The photo above shows a family friend (far left), me and my younger sister in our mother's lap, my father, and my brother.  But if you look closely, you'll see we're posing in front of...(wait for it)...our brand new outhouse.  My father was probably proud of the structure and chose the spot.  When explaining this photo to me, Mom added, "This is before all the [poop] started oozing out from behind the plywood...."

I don't remember the marital strife that seems to have been involved in (not) emptying out the composting toilet, but I do recall sitting inside for hours.  I wasn't constipated; I was reading.

More photos from the same time period illustrate our rustic farmhouse kitchen.  One of Mom's favorite stories from this time period takes place here, when a rat, dying from poison, entered the kitchen in search of water and drank out of my younger sister's potty chair.  And I was wondering why my parents didn't decide the farm life was fun....

More seriously, Mom mentions "One knife was handmade...made from a sawblade....  Errol looks tired...and sweaty...."  (If you're keeping track at home, that's my father and younger sister in the top photo and my brother in the second photo, in front of a metal bucket we used to heat up water on the stove.)

This is what I was doing while all that hard work was happening.  If I'd been a year or two older, I would have had a book in my hand, but I wouldn't have been any more helpful.