After the rescue and the firefighters returned to their truck, I wonder how long it took them to stop laughing!
Ahhhh....outhouse stories hahaha. Apparently there is a nice watch in the basement suite of my outhouse....apparently - according to a distressed guest a number of years ago. No one will be checking the time that's for sure. Many years ago, an aquaitance lost their dog at their cabin property. The could hear barking, and found him in the outhouse. Apparently a hole at the back had not been covered properly. After some dismantling he went in to retrieve his beloved pooch. That I would also go in for...but never a phone or a watch. Last year a woman in Alaska had her bottom bit by a black bear while using an outhouse. They think the bear thought it was a nice winter den, and the bear was the one with the rude awakening..... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/alaska-woman-outhouse-bear-attack-1.5920579
When I was a child, a friend of my parents fell into the outhouse toilet too. My dad and I fished him out.
Yeah Mel, I reckon perhaps everyone has an outhouse story of sorts, or knows someone that does. Well to be fair, fewer folks now-a-days because rural life is shrinking. Well, you can find simplicity away from home. We went off to Oz, bought a camper in Darwin and spent six months driving around and staying mostly at the gratis camping places out in nature. They were basic, rudimentary places with a place for the combi, a fire pit and a dunny. The water for the campers was rain water gathered in a sort of silo. It was all that was necessary. Of course this sort of wildish camping means that you are sharing your outdoor experience with others...others. Others meaning birds, frogs, mozzies, ants, flies, snakes, wombats and a raft of insects and arachnids. We were at one such remote camping slot somewhere in rural Oz. That doesn’t sound clear because a great deal of Oz is cattle stations, sheep lands or just plain rural. Anyhow, we eased into one of these woodsy places next to a stream as the sun was talking about sinking. We set-up the camp and ate. Took a short walk about the area to know which way to run in case of an elephant attack, or worse. We then settled down for tea and relaxation, a natter and I made a journal entry. The next day we spent hiking and taking foto’s. I strung-up a clothesline. The Bride popped over to the dunny for a quick whizz and I began with the washing. It was quiet in the woods except for the buzzing of bees and two kookaburras cackling. I was lying on my stomach and looking down into the stream below. There were two black marron messing around under the eroded overhang. I was guessing that they were too young and small to take for supper. Just then a scream came out of the dunny, a call for assistance. I sprinted over and she said don’t come in. I asked what was going on. She croaked what eventually sounded like, “spider”. I started in to have a look, but she held up her hand and said, “Don’ t take another step”. I asked why she called me over and she said with a patient-less face, “To do something”. I asked , “Like what”? I reminded her that I had to come in the dunny to do that. She said that the dunny wasn’t big enough for the three of us. She said, “Just get out of the door”, which I did and she bolted out of the dunny from a sitting position. As I went into the dunny, I casually suggested that she pull up her knickers, which was answered with a, “doh”! To be fair, the spider was large, and grey and wedged flat up in a corner. The advice on how to proceed further came in a well-meant stream. She asked what I was doing. I told her that I was dislodging it to remove it. “No,no,no,no,no....it’ll come back”. Then she heard my surprised sound when the spider was disturbed and stood up. Yeah, oké it was large but not aggressive. Long story short, it did not end well for the spider. When it fell to the ground, the Bride headed for the camper. I called out to her if she wanted to see it. No, was the answer. The chap, Colin came by later to give more firewood, water and ask if we needed anything. We told him about the spider and, he said that it was probably just an Australian Tarantula.
When I was young, we lived in a house that had a partially uncovered cesspool (the uncovered bit was unknown to us). Well you can guess what happened: our dog was missing and we heard barking barking barking. We rescued her and after a hosing off, took her into the bathroom for a real wash. The dog was SOLID black. Our missing dog was a white Samoyed. My mother kept proclaiming that this wasn't our dog...on & on....until finally the poor mutt began turning charcoal, then grey, then finally white again.