An outhouse is a pit toilet—more or less. Historically speaking, the outhouse
once serviced most of America, as well as other places the world over. Stationed close
enough to the house to provide easy access, but far enough away to reduce the smell,
these out buildings were a step up from previous methods of waste disposal (think
along the lines of what cows do, wherever they please). The classic structure stood
about eight feet high and was wide enough to seat one, or maybe two in the case of
large families.

     Often these structures bore little flash or frill, except for one distinguishing mark
of practical design: a single sliver sliced out of the door in the shape of a crescent
moon. This adornment offered enough light to take care of business without making
it everyone else’s business, too. But even this measly extravagance was not enough for the outhouse to catch on. Public health concerns—namely disease-spreading flies and rats, and groundwater contamination—expedited the evolution of waste disposal in
the West. By the 19th century, modern in-house rooms, including in-door plumbing
pipes and shiny porcelain flush toilets became the norm in American cities. And with
the advent of the toilet, came the desire to mask its crude purpose by introducing
the comforts of the rest of the house into the bathroom. Hence the market for toilet
paper dispensers, fuzzy color-coordinated carpets cut to toilet-ready dimensions, and
a whole arsenal of sprayable scents to mask more natural smells.

     My outhouse has none of these things. Rather, it consists of a standard wooden
toilet seat sitting atop a wooden box which, in turn, is sitting atop an earthen hole.
It has three walls and a door—minus the crescent moon— to box it in, which affords
users some semblance of privacy. Really, though, there is nothing private about
it. Unlike conventional plumbing, where human waste is cleanly and clearly flushed
away after each deposit, the outhouse functions as one giant human waste deposit, a
cat hole that doesn’t get covered. Like felines, we humans tend to operate under the
out-of-sight-out-of-mind principle. An outhouse encourages neither.

     Even still, there is something all-together appealing about an outhouse. Most people today who have had the pleasure to use one have probably done so in a wilderness setting, perhaps on a hiking trip or canoe outing. After squatting against a tree and wiping oneself with the softest foliage found within arm’s reach, the meek amenities of the outhouse seem comparable to a loo trip in the Taj Mahal. There’s a certain magic in finally being able to sit down, and the distinct comfort in the afforded cleanliness of toilet paper is something our culture just can’t deny. I know this to be true from first-hand experience.

     Last summer, my partner Brian and I spent the season on an extended paddling expedition. When we returned and decided to move into a cabin in rural Maine without
any plumbing, I didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. After forty-some days spent squatting in the Northern Forest and using everything from moss and cattails to water to clean up, I was feeling rather optimistic about my outhouse. It seemed a good enough option for waste disposal as any—maybe even better. For instance, when my giardiasis (acquired on the canoe expedition) flared up, I didn’t have to worry about clogging up the plumbing.

     And, of course there’s the obvious bonus of water saved (roughly five to six gallons of water are made undrinkable with each trip to the toilet). Quite frankly, the more I used it, the more I came to enjoy it.

     It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why I love my outhouse. For starters, there’s the view. I never close the door: initially this was because of the smell, which one friend actually tracked in order to find the privy in the dark; but now I find myself using toilet time to trace the subtleties of my backyard and the changing seasons. I notice how the cedar trees stand crooked and coppiced, stretching spindly limbs to meet birch boughs and form the forest canopy. I observe the dance of the sun around my yard and its nuances played out on the exterior cabin walls; as it does, I make mental notes about which perennials I will plant where come spring. Each visit to my outhouse is time spent in observation. I also really like the fact that my outhouse is outside. I savor having to step into the night when nature calls. I look forward to it actually, so that I may catch a glimpse of an untainted version of the northern skies sparkling in their stellar arrangement.

     Eventually, though, I began to realize that the more I use my outhouse, the fuller
it becomes. That’s when I started to worry. I wasn’t alone. Brian actually breached
the topic of our rapidly-filling outhouse first, sliding it into one of our discussions of
weekly projects right between finishing the root cellar and building a new shelf for
our home-canned goods. His announcement was simple: he had decided he was going
to work on moving the outhouse. First, we would have to dig a new pit. It should,
he said, be slightly downhill of the current site so that physics could do most of the
heavy lifting. Brian then proposed sliding the building along two boards, which
would act as runners. This seemed reasonable. Our outhouse, like most others, was
constructed of lightweight wood planks, in anticipation of its needed mobility. Brian’s
planned seemed easy enough, and we quickly moved on to other topics.

     Later that week, Brian set to work on the first phase of operation outhouse: the digging. He started off with a shovel, but quickly switched to a pick-ax on account of the gravelly glacial till comprising most of Central Maine’s geology. After a whole day’s
work, he managed to dig a two-foot deep rectangle with a total area of about six feet.
It was roughly half the size of the initial outhouse hole, which had achieved its crap
carrying-capacity. Still, with the impending darkness and dinner on the stove, Brian
decided to call it quits for the day.

     We soon found an even bigger shortcoming in our initial plans, which—I admit—
were a bit harried due to the immediacy of the problem at hand. We had considered
the major factors: when selecting a new site for a pit privy, a minimum distance of
one-hundred and fifty feet from any water supply must be maintained; we also knew
that groundwater levels should be below the bottom of the pit. But based on the fact
that we weren’t selecting an entirely new site—there was an outhouse there already,
after all—Brian and I didn’t bother to consult appropriate building codes. We also
didn’t really consider the soil properties of the site or their respective drainage qualities. We certainly didn’t consider the likelihood of a fall rain storm sweeping through the area before the project was finished. But that’s exactly what happened.

     We left the partially-dug hole for the night, and the last thing Brian and I expected
to see the following morning was the start of a farm pond. Sure enough, though,
while we slept the rains fell, filling our hole with murky water and our hearts with
a sense of futility. We surveyed the scene the next morning. Neither of us was looking
forward to scooping out bucketfuls of frigid rain water in order to continue the
bedrock-breaking battle that remained ahead. Trying to make the best of the situation,
I spent the morning scouting out signs of ephemeral aquatic life that might have taken
up residence

     That night, we considered our options.

     “We might as well shit in a bucket,” I told Brian over our evening meal. It wasn’t exactly delightful dinner conversation, but I was already mentally turning my
very real spinach pie and mashed parsnips into the final product. I couldn’t ignore the very pertinent question: where was the result of this meal going to go?

     Really, I was half joking when I proposed the bucket. But Brian ignored my flippant tone and heard my words with merit. The conversation became one of logistics about a compost set-up. Couldn’t we, quite literally, relieve ourselves in a bucket? Afterwards, we could layer on enough organic matter—sawdust, leaf mulch, peat
moss, etc.—to foster conditions ideal for encouraging happy microbial activity. It was an immediate solution: we had a bucket, we had leaf mulch all over the place, and, most importantly, I could still use my outhouse. We would just top of the old pit with organic matter, board it up, and insert a bucket below the toilet seat.

     And that’s what we did.

     It’s been a relief, in a number of ways. Through it all I came to think in the same terms as many Australians do—my outhouse became my earthhouse. I adopted a
reverence for refuse common to some Eastern cultures in which human eliminations are viewed as, well, black gold. Similar to farmers using cow and horse manure,
humanure there is spread on agricultural fields to fertilize and increase crop yields. I love the idea that my bodily wastes can now continue the cyclical the course
of nature: turning from nightsoil to simply soil, the stuff of gardens and growth and life as we know it.