[elkotronics]

Spent time up in the thousand Islands in my youth. First place my then wife was ever exposed to outhouses and chamber pots and no electricity. My present wife grew up in the backwoods of Saskatchewan and would have been right at home but the first was a NYC girl. Had a fun time one cool fall morning when I went fishing with a friend whose family owned the house we were using. He hooked up a record class pike. But this is in a 8 or 9 foot punt. We were taking more water than fish and it was not much above 40 degrees. All of a sudden you have to decide not only whether ou want to catch the fish but maybe you should accidentally knock your friend overboard so you don't both die.

We got him and escaped harm...but we were soaked and had to head in quick before the hypothermia got us. Fish was within a couple of pounds of the biggest ever caught. But just got stuffed to go over a mantle.

Looks like the tallest mountain in New York is Mt.Marcy at 5,344 ft., and it is about 80 miles east of Ogdensburg. One should be able to climb that mountain in their tennis shoes, right?

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by lvmensch

Spent time up in the thousand Islands in my youth. First place my then wife was ever exposed to outhouses and chamber pots and no electricity. My present wife grew up in the backwoods of Saskatchewan and would have been right at home but the first was a NYC girl. Had a fun time one cool fall morning when I went fishing with a friend whose family owned the house we were using. He hooked up a record class pike. But this is in a 8 or 9 foot punt. We were taking more water than fish and it was not much above 40 degrees. All of a sudden you have to decide not only whether ou want to catch the fish but maybe you should accidentally knock your friend overboard so you don't both die.

We got him and escaped harm...but we were soaked and had to head in quick before the hypothermia got us. Fish was within a couple of pounds of the biggest ever caught. But just got stuffed to go over a mantle.

Man I hated having an outhouse in Iowa winters. Finally moved to a sewer system when I was eleven. Missed the where, but not the lack of...

[ElleTea]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

Man I hated having an outhouse in Iowa winters. Finally moved to a sewer system when I was eleven. Missed the where, but not the lack of...

Wow. You must have lived someplace really rural.

[tijlover]

You can't even have outhouses anymore, they're all but been banned, thanks to the environmentalists.

In the 80's, living in Minneapolis, I had 15 acres with a cabin/house 80 miles north, near the St. Croix river, living a Mother Earth lifestyle on weekends. No electricity, no running water, no telephone, and only in the last year I invested in a hand pump. Kerosene lamps and candles!

Then along comes Pine County officials mandating I put in an expensive sewer system, and no more outhouse! That's when I put up the For Sale sign!

Down the road are farms with pigs, cows, chickens, dogs, cats peeing, pooping all over the place, and I can't have an outhouse????????

Coming out here, thinking it was the Wild, Wild West, I looked at some property up in Iron/Washington counties north of St. George, just 20-40 acres where I planned to just have a cabin and nothing else.

Lo and behold, even in the Wild West I found out you need infrastructure as well!

So, no more weekend Mother Earth lifestyle!

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by ElleTea

Wow. You must have lived someplace really rural.

You know Des Moines. E33rd and Scott. 10 acres. Right at the edge of town. West of us was residential, east was farming. Had running water but preferred the water from the well. Tasted better. Hated the run to the outhouse in the winter. Hated that wasps liked to build nests in it in the summer. Smelled lovely as well. We moved it when I was about 9 and that was quite the experience.

I do not miss the outhouse. I do miss the lot size.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by tijlover

You can't even have outhouses anymore, they're all but been banned, thanks to the environmentalists.

In the 80's, living in Minneapolis, I had 15 acres with a cabin/house 80 miles north, near the St. Croix river, living a Mother Earth lifestyle on weekends. No electricity, no running water, no telephone, and only in the last year I invested in a hand pump. Kerosene lamps and candles!

Then along comes Pine County officials mandating I put in an expensive sewer system, and no more outhouse! That's when I put up the For Sale sign!

Down the road are farms with pigs, cows, chickens, dogs, cats peeing, pooping all over the place, and I can't have an outhouse????????

Coming out here, thinking it was the Wild, Wild West, I looked at some property up in Iron/Washington counties north of St. George, just 20-40 acres where I planned to just have a cabin and nothing else.

Lo and behold, even in the Wild West I found out you need infrastructure as well!

So, no more weekend Mother Earth lifestyle!

That's why we moved. The city decided to add a sewer and pave the street. Half the people on the street sold.

[ElleTea]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

You know Des Moines. E33rd and Scott. 10 acres. Right at the edge of town. West of us was residential, east was farming. Had running water but preferred the water from the well. Tasted better. Hated the run to the outhouse in the winter. Hated that wasps liked to build nests in it in the summer. Smelled lovely as well. We moved it when I was about 9 and that was quite the experience.

I do not miss the outhouse. I do miss the lot size.

No idea where that area is, but that sounds awful.

To everyone else, Iowa does have indoor plumbing. It has for DECADES despite the stereotypes of it being all Hicksville I am pretty sure my mother at least has had indoor plumbing her whole life growing up in southeast Iowa. Not sure about my dad as he grew up on a farm in rural South Dakota, so I am guessing an outhouse may have been common there.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by ElleTea

No idea where that area is, but that sounds awful.

To everyone else, Iowa does have indoor plumbing. It has for DECADES despite the stereotypes of it being all Hicksville I am pretty sure my mother at least has had indoor plumbing her whole life growing up in southeast Iowa. Not sure about my dad as he grew up on a farm in rural South Dakota, so I am guessing an outhouse may have been common there.

Awful? No. Bothersome? Yes. We had indoor plumbing.

Keep in mind this was in the 1950's.

Don't be so paranoid about what others think of Iowa. If they are so uninformed about the state who cares?

[ElleTea]

I have literally had people ask me if we had indoor plumbing and electricity when they heard I was from Iowa. It very much carries a stigma, sadly!

[elkotronics]

Yee-haaw! Upstate NY Skype interview has been held. Now the Boss from there goes on VAC for two weeks, but, to add to the fairly immediate suspense, she tells me that she will "have HR contact me Monday or Tuesday" for "something." There must be some rule at that hospital that you can't tell a candidate in a 2nd interview that is a Skype interview what your intentions for actually hiring them are.

Oh, OK. I'll be waiting. The weird thing is that when I first heard about this opportunity, my wife and I looked at each other and said "Upstate NY?" Fuh-ged-aaabbboww-dit!!! The more I look the more I like. Cold country? Sure - but I found out today from Boss lady that Ogsdenburg area gets 4 seasons with January - February being bitter cold. March cold, cloudy snow being something that shouldn't freak you out. April it starts lightening up in the sky -with some snow. In May one can fiddle with flowers in their garden. June and July she said are sunny and warm and beautiful with 85° - ish temp.'s. August the same pretty much a continuance of June & July. September it starts getting cooler and in October the first snow falls (a flake here and there she says). November and December are freezing cold and we're back to January's very, very cold once again. I'll bet one should wrap their pipes from about mid-November through March there.

You can throw a kayak in the St.Lawrence River and in nearby Black Lake. You can drive 40 minutes south to the Adirondack Mountains and go hiking and for skiiers apparently there's plenty of skiiing. Outhouses? Naaww!!!! I doubt it.

I'm so glad I picked the Medical field for work after Boeing tossed me to the curb. Never too much of a dull moment.

Oh, your car? You can drive a small, white 5-speed stick FWD Kia Soul like mine, or, you can buy an AWD Subaru-ish type rig. She recommends an AWD vehicle. She drives a FWD rig and does fine. She did pop in there that hubby is there not only to fix her car's problems mechanically but also to take her to the hospital to work "if I need him to." Does that mean when it's all icy nasty out there? Funny, she doesn't answer me when I get picky with those issues. She said that your car's undercarriage will get eaten to death up here by the salty stuff they sprinkle on the ice and snow. She said "most people don't mess with it - they just trade in for new cars every so often because they don't know how to do the mechanical fixes themselves." Yeah, people do that everywhere.

I ran that by the other half - that people up there just trade up for new cars instead of dealing with damage from icy road melter - ya wanna guess her response?! A slow shaking of the head saying in a deep, gutteral tone "no."