Pumping poop

Today I got our poop pump hooked up and pumped us out.  We had been draining our gray water out on the back lawn but of course when it got cold that stopped working.  And we’d been holding our black water for a really long time – ever since 16 West I guess.  We never actually backed the gray water up into the shower stall but we had to be getting close.  The black tank usually starts burping when it gets close and it hadn’t started that but it too had to be getting close.

I’m not sure what the code is for incoming poop lines on houses.  My guess is that the local bylaws never really anticipated that eventuality.  I decided poop on the bottom and water on the top was the safest way to avoid accidental contamination.  There was a convenient sweep Y into the main stack below the sink so I plumbed directly into that and it seemed to work well today.  There’s no trap in that line which may be outside code but the pipe terminates outside the hose and I have a plug in it so I think it’s safe enough.  I’ve got some nybraid hose that we have used for gray water drainage in the past but it is overkill for this job.  I’ll have to find some layflat discharge hose to carry with us because the nybraid is just too much of a pain to handle. 

It has been steadily warming up but it needs to.  Over here in the Ukrainian portion of Saskatchewan it looks like bloody winter.  The streets were just starting to clear yesterday and then we got another inch or so which turned them white again.  Today they more or less got back to where they were yesterday morning but it looks like the temperatures are heading in the right direction in the short term anyway.

We cleaned things up a bit around the yard today.  Marilyn got some raspberry plants when she was in Saskatoon.  They are in the ground now waiting for spring.  That’s about the only gardening I intend to do here.  We got the cube van running (with great difficulty) and I moved it up close to the garage for the winter.  I’ve got the battery charger on it now and tomorrow I’ll disconnect the batteries.  We’re pretty well ready to leave here whenever Gerry gets his shipping done.  I’d rather not travel when the highways are slushy because everything gets in such a mess so an extra day or two here won’t be all bad.