This past weekend was a scorcher, with temps nearing 100 degrees each day.  But it was a 3-day weekend, and I had a to-do list a mile long.  I got up early and did as much as I could before the heat of the day, and then after the heat of the day, but it was still hot, and I sweated up a storm.  Here in Colorado, generally if you stay in the shade, even on a hot day and even when doing physical labor, it isn’t too bad.  But my work was in the sun, so I was getting toasted.

It reminded me of my days back in Missouri, helping my mom run her organic CSA farm, Sunny Days.  I spent many a hot July day in the 1/2 acre garden, picking tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, melons, and cabbages.  I dug potatoes, and wandered about the rest of the 7 acre property looking for suitable wildflowers to take home for my dining room table.  I pulled weeds and made bundles of fresh herbs and ran my hands over the basil and sage enough to make myself hungry.  It would be in the 90’s or close to 100, with humidity in the high steamy range.  It was hard work, and I took breaks when I could, but the truth is, even in the shade it was hot and I was just HOT.

But there was a wonderful thing awaiting me after the end of all my hot hard work on the farm.  In the shade of three threes, halfway hidden behind the old trailer that needed to be rehabbed, was an old cast-iron bathtub.  That tub was not perfect — it was missing its faucets and had a somewhat rough interior and rust spots on the outside.  But filled with well water in the morning when I arrived, by late afternoon it was at least tepid, sometimes even lukewarm.  I would strip in the sunshine, scoop leaves and the errant bug out of the water, and sink in to my neck.

Not the actual tub, but it looked like this.

Heaven.  On those hot days, it was the closest I could get to heaven.  The cool water would wrap around me, pulling the heat from my skin, giving me a catch in my breath for a few short seconds.  Every hot minute spent in the garden dodging randy grasshoppers, squinting my eyes against the sweat that rolled into them, getting dirty and sandy and salty, was quickly forgotten as I sat in that tub.

My mom said that she could be alone all day, no one to bother her, but the minute she got in the tub, here would come someone down the drive.  That only happened to me once, but it was always a risk.

Maybe someday, I’ll build an outdoor bathroom.  It will have a big cast-iron tub, and it will be surrounded by walls, but open to the sky.  Being a good Coloradan, I will heat water with a passive solar setup, and when I drain the tub, the grey water will go to water a tree or my garden.  After the hot outside work I did this past weekend, getting neck-deep in tepid water sounded awesome.  A cool shower did the trick, but it just wasn’t the same.

Ah, a bathtub in the woods.  Sometimes it’s the simple pleasures in life.

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