Simple Pleasures

Simple pleasures mean different things to different people, I am no different in this. Being a homesteader also gives light to simple pleasures you would not normally consider as pleasures. Today for instance We got to use our bathtub... Oh it was so nice to take a hot long bath after this long winter. Now this does not mean we don't bathe, but as we have no shower or tub in our shed we sponge bathe aside from once a week were me and Silver go to our neighbor's for a shower (sometimes we go to the truck stop and use their's too). the kids go to a firend's house once a week for a shower.

For those of you who follow us, you may know we have a "little room" behind our shed that is a flat truck topper and surrounded by tarps for privacy. One of those tarps pictured here with the bath tub is a canvas tarp, a very nice find at a garage sale last summer for $7.00. The tub itself is our neighbor's who lent it to us last spring which we were very grateful for as those camping solar showers suck big time after a short period of time.

So we have an enclosed room to bathe in, however if the weather is not warm enough we can't use it. also as we have to heat water on the stove walking outside when it's below freezing doesn't keep the tub water hot enough. It takes us about an hour or two to fill this tub using 2 large stock pots to heat the water, and let me tell you living as we do it is heavenly to use it once a day; when we can.

This next week at least looks like we will be partaking of our wonderful tub on a daily basis, instead of using my dish washing tub and one pot of boiling water to sponge bathe. Aren't Simple pleasures wonderful?

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Homestead bathing...

I thought I'd talk about bathing on the homestead today, at least from what I have experienced. When we first arrived here we had a solar shower, that was an interesting experience. It is not designed for long term use for a family, it is great for 1-2 people. We tried a few different ways of making it work better for us, one way was group showers; me and my daughters would stand under it and wet down... then we'd turn it off and soap up... then turn it on to rinse off. Well... that got us clean, but it did not work for hair washing. Just for one person with thick long hair it doesn't work to wash hair either. When we used the solar shower we had to use a metal pan to wash my and one of my daughter's hair.

Then my neighbor with all the animals gave us a bathtub her dogs used in the summer to cool off in to use as a bathtub for us to use. We spent 2 days cleaning out the tub before we started using it. Then to use the tub we heated water on our outdoor woodstove, now I'll have you know heating water over fire and dumping it in has two temperature settings. Not hot enough and ... oh my god thats hot! Oh did i mention as we were in the tent when this occurred we had to use it in the "great outdoors"? Yes Silver set up a single panel of OSB we had with a curtain on the other side to partly screen us with the open side facing the woods. However we got to experience every little breeze that passed through.

So lets see... burning hot water with cool breezes, it is an interesting experience let me tell you. Lots of fun too, to hear the kids shriek when they get out of the tub and a breeze blows through when they are getting dressed. We had to do that till the shed arrived and now thankfully we have a "sort of" bathing room which we hope to have a home made shower inside soon so we don't have to worry about freezing while we bathe.

Oh the solar shower? It makes a great water carrying bag until the handle on it breaks. If you need the info.

Be Well and Blessed be....