Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2021-05-20 03:31 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2021-05-20 03:31 pm
Entry tags:
SHOWAR?
We have had a bit of trouble keeping up with the CSA baskets. I think that every other week is probably the correct timing on them, and small baskets are the correct size. I got one of those silicone large ice cube trays, and that is the perfect size for freezing a tiny side serving of greens.
The neighbors have acquired the chickens they were talking about. (The good neighbors, not the jackasses on the other side.) They arrived ... Monday? I think? and I was cooing at them through the fence and Mr. D. W---- invited me to come around and say hi. There are four of them, all in their second set of feathers, and they say "CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP" when grabbed. The boldest is a Barred Rock. The second-boldest might be a Speckled Sussex. The second shyest is blonde with a small tuft of feathers on the top of their head. (They're supposed to be pullets but One Can't Tell Just Yet.) The most skittish is dark grey patterned with a long fan-tail and has a white and grey striped hackle, and she might be a Chaos Chicken but the patterning is incorrect and I'm not sure what she could be. (Co-co-co had similar hackle stripes, and I miss her.)
We have passed the first Shower Hurdle of the summer.
Sooooooo the shower started leaking again, and apparently the cadence for it happening and us getting pissed off with the situation is about six months, because the calendar says that the last two visits for shower area leak fixing were November and May 2020. Belovedest suggested that this time, since the SEVERAL PREVIOUS TIMES were not sufficient to stop the problem permanently, we should get some quotes on a remodel. (I made a slide deck!)
A remodel would of course remove access to the shower for An While. (So would a warranty fix that requires tear-out and such.) So that's when I began the Backyard Shower Concept.
Project Backyard Shower was in the back of my brain starting with the Miscellaneous Preparedness Stuff. (I am not going to become the sort of "prepper" that thinks a zombie-proof bunker is a good and reasonable plan. I have already been the sort of person who thinks that less than two weeks' worth of food in the house is an urgent situation, and would prefer to have several means of food heating available, at least one of which does not depend on electricity. Born an Alaskan and that doesn't leave you.) It would be Nice to have a means of cleaning one's filthy self that does not depend on having clean municipal water.
The original vision of The Bathroom Situation was: if we are going to have the upstairs bathroom/shower Out Of Commission, we already have a toilet and sink downstairs. What if... Shower? Two plumbers quoting later, the price tag sent me back to Project Backyard Shower. (And sent Belovedest back to Warranty Repair, the second plumbing contractor having pointed out that there is a wobble in the insert-wall that destroys the silicone seal on the regular.) I spent some time learning SketchUp enough to generate a rough idea of the 3D nature of the less-temporary project I had envisioned, with the help of Sustainable Solar Pinterest and the entire concept of furniture-grade PVC pipe.
Tuesday, the ten-gallon black vinyl solar shower bag arrived.
Tuesday, the warranty guy with the caulk arrived.
It turns out that absent some tree-work with rope and a ladder, the only reasonable place to suspend the SHOWER CUBE was a garage rafter. Belovedest put it there, and then set a chair underneath it. I resisted the urge to do some flashdance fanart featuring a dragon (mainly because it was bedtime). Unfortunately, in the morning it transpired that the cube had sprung a leak in one of the bottom seams. We initiated a return. But while Belovedest was looking up at the garage rafters...
"Dear? Does this look like the kind of PVC pipe you were envisioning?"
It's certainly not furniture-grade, and not black, but black spraypaint exists for a reason.
We also ordered a thing that is a grade or so up from a backyard splash kiddie pool, but below the level of Actual Swimming Pool. We'll see how it does. I have missed Being In Water a hell of a lot, and was just starting to think about what options there were around here when the pandemic hit. This might help. (Nora has the mental image of me in there all summer with a sun hat, a drink, and a book, and this is Not Wrong.)
The neighbors have acquired the chickens they were talking about. (The good neighbors, not the jackasses on the other side.) They arrived ... Monday? I think? and I was cooing at them through the fence and Mr. D. W---- invited me to come around and say hi. There are four of them, all in their second set of feathers, and they say "CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP CHUP" when grabbed. The boldest is a Barred Rock. The second-boldest might be a Speckled Sussex. The second shyest is blonde with a small tuft of feathers on the top of their head. (They're supposed to be pullets but One Can't Tell Just Yet.) The most skittish is dark grey patterned with a long fan-tail and has a white and grey striped hackle, and she might be a Chaos Chicken but the patterning is incorrect and I'm not sure what she could be. (Co-co-co had similar hackle stripes, and I miss her.)
We have passed the first Shower Hurdle of the summer.
Sooooooo the shower started leaking again, and apparently the cadence for it happening and us getting pissed off with the situation is about six months, because the calendar says that the last two visits for shower area leak fixing were November and May 2020. Belovedest suggested that this time, since the SEVERAL PREVIOUS TIMES were not sufficient to stop the problem permanently, we should get some quotes on a remodel. (I made a slide deck!)
A remodel would of course remove access to the shower for An While. (So would a warranty fix that requires tear-out and such.) So that's when I began the Backyard Shower Concept.
Project Backyard Shower was in the back of my brain starting with the Miscellaneous Preparedness Stuff. (I am not going to become the sort of "prepper" that thinks a zombie-proof bunker is a good and reasonable plan. I have already been the sort of person who thinks that less than two weeks' worth of food in the house is an urgent situation, and would prefer to have several means of food heating available, at least one of which does not depend on electricity. Born an Alaskan and that doesn't leave you.) It would be Nice to have a means of cleaning one's filthy self that does not depend on having clean municipal water.
The original vision of The Bathroom Situation was: if we are going to have the upstairs bathroom/shower Out Of Commission, we already have a toilet and sink downstairs. What if... Shower? Two plumbers quoting later, the price tag sent me back to Project Backyard Shower. (And sent Belovedest back to Warranty Repair, the second plumbing contractor having pointed out that there is a wobble in the insert-wall that destroys the silicone seal on the regular.) I spent some time learning SketchUp enough to generate a rough idea of the 3D nature of the less-temporary project I had envisioned, with the help of Sustainable Solar Pinterest and the entire concept of furniture-grade PVC pipe.
Tuesday, the ten-gallon black vinyl solar shower bag arrived.
Tuesday, the warranty guy with the caulk arrived.
It turns out that absent some tree-work with rope and a ladder, the only reasonable place to suspend the SHOWER CUBE was a garage rafter. Belovedest put it there, and then set a chair underneath it. I resisted the urge to do some flashdance fanart featuring a dragon (mainly because it was bedtime). Unfortunately, in the morning it transpired that the cube had sprung a leak in one of the bottom seams. We initiated a return. But while Belovedest was looking up at the garage rafters...
"Dear? Does this look like the kind of PVC pipe you were envisioning?"
It's certainly not furniture-grade, and not black, but black spraypaint exists for a reason.
We also ordered a thing that is a grade or so up from a backyard splash kiddie pool, but below the level of Actual Swimming Pool. We'll see how it does. I have missed Being In Water a hell of a lot, and was just starting to think about what options there were around here when the pandemic hit. This might help. (Nora has the mental image of me in there all summer with a sun hat, a drink, and a book, and this is Not Wrong.)
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I hope that all goes well!
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I should probably figure out how I want to rig this for rainwater as well as hose.
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I want chickens now that we have a side yard, but I think the other people in our building would have kittens over it.
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and the kittens would eventually become cats, which wouldn't be all that good for the chickenns.
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