water, the captain sent it off to a nearby marina to get a tune-up for the boat motor. It's old, and it's been limping since the day we bought it, and lately has been stalling at low idle (does "lemon" have one M or two?). We were shocked to learn from the marina-man that it's only running on two cylinders (again), and it's also suffering from some nasty irreparable scoring. Ugh.

We've instructed him to reassemble the motor as is, and are hoping we can limp through some of this summer on the faulty motor. This is definitely going to be its last season, however. Operation "Quick Buy A Boat!" is in full swing. Hopefully the money tree we planted will mature in time.

In the meantime we are fully dependent upon Handy Dad for transportation to and from the cottage. (Drawback to having an island cottage: when you have no boat, you have no cottage!)

We do have the option of hiring a water taxi to ferry us over, but we're keeping that in our pocket for plan B.

We're trying to decide what to get this time. We seem to have contrary boat requirements: I need a stable people/stuff transporter from the marina to the island (pontoon?). The captain wants a zippy, powerful water-toy he can use for water-skiing (ski boat). Those are very different boats. Hopefully we'll have time to research and make the right decision.

Please, That Damned Boat try to last the summer?

Spike!

I love line graphs. This one in particular:

It's shows the water level on Rice Lake. The spike in the graph represents the high water level from the Spring run off. When the spike settles back to normal levels, that's the all clear that we can put the boat into the water.

Whee!!