Tuesday, August 4, 2020

No 'Poo in the Time of Corona

Yes, that's right.  I made a bad reference to "Love in the Time of  Cholera."
I'm also covering showering off grid in the summer here.

The 'rona has forced me to buck up my ideas about a shower option at the wee shed.
I'd become gym dependent.   Now the gym is gross.

So, I tried many options, got a new camp-shower bag deal for 15$ because they won't be on sale until fall at the earliest and camp stuff was selling out willy-nilly.  The old camp shower served me for a few years, but had given up the ghost and leaked faster than I could shower.  Certainlky faster than it could heat water.  Black painted jars and other options didn't work out as well.   I ended up buying a new one.

Now I have 5 gallons of HOT water each evening after work and a few gallons of warm water in the alternate options I tried to used.
I found an insulated beverage dispenser at a thrift store, like the "igloo" ones you see on construction sites but smaller.   I fill that with HOT water when I get home.  It holds a gallon or a gallon and a half.  That goes on a step on the folding extension ladder I got at a yard sale a few years back, and an old bedspread is tied around the ladder toward the top to make a 3 sided semi-private (more so after the sun goes down since the highway is east of me...) open to the west, away from the road.  I put a rubber tub in there to stand in so I'm not stepping on thorns or wasps while I try to clean up.

The beverage dispenser holds the water hot enough for a shower until a bit after sundown so that's easier.  I live in a bit of a ravine.  By "sundown" I mean when the sun goes behind the hill, not actual sundown time.  

I can get a decent wash up using this system and a spray bottle which I fill from the warm water.  You don't stand there and meditate in the shower, but you know, you can get clean enough.  

I don't do hair in there because there isn't enough water.  I do sometimes use the water from the camp solar shower thingy.   On the weekend I pick a day and if I'm doing dishes on the rocket stove (more anon) I use the last couple gallons of hot water for the hair washing.   

A big bowl (thrift) is both the dish pan and the hair washing basin.  I rinse it out with the hose before switching to hair so I don't get cabbage bits and grease on my head.  

Fill it with warm or hot water, get the hair wet in there by sticking my head in it, and using a cup to move water over the parts I can't submerge.  Then, scrub the scalp with the baking soda slurry like usual.  Rinse.  Rinse with more warm water.  Rinse with the hose which is right by the shower AND the dishes station.  The hose water is cold but it's been hot weather and I finish with a cold rinse anyway so not a problem.   Then I do the vinegar rinse like always.  Rinse again.  Cold hose rinse.  Done.  It gets cleaner or better rinsed than when I try to do this in a regular house or gym shower stall. 

Takes 20minutes.  Wrap up in a towel and go.  Not really up for doing this first thing in the morning so I've had to let go of the idea of starting the day with totally clean hair.

I'm washing once every week or two since I keep the hair in a braid at all times and actually, 2 or 3 braids during the 'rona times.   It keeps the hair out of my face and keeps it from fighting with the mask.  

This was a boring post but there you go.

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