In fact, this one is fancy in that there is a male and a female. It is also painted. When I was a child, this one might have been thought elegant. Ha, ha. I know a lady who went to school and bragged that they had built a new privy at her house. I know of another person that was ecstatic that they had an outhouse built for kids so that they would not fall in. Small seat and all.
The way you make one of these is simple. One digs a hole in the ground, as deep as one likes, I guess. Then you build a small platform over it to prevent falling in. There should be a floor and of course walls for privacy. This particular one has a hole in the door as you can see. One sticks their finger in the hole and lifts a primitive latch, to open the door.
Back in the day, when Sears and Roebuck sent massive catalogues through the mail, the books were kept in the privy for toilet paper. There was once an odd country song which romanticized this vanishing piece of Americana. I don't recall the title but it went something like, "Please don't tear that dear old building down, for there's not another like it, in the country or the town".
I bear no love for these structures. No lighting, splinters, wasps, offensive smells and the occasional snake. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer. In truth, very little privacy, sound-wise. In fact, if there were mean little kids around and cracks in the boards, it could be aggravating, sight-wise as well.
On construction sites these days, they have a similar thing called a chemical toilet. If you have ever had the misfortune to visit one of these port-a-johns when the chemicals were too strong, you realize that one can get a serious chemical burn. I had this happen to me, once upon a time. Oh, it is not the end, but...
No, I consider indoor plumbing to be one of the greatest inventions of all time. Of course, even back in the wild west, if a creek or river was near, water could be piped in with sufficient head pressure to provide the rudiments of sanitation. But, in our area, many a home with well water just had an outhouse.
I heard someone talking just the other day about collecting rainwater. Used to, my grannie had a pipe from the gutter to a big wood barrel. She used the rainwater for washing her hair or giving future writers a bath, stuff like that. In some places it is now illegal to use rainwater for certain things. I guess that pollution has caused this rule. I find it strangely sad to hear about this sort of thing.
Sometimes I ponder on inventions like the Saturn Moon Rocket. I went down to Alabama, to Huntsville, to the space museum. (Many moons ago.) Where they have the space camp for youngsters? That rocket is huge! They had it laid out on the ground. On that lovely spring day I walked its length, my hand resting on it. Laying on its side, it was still over my head. To think we sent that darn thing to the moon! Then I think about inventions like the float in the back of your toilet, that shuts the water off as a ball float rises with in-flowing water. Things like this that have provided comfort and convenience to countless millions, to me, are superior as an invention to the more spectacular devices.
Think about the discovery of using the weight of water as head pressure. If you have a pond or lake which is, say, 30 feet above a house, that 'Head' is worth about 15 pounds of pressure. The actual figure is .433 pounds per foot of elevation. If you are in Africa or the jungles of Brazil or any remote place, what a blessing it is to supply water without a pump or electricity. Truly, a good engineer is worth his weight in gold.
So, this is my musings as I sit here today. Toilets and lakes, and doing what it takes, here at the author's green retreat.
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