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Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2025 23:27:43 +0200 (CEST)
From: Boris Chen <borischenaz@mailfence.com>
Subject: Camping in Kentucky chapter 14 replacement

Chapter 14: Building the Outhouse.


The pace at Atlas Tire has been hectic. Our North American business was
somewhat seasonal with lots of open-pit mining downtime scheduled during
winter which was when we had the tightest shipping deadlines for the huge
tires used on those three story tall dump trucks. We were the biggest
supplier of replacement tires worldwide. We make replacement tires for
Komatsu, Caterpillar, Belaz, Terex, and Hitachi mining dump trucks, they
usually haul 400 ton loads. These trucks usually have six tires, the total
weight of the truck fully loaded is around 1.5million pounds, divided by
six tires is 250,000 pounds per tire, but the weight is not distributed
evenly on all six tires so it's more like 320,000 pounds per each rear
tire. Try that on your Chaoyang, China made tires and see what happens!

At work we hear that very few people in the USA know how many open pit
mines are operating in the USA (16) and Canada (17). You can see one of the
largest ones in the USA by searching online for Thunder Basin Coal Company.
They're one of our biggest US customers.

----

Our next trip down-home was on Friday, March 12th, a two-night stay. This
time we brought down several bags of mortar mix, more lumber (2x6, 2x4, and
half inch OSB sheets), two boxes of 3" nails, and many bags of readi-mix
concrete. The back end of his Tacoma was definitely squatted! Our goals
this time were to re-seal the cabin floor and build the septic tank which
would become the outhouse floor. Lee confessed to making two trips alone to
deliver more readi-mix concrete bags himself using the wheelbarrow so I'm
not sure exactly how many he has there now but whatever he didn't haul by
himself were still there for us to move. I do know that building a 1500
gallon tank is going to take a lot of cement and mortar too. He told me he
had more than enough cement blocks to build the tank walls.

Over a period of months I spent a lot of time convincing Lee to plan for
the future with the placement and size of the septic tank, I finally
convinced him. His original plan was to build it in the trees behind the
cabin, I convinced him to build it in the middle of the clearing instead,
which would be ideal for eventually building a house some day. The house
would sit near the granite wall on a naturally occurring flat terrace, the
highest piece of land in the valley.

If he built it in the trees the roots would eventually grow into the tank
and drainage field and plug it up, so in the clearing it would last a very
long time, possibly his entire adult life. So he changed his mind and
agreed to build it in the middle of the clearing.

I told him one day a decade from now he can always take apart the out-house
and make it disappear, or do like he did with the pee pipe and plant bushes
around it.

"But if we build it in the middle of the clearing then we can't drive over
it." To which I replied, "Yes, but that's true no matter where it sits, it
will always eventually get in the way, same thing with a water well."

You see one thing I never told Lee was based on what he said about his
uncle's life I suspect the old guy could have a rather large estate to
leave for Lee, but Lee had no clue if Uncle Dave was flat broke or filthy
rich. He said Dave will not discuss it, but only wealthy people say that,
and he's been a lifelong railroad employee so he probably has a big 401k
and an actual railroad union pension and an extra pension for being a
(unionized) railroad safety engineer for 20+ years. I suspect Dave could
easily have close to one mil in the bank, Lee thinks he might have fifty
bucks to his name. Uncle Dave also owns a home in Florida but Lee has never
seen it and told me it's a mobile home on a privately owned lot near
Jupiter Florida.

"His only vice as far as I know is smoking." Lee says he doesn't gamble or
drink or chase women around Florida, he watches old westerns on TV and
spends most of his day in a recliner struggling to breathe.

----

A rental backhoe was supposed to be delivered to Uncle David's driveway at
5:30am on Saturday, weather permitting. We had to be there to sign for
it. We'd drive the truck to his uncle's place and meet the delivery guy,
someone Lee said he knew since high school. I already paid for the backhoe
online. Lee already got two huge piles of used/flawed cement blocks
delivered to his uncle's front yard a month ago. He said he spent hours
busting off chunks of old mortar with a hammer and screwdriver. He also
told me he's operated a backhoe several times but it's been a few years
since the last time.

Lee told me his last attempt at getting a job in Kentucky was when he
applied at a cemetery building burial vaults and digging graves with a
backhoe. Their final evaluation was to let the three applicants use their
backhoe to dig a grave and the best one got the job, Lee's hole was not the
best of the three and he ended up looking for jobs in Dayton because
apartment rental prices were lower there than in Cincy.

We spent Friday night working on the to-do list for the cabin. We also
discussed dropping a few trees too. Lee had his chainsaw here this time
which made that job easier. I thought he might be pissed off that I built a
new fire pit without asking first but he liked the way it looked but kept a
`wait-n-see' attitude about if it even worked. He said he's never seen a
below-ground fire pit before in his life. I reminded him there was no
cement, it was made of rocks and mud only, not a permanent structure.

We eyeballed a location which we hoped to be the future home of a decent
sized solar panel array, something which would provide power for us all
year long and all night by battery. We dropped five smaller trees in that
area about two hundred feet straight north of the cabin along the gently
sloped north clearing in the valley. Then we cut down two in the lower
valley to give another hour of sunshine a day this spring for growing
vegetables.

Where we're building is a large open area with the granite wall forming the
west side. The clearing is sort of shaped like a `P.' The granite wall
forms the vertical left side, the rest is bordered by lots of hardwood
trees and pines.

The lower clearing (where the cabin sits) is a rectangle about 120 feet
across (east-west) and 200+ feet north-south. Then at the north end sits an
east-west rectangle of grassy field. It's about 100x200 feet in size. Both
fields are grass and weeds, he had no explanation for the lack of trees. We
plan to (someday) build the solar array near the top-center of the P and
his home eventually near the middle-left side of the P beside the granite
wall. The cabin sits low and on the right on the P. The rest of the
campsite (the part he built as a kid) would be like an 8 directly under the
P with all the old camp facility at the very top of the 8. The rifle range
runs along the entire left side of the 8. All the main trails go out from
the top half of the 8. That is one more thing I intend to change over time
because it appears the original campsite is slowly being abandoned.

The dirt trails were originally laid out by three young boys (Calvin Kline,
Billy Kline, and Lee Charters) on bicycles riding down hills, now it's time
to make them easier to walk on and as short as possible. For the sake of
accuracy, some of the trails were made by Uncle Dave's grandfather back in
the early 1900s when the valley was a small fishing pond and swimming hole,
it was also probably a good place to bring a girl friend, a picnic lunch, a
bottle of booze, and a blanket. Lee thinks he was conceived in the valley.

My first trail project will be to build a proper dirt driveway into the
valley from the street. The hard part will be convincing Lee it's a good
idea and it was actually his plan.

Lee said the west trail was 100% made by him and his friends on bicycles,
kind of like riding a bike down a ski resort hillside in the summer. That's
why it has the most turns and zigzags. He said the east trail is old, over
100 years old. The south trail and the two shooting ranges were built by
Uncle Dave. The terraces were made by Mother Nature but he built the rock
walls and steps, plus he built the stone borders around the creek pools
with the help of Uncle Dave.

Lee showed me one place in the rock retaining wall where he left a hand
print in the fresh mortar, but it's a little child's hand print! So that
means that Uncle Dave bought him bags of mortar. What an odd thing for a
man to buy his seven year old son: two buckets, two shovels, three bags of
mortar, merry Christmas son! Lee said he learned how to mix and use mortar
by trial and error using rocks and a child's (beach toy) plastic bucket and
shovel.

Lee said Charter's Creek was hand-dug by the CCC in the 1930s. He said
there was a camp somewhere in the area which was closed during WW2. He told
me he saw remnants of an old stone wall along the edges of both ponds south
of their property back when he was a little kid but eventually winter ice
destroyed them. He said one of the CCC kids was shot for getting too close
to the bootleg still operation nearby but two months later Prohibition was
repealed, and the kid survived the gunshot. Eventually a group of local men
came in and busted up the moonshine operation and chased out all the
unemployed men living at the site.

I asked how he knew all that and he said lots of the local old guys still
talk about it. Lee explained that any local old farts I see with white hair
were probably involved in the moonshine operation during prohibition.

----

Last month Lee built a shelf for the mattress so it wasn't on the cold-hard
cabin floor. He said it took six, eight foot long 2x4's and a sheet of
wafer board, then he shoved the futon mattress up onto it. This arrangement
gave us almost thirty inches above the center of the mattress for head
room, which was plenty. He also built a ladder off to one side and added a
railing and storage shelving too.

One of the roof trusses sits directly above the mattress, on either side
there's lots of overhead room, so we may end up padding the truss so we
don't hit our heads hard on the bottom of it! What a way to start the day!

Lee said he might buy a used sofa to go under the loft.

----

That night we gave each other sponge baths with those un-scented wipes you
can get now that used to be just for babies but were made for grown-ups
too. We didn't do anything romantic Friday night except to snuggle like
spoons in the loft. It's just something I find very pleasurable when I
cuddle into him. I love to feel his big chest, shoulders and his arms
around me, especially when we're all warm beneath our covers with our heads
on the cold pillows. Sometimes I just like being held by a big strong man
like Lee.

----

Saturday morning it was cold outside but there was no snow on the ground. I
think he said it was 36 degrees, luckily there was no wind either. With our
headband lights on we hiked to the truck in the pre-dawn darkness. I
noticed I've been able to just watch the edge of my vision for rocks in the
trail now, I don't have to look down to see them. You sort of feel them
approach, even in the dark.

What I discovered was after a while you instinctively feel the rock
locations, they're hard to get out of your brain even after they're pulled
from the trail. I hope we can remove the last of the big ones today. There
will be a few small ones that are mostly flat on the west trail when we're
done.

----

We drove to his uncle's house,parked along the street, and blasted the
truck's heater. We sat there in the dark and waited for him to arrive. The
guy with the rented backhoe on a trailer showed up as promised. He drove a
small dump truck pulling the backhoe on a trailer and backed it onto Uncle
Dave's driveway. The owner un-chained it and backed it off the trailer and
we both inspected it. Lee signed and drove it across the yard and set the
bucket down on the grass beside a big pile of used blocks. While he did
that I confirmed with the driver for a 3:00pm pick-up time (I was being
charged by the hour), it would be there in the yard with the keys in the
ignition for him to load and go. He left the trailer in the driveway and
drove away in his dump truck.

We started to carefully load blocks into the bucket on front. It quickly
became clear that we'll need another trip to transport all ninety
blocks. He drove across the yard, around Dave's house, toward the east
heading away from the road at an angle. We filled the rear bucket with
hundreds of pieces of broken blocks which we needed to fill in the trench,
I'll explain that later.

With both buckets fully loaded we followed what looked like a seldom-used
trail. I caught a glimpse of Charter's Creek way over to our left. We drove
slowly, bouncing, cold as hell on the backhoe. I stood on the axle next to
Lee who piloted and concentrated with all his ability since the lights on
this backhoe were poor at best. After about ten minutes we turned to the
right which was when everything suddenly looked familiar. The sky had
started to turn a deep blue to the east with the approach of the sun.

The open-grassy area between the bottom end of the east trail and the side
of the creek pools had an eerie silvery light to it that came from the deep
blue sky above us. This open area was about eighty feet long, from the
bottom of the trail to the side of the ponds, and it opens to about forty
feet wide along the creek. If you were blindfolded and kept going east on
the east trail you'd trip on the rocks and fall face first into the middle
pool, which was the deepest one, maybe two or three feet at most.

You know it's kind of funny but the creek is like an impassable barrier to
us. On the other side of the creek the terrain and trees are very different
looking, it's like another planet on the east side, it looks darker too. I
thought what we needed to do was build some kind of foot bridge over the
creek. For most of this area the creek is maybe two feet wide and six
inches deep. You can jump across it easily.

My best estimate of the flow of Charter's Creek is about 2-3 gallons a
minute during the dry season. I've not been there during a rainy season
(July-Oct) yet. Rainy season coincides with hurricane season on the Gulf.

We drove past the places where we took creek-water bucket showers then
started up the trail, over the crest and down the other side we tried to
drive astride the trail and not on it. Lee was worried about the big tires
uncovering more rocks in the ground.



Eventually we arrived in the valley. Lee gently dumped the load of blocks
(and the scrap bits too) then drove to about sixty feet northwest of the
cabin and set down the outrigger legs. He turned the seat over and started
to dig the pit for the septic tank, even with the backhoe it took over half
an hour. Lee looked a little rusty in his backhoe technique, but he stayed
within the lines he spray painted on the grass weeks ago.

He dug a pit over six feet deep and seven feet on each side with neat
vertical walls, almost like for a grave except ours was square and over
twice as wide. The tree roots weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. After
my suggestion he also dug a trench for an evaporation bed south of the
tank, it only added about ten minutes time. He also moved the backhoe
around to the north side and dug a short trench for the inlet pipe.

We were down to a little over half a tank of fuel in the backhoe by now.



While he dug the trench I sat on the blocks with a hammer to clean off any
remaining bits of old mortar. Most of them had signs of paint on the big
flat sides. Some were new but had corners busted off. I also noticed they
included a bunch of small chunks of blocks we could use in place of
rocks. By the time the digging was done the sun was up and the air had
warmed, I unzipped my jacket.

Looking around I saw Lee had about twenty bags of gravel mix concrete and
five bags of mortar mix already down here stacked on a used pallet.

Next, we drove toward the creek and picked up all the rocks we previously
dug out of the east trail. And then we drove up to the parking spot and
hand loaded the rest of the rocks, mortar mix and concrete bags and the
rest of the boulders we collected over the fall and winter. He used the
bucket to first scoop up all our extra rocks from the pile we'd made, most
were bigger than a football, a few the size of a pumpkin. We dumped the
biggest ones in the bottom of the pit and used the back hoe to pound them
down in the dirt. This was the foundation for the septic tank. It took us
about forty five minutes and three trips back and forth to move all those
rocks. I worked my ass off and my back got rather sore.

Then we drove to his uncle's house and loaded the rest of the blocks into
both buckets, filling them again. We loaded the final ten bags of concrete
mix on the hood and fenders of the backhoe from the back of Lee's truck. We
drove those back to the site and dumped them near the pit.

Another important trip was to drive the west path and use the backhoe to
break loose some of our most hated rocks we already marked. We also used
the machine to drag the trees we just cut down so they wouldn't be in our
way this spring, like the one that fell across the spot our garden will be
in a couple months from now.

And on the way back to Uncle's house we paused briefly along the creek, Lee
wanted to move a few of the big rocks that surrounded the three water
pools. He also dropped the bucket into the leach pool and took two big
scoops from the bottom and dumped it on the far side of the creek. I think
it was an act of revenge to any leeches still inhabiting that little body
of ice cold water. The stuff he dug out of the bottom of the Leach Pool was
mostly sand and some underwater weeds.

Finally, we returned the backhoe to his uncle's front yard and parked it
beside the trailer, we drove his truck back to our spot. The backhoe had
less than one gallon left in the fuel tank. We casually walked back to the
cabin with more of the stuff from his truck.

----

I got something to say about the Southeastern USA that most people are
unaware of.

Trees is big business here. If you live in the Southeast (Louisana, Texas,
Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama) and
there's a series of tornadoes... Let's say you have a house on ten acres
outside Birmingham and your front yard tree gets blown down by an F-1
tornado. Often, before the insurance company comes by some guy with a
clipboard will show up and look at your downed trees and offer you cash on
the spot for it, as-is. If you sign the form they'll be there within 48
hours, five guys with large trucks, a crane, and chain saws. They cut the
tree into sections and load the pieces on trucks and haul them away, then
they'll cut up the limbs and in two hours the only thing left from your
trees is the saw dust.

Why does that happen? Because there are several large wood product
companies near the gulf coast that need those trees to make wood pellets
for the enormous wood pellet business. They're used for heating homes and
smoking meats. In fact there is a huge power plant in England near
Liverpool where they generate power for a huge part of northwestern England
from American wood pellets, they import from Alabama by the ship load. I
think I read somewhere that Canada is also a big exporter of hardwood
pellets used by people who smoke meats at home.

So your dead tree will be powering microwave ovens and computers in England
less than a month after your tornado damage. Simply amazing!

----

Our next job was to build the big poop tank. With a couple trips to the
creek for un-filtered water we made batches of concrete in the wheel barrow
to build a slab on top of the largest rocks we already dumped in the pit
and pounded into the soft dirt.

First, we built a form out of 2x6 boards the size of the tank bottom and
filled in the gaps with sand and dirt then I started mixing bag after bag
of concrete mix and poured it into the form. We made kind of a bridge over
the pit with two ten-foot 2x6 boards so I could dump loads into the
center. After every third load Lee got down in the hole with a shovel and
spread it around and showed me the next place to dump concrete. It took two
hours to fill the form to make a 4-5 inch thick concrete slab, the floor of
a 1500 gallon tank. I think I used something like twenty two bags of
readimix.

When he had the concrete leveled off on top we stopped to let it harden for
a few hours until we could stand on it without leaving a boot print. While
it was curing we emptied the cabin floor and poured a full can of
poly-urethane varnish on top of the two previous layers then left the door
and windows open so it would dry quicker. After the floor was done we sat
on the pile of blocks and broke off bits of used mortar. Lee hopped down in
the hole and scratched his name (with a big screw driver) in the concrete
slab knowing it will be there probably for hundreds of years.

We had a nice conversation while we passed the time, Lee said again how
much he thought the new fire pit was beautiful and he was eager to try it
out. His reaction to it was much better than I thought it would get from
him.

We gave the new concrete slab three hours to set-up. He climbed down into
the pit to check hardness. When his boots no longer made a print in the
concrete we called it ready for part-two.

Like most of our construction jobs these days it started with a wheel
barrow trip to the creek for four buckets of water (20 gallons total). Lee
acquired these 5-gallon food-grade buckets with lids last month, they used
to hold bulk olive oil, the restaurant simply threw them away so he grabbed
the only ones they had standing around outside by the dumpster. He told me
he took them to the car wash with a bottle of Dawn dish detergent and a
wash cloth and cleaned them inside and out.

Each block got final inspected by me and I wet each one and stacked them up
all around the edge of the pit so he could easily grab them. We left the
bridge over the pit so I could place some blocks on it too. Once I made the
first load of mortar we got a rhythm going as Lee placed each block rather
quickly.

We pounded four 2x4s in the ground at each corner to run string across and
check it with a level, then we used the string to make sure the block walls
remained straight and level. He averaged about one block placed every
minute.

Once I had half of the blocks ready and was one load of mortar ahead of him
I sat near the edge and carefully hand placed large rocks between the sides
of the pit and his new block walls in anticipation of the next step.

About 11am I noticed Lee was getting sweaty so I asked him to take his
shirt off. He stood upright and smiled at me then reached down and pulled
it off and tossed it on the grass away from the pit. I rubbed my crotch as
I watched his show. He hasn't done a strip tease show for me yet but I keep
asking. I want him to strip slowly then standing in front of me I want him
to stroke himself to an orgasm and let it squirt on me, I think that would
be totally hot.

----

By noon he had the walls over half done. When he got to the level of the
inlet and outlet pipes I had to bust two blocks in half, then he mortared
two four inch PVC pipes through the wall at opposite ends of the tank. The
inlet pipe will be capped off for now. We're not putting mortar between all
the blocks at the ends to allow fluid to drain out into the soil, but the
bottom three rows are fully cemented to be water tight, above that the tank
is designed to leak fluids into the soil. Lee said it may never get that
full with just us using it. He said the pee pipe is a fraction the size of
the tank and it's been there for ten years and never had fluid standing in
the bottom.

On the outside of the tank we're placing large rocks and large chunks of
broken cement blocks to maintain a gap for fluid to drain and absorb into
the soil. That's the way these tanks were built going back hundreds of
years.

It took us almost four hours to build the tank walls. At 11:00am Lee asked
me if I needed to stop to eat but I told him I wanted to keep going since I
felt fine.

While he was placing the last two rows of blocks I got all the materials to
form the concrete lid of the tank, which was many 2x4 boards and two sheets
of 4x8 OSB (wafer board).

To support the weight of the wet cement I built five T-shaped supports out
of 2x4s. They stand on the floor of the tank and support the underside of
the concrete form (the OSB sheets). When the top concrete is dry one of us
will climb down inside the tank to remove the boards. The round hole we're
forming in the concrete tank lid is only 18 inches across so it will be a
tight fit for either of us to climb inside the tank tomorrow.

The hole in the top is for the toilet which is a just concrete ring, like
an 18 inch wide, 24 inch tall concrete pipe. Then we also add a two inch
pipe hole and a three inch pipe hole for a vent pipe. The two inch pipe
near the side is for a possible future urinal.

The lumber yard sells outhouse rings, which are pre-formed solid reinforced
concrete tubes, tapered smaller at the top. It works like the pee-pipe. You
set the ring on the boards and fill in cement around it. The ring has steel
reinforcing mesh sticking out around the bottom so it molds into your
cement floor and they become like one. Once the tank is finished you mount
a toilet seat and lid on top of the two foot tall concrete ring.

Once the concrete hardens you remove all the inside boards and hand them up
the tube to get them out of the tank. So one of us will have to squeeze
down the pipe inside the tank, which will be clean and dry inside since
it's brand new.

We are adding another pipe through the floor, this one is two inches and
will be there in case we decide to build some kind of urinal on the wall
inside the outhouse.

It took us another hour to get the form built on top of the tank walls then
we had to hustle to get the concrete mixed. So I used the wheel barrow to
mix 80 pound bags then we rolled it across the bridge and poured it on top
of the form. I worked as fast as I could (a race to finish while the sun
was up) and Lee managed the spreading. It was late in the afternoon by the
time we had a huge pile of empty bags and the lid of the tank was mostly
done. We had the three pipes placed, we had to add string to the tall pipe
to hold it vertical, and the cement toilet ring was placed before we
started mixing. But we got it done before the sun went down. That concrete
toilet ring was so heavy we had to build another T-brace to stand under the
ring so it didn't collapse the OSB sheets. I think there are like 6 or 7
T-boards inside the tank now because the lid of the tank is very heavy.

He had the OSB sheets pre-cut to fit inside the tank walls. And we laid a
sheet of plastic over the OSB to keep water from leaking out of the fresh
cement down inside the tank walls. Lee also inserted four scrap reinforcing
steel rods inside the lid for added strength because nobody wants to be in
an outhouse and have the floor collapse dumping you into 1500 gallons of
raw sewage!

The original floor of the tank was formed by 2x6 boards, we removed those
and used them to form the outside of the tank lid. The hard part was how to
hold them in place and also how to keep the concrete from running down
inside the block walls, so we used two layers of cardboard and plastic
sheeting to stop the concrete from running down inside the block walls. We
drove screws part-way into the 2x6 boards to hold them in place on top of
the block walls. It might take a pry bar to remove those boards when the
tank lid is finished.

By 5:45pm it was done, and I can honestly say we hustled to get it finished
by sundown. After we called it done we grabbed the tools and the
wheelbarrow and one bucket and walked over to the creek to clean the
equipment and take bucket showers. It wasn't as painfully cold as it was
last fall, but it was still ice cold and not a pleasant experience but we
were too nasty stinky to use wipes.

Once again we screwed up, it got dark outside while we were taking bucket
showers so we had to walk back to the cabin with no lights. We did bring
back ten gallons of raw creek water just in case.

I thought it might be a nice investment to install some solar LED spot
lights on trees along the east trail.

----

It had been a very long and challenging day. We opened a bottle of wine to
celebrate. I turned on the radio, we ate canned stuff after we decided not
to drive into Claryville for sandwiches. Lee showed me a basic outhouse
plan he found online.

We had the Boy Scout heater running on the floor which kept it super warm
inside the cabin. He opened the window when it got too warm, even on the
lowest setting.

We sat in our lawn chairs inside and had a party to celebrate the huge
accomplishment, he thanked me several times for renting the backhoe, I
think the final cost of that will end up being around $400 including
delivery and fuel, but it was worth every penny, plus we ripped five of the
largest rocks out of the west trail, but those rocks are still sticking out
of their holes on the trail since we had no time to remove them and fill-in
the holes. But we did grab some of them and placed them between the tank
walls and the sides of the pit.

After the dirt piles we made digging the pit and trench we now have enough
dirt to fill in all the trail holes.

Both of us were too tired and sore to do much so I asked him to climb up in
the loft and I got between his legs and blew him after spending almost half
an hour playing around with my own. I also got up on my knees and wanked
and came on his tummy.

After he came I reminded him I wanted him to do a strip tease for me, like
a dance to music, then while standing very close to me I wanted him to
stroke himself to an orgasm and maybe shoot his come all over me. He
thought it sounded weird but was willing to try. Lee reminded me he didn't
always shoot semen, sometimes it spurt out maybe several inches at most. He
admitted his semen shooting was mostly caused by being ultra horny. He said
he cannot make it happen, it seems to depend on some unknown factors. I
told him I heard it was usually emotionally related.

By the time we shut off the lights and got comfortable both of us were
still kind of amped-up so we crashed on the bed and talked for nearly two
more hours, the topic of our conversation was like an 'ask me anything.'

Lee told me about a speech he had to give in front of his English class in
freshman year of high school. He decided to write his report on the life of
Richard Starkey before he became famous. Like nobody in his school believed
his report was true, they thought he made it up that Ringo Star was born
Richard Starkey and from then on and to this day many kids called him
`Starkey.' He told me I may hear it someday when we're in town together. He
also said he vowed after that class to never speak in front of an audience
ever again.

I told him about when I broke my left arm. In 6th grade I was on the relay
race team. During our annual competition my shoelace snapped and my shoe
flew off, tripped me into another runner. We both hit the track, I broke my
arm.

Ever since that day I was called `Fracture.' I secretly thought it was a
cool name but acted like being mocked was really hurtful. Deep down inside
I liked it. Better `Fracture' than `penis breath!'

Our evening of stories went on until he fell asleep, I had my head on his
upper arm and one arm across his chest, he was like my own life size teddy
bear.

----

The next morning I helped Lee wiggle down inside the tank. As expected it
was a very tight fit. He had to raise his arms up over his head to make his
shoulders narrow enough. First, he sat on the top edge of the concrete
toilet pipe then I grabbed his arm pits and we lowered him to standing on
the floor of the tank. When he was standing in it the top of the toilet
ring was at his forehead! So he raised his arms and disappeared inside,
then I heard him start kicking the support boards I built. One by one they
rose out of the toilet ring and I took them and tossed `em on the
grass. Next, he had to hand peel the OSB sheets off the ceiling and
hand-break them into pieces and hand them up the pipe too.

He also removed all the plastic tarp, and lots of water soaked cardboard we
used to keep cement out of the blocks. I handed him a flashlight and he
inspected inside the tank and said it looked kind of neat inside. I joked
that if Russia dropped a nuke right now on Claryville he'd be the only
survivor! Then his arms came out of the tank, I took the flashlight and
helped him climb up and sit on top of the ring then turn and he was fully
back outside. Lee boasted that he will never set foot inside that area
again. Before we left he pissed down the hole to christen the tank. We
still needed lots more rocks to go around the outside wall of the tank so
it will be a long time until all these holes and trenches are filled-in and
covered by grass.

After all that we cleaned-up and put stuff away and closed up the cabin and
decided to drive back home.

----

In celebration of our huge accomplishment we stopped at Waffle House in
Cincy for breakfast. We also used their bathroom to re-wash our hands and
faces and brush our teeth, but we went one at a time. I ordered a two egg
omelet with hashbrowns and sausage links. Lee ordered two eggs scrambled
and two orders of bacon, cooked rare, not well. I ate his hashbrowns.

It was interesting to see the expression on his face as we sat at the booth
table eating. In this place he had to make eye contact, and he was all
smiles and almost seemed high with energy and happiness. I don't think I've
seen him this energetic before around strangers. We both had coffee but it
was regular diner grade coffee.

Back at home we fell into our routines, I rarely saw him at work as my
workload increased with different projects, mostly related to approving
suppliers of raw materials. I saw the overtime notices they posted in the
break room and saw that Lee worked 6-days a week for almost two months due
to open pit mine down-time over the winter/spring. He barely had time to
spend his earnings, but we stayed in contact via email.

----

Late in March Lee emailed me that he installed a very small RV type
crank-open screened window on the back wall just below the peak of the roof
for cross ventilation. We figured with the fans and shade from the trees
and an eventual layer of bead board insulation under the entire roof it
shouldn't be too bad next summer. He installed the little window on one of
his secret solo trips to LV with borrowed power tools. He also said he
finished filling most of the gap around the tank with rocks, and he
purchased a 100' roll of six inch drainage pipe for a leach bed, but now we
needed lots of rocks to fill-in all around that pipe too.

He emailed me plans for a basic square outhouse to build on top of the
tank, but the problem would be how to secure it to the tank so it didn't
blow over in the first thunderstorm. I suggested using glue but he said
he'd have to investigate gluing wood to concrete. He had no idea what would
work.

After reminding him I was a chemist and glues were sort of my business, so
he laughed and said he'd ask me for advice on what to use. Instead of that
I came up with an alternate idea and got him an afterhours appointment with
my boss (the chief chemist) to discuss adhesives.

I wasn't there the day it happened but the chief chemist recommended an
adhesive for wood to concrete and told him both needed to be clean and dry
for it to work. Then he left the office and came back with a half gallon
unmarked can and handed it to Lee and they laughed, Lee thanked him
profusely and he walked out of my department with about $300 worth of
specialty 3M industrial adhesive for free. When Lee stood to leave both men
shook hands but the chemist would not let go of his hand while he verbally
warned him to wear gloves and be damn sure he was totally ready to go
before he started applying it using a wide paint brush.

Lee told me the chemist reminded him three times, if he gets that adhesive
on his skin it will be there for the rest of his life! Wear long sleeves
and heavy rubber gloves. And have several old grocery store bags to put the
paint brush inside after he is done applying the adhesive. He also reminded
him it dries fast but that's okay, it still works fine after it looks
dry. He said at room temperature it might take a few days for it to cure
and once it's done he'll never be able to remove those boards again!

----

We continued to make trips together about once every three weeks to haul
supplies and stuff we got for the cabin. On one of his solo trips Lee glued
the insulation boards to the underside of the cabin roof. On another of our
trips I brought along another load of insulation boards for the underside
of the cabin roof, now it was 80% insulated and having a light blue ceiling
made the inside of the cabin a lot brighter. We planned on doing the walls
with the same stuff after the ceiling was done.

We also brought down (over several trips) the lumber to build an
outhouse. But before then he found another scrap toilet seat and modified
it to fit on top of the concrete ring and not slide off while you were
sitting on it. He said he's shit in the tank a few times now but it's
really no different from the pee pipe, except the new tank has absolutely
no privacy, it's like sitting on a toilet in the middle of a Walmart
parking lot.

----

Even after some heavy spring storms Lee reported our septic tank didn't
fill with rain water like I suspected it might. The terraced ground never
eroded and the big trees around it soaked up most of the free
rainwater. When someone tore down an old farm house north west of Dayton
near Clayton he collected enough scrap lumber to build several
projects. Those boards sat in pile near his parking spot.

----

Early in April we made an overnight trip to the valley. When we got to the
cabin I saw he already had a toilet seat and lid mounted to the top of that
concrete ring. Functionally, it's the same as the pee pipe except I think
the tank will smell worse eventually, and after we built an outhouse on top
of the tank that will concentrate the odor.

He showed me how the new outlet pipe ran down the middle of the trench and
we needed to take some time to gather rocks to go all around that flexible
pipe before he could fill it in, so we had an open trench to be aware of. I
saw the new fire pit had been used a few times but he never mentioned how
it worked.

The tank and the inlet pipe trench were now properly buried and gone from
sight. All it looked like now was a gray cement pipe with a toilet seat on
top in the middle of a grassy field, but the drainage trench was still wide
open and in need of a lot of rocks. But he had the first 20 feet already
buried.

Lee explained to me how he planned on buying a short piece of plastic pipe
and cut off one side to make something like a small urinal on the wall
inside the outhouse. And he was going to mount it at dick height for me
once he had the building done. He showed me the pile of lumber, but it was
mostly 2x4s and three sheets of OSB, he wants to add a window up high on
one wall for light. Basically, it's the same building as the cabin but
without the 4x4 posts, since this will be glued to the top of the tank.

Lee showed me how he had almost all the stuff except he needed two more OSB
sheets and one package of shingles, so I decided to be the hero and
suggested we could drive to Home Depot in Alexandria for lumber. Of course
he couldn't resist the offer and we walked back to the truck and drove to
town. I also purchased him a nice Bosch cordless drill and a set of bits
and an extra battery pack, which cost another $190.

----

We also decided to build a sturdy new picnic table a priority project for
this spring. We both worked on the plans to eliminate most of the wobble
and keep it as strong as possible. The thought crossed my mind that part of
his reason for making it strong might have to do with a desire to fuck
someone on top of it someday.



There were several things in my garage I also wanted to donate, most
haven't been used in years, one is a large square charcoal grille on a
wheeled stand -- four legs and a vented top. He said he'd gladly take it
but I told him he'd need to drive over to pick it up, he agreed.

We drove back to the valley and carried all the new OSB boards down to the
site and left the rest of it in the truck, along with his new cordless
drill because we had no way to charge it in the valley.

While we were hiking down to the valley he told me his uncle should be home
in three weeks, he usually mails a postcard with his expected arrival
date. He usually flies to Cincy then takes a medical transport van home so
they can hook up his oxygen concentrator and make sure it's working. It's a
machine on wheels that draws-in room air and increases the amount of
oxygen, but he is totally dependent on that machine. If the power goes out
or he has to leave the house he also has small oxygen tanks to wear with a
nasal cannula, but he usually sleeps with a C-PAP machine nightly
regardless. And he can only sleep in his recliner now. Lee said some day
soon he'll only be able to breathe with the C-PAP machine, he said it feels
like standing outside in a hurricane.

While we were standing on top of the tank looking at the toilet seat on the
concrete ring Lee quietly told me he never could have got this done without
my help, he rested his arm on my shoulder and pulled me into his side like
a brotherly hug. He pressed his face into the hair above my ear and kissed
me several times, which felt very nice.

We lit a fire in the new fire pit and sat outside in chairs and enjoyed the
warmth. He said he liked this new pit more than the old one because you can
now watch the glowing embers at the bottom of the fire, I kept my mouth
shut, but agreed completely with his comments. With the new pit we could
roast marshmallows but you couldn't do that without burning them on the old
fire pit.

About an hour later it started to sprinkle rain so we went inside, I opened
a bottle of wine and poured us two Dixie cups and we sat on our lawn chairs
and sipped red wine and I could easily see the effect alcohol had on his
mood, as his smile got broader and he laughed louder and became more
animated. We had a radio turned on to a country music FM-station from
Covington Kentucky. They played one old song I really liked: Dock of the
Bay by Otis Redding.

Then to my surprise Lee suddenly slapped his hands down on his thighs,
looked at me and said he wanted to fuck, I laughed and told him we're
wasting time talking about it, which made him laugh loudly.

We took off our clothes, he grabbed two packets of lube and lubed himself,
which was already hard and pointing at the ceiling.

After I pulled off my underwear I turned to look at Lee. He was standing
there naked looking down at his boner, with one hand slowly sliding up and
down his well lubricated seven inch rod, like he was sharpening his
sword. He looked like he was in a trance, deeply in love with his dick and
mesmerized by the pleasure and visual appeal. Man's best friend indeed!

He turned me around to face the wall and told me to spread my legs and hold
onto the wall. I think it took him two minutes to inch his way inside me
then he started leaning against me and fucked me standing up.

I think he lasted about four minutes then started to moan his telltale
warning sound that he was close. Then he suddenly pulled out and backed
away from me.

I turned around and watched him standing there naked, hands on his hips,
with his dick pulsing in front of his belly then semen started to drip out
of the tip, then a second later semen shot out up into the air. He thrust
upward with his hips and another string of semen came out and splashed down
on the floor but some of it hit my knee and lower leg, then another one
followed that as he thrust his hips upward again. After the third shot he
stood there with fluid dripping off the head of his boner and Lee finally
looked up at me and smiled, I told him people would pay to see a show like
that, but he looked like it was nothing important. I told him it was a
thing of beauty.

"How old were you the first time you did that?" I asked. Lee stood there
dripping while he tried to recall then said maybe age 15, but it's bigger
now than back then.

I wished I could have video recorded that, a hands-free orgasm. He told me
his previous orgasm was like three days ago.

He stayed in that spot briefly while I stroked myself and eventually came
on the floor too. After I was done he walked up to me and we held each
other for a few minutes, both of us were standing in semen. Then we started
kissing.

He pulled his mouth off mine but our lips still barely touched and he
whispered "I love you Jimmy." Before I could whisper it back his tongue was
back inside my mouth.

I got out several feet of paper towels and wiped up the floor and the
bottoms of our feet, then we climbed up into the loft and turned off the
light and went to sleep. In the dark I told him I wanted to video him
coming like that so I could watch it at home and jerk off. He said he'd try
to make it happen.

----

The next day we spent five hours gathering rocks. We got five loads in the
wheel barrow and dumped them in the ditch, by now half of that flexible
drainage pipe was properly buried. He actually saved all the bags that all
that readi-mix concrete came in and spread them out over the rocks before
he covered the top of the ditch with dirt. We also used three loads of dirt
to fill in holes on the east trail. As of today we considered the east
trail finished for the rest of this year. We also used the shovel and
pickaxe to remove all the boulders we loosened with the backhoe and
filled-in those holes too. I think we were down to something like three
rocks in the west trail and they're barely sticking out of the dirt.

The problem with rocks in the trail is if you step on them exactly right it
can make you fall and possibly dislocate your ankle or break a bone. But
out here if you were alone you'd have to crawl 1000 feet (like three
football fields) on the ground then get in your vehicle and drive a few
miles into town for help.

While we were working on the west trail I asked Lee, "You know, if we cut
down like six pine trees up by where you park you could probably drive your
truck down into the valley over the west trail, it's nearly wide enough
isn't it?

He said no but it was close. There were some zig zags in the trail where it
curved to miss some big old trees, we'd have to cut them down and remove
the stumps too. Then I asked him about extending Uncle Dave's driveway all
the way back here. That made him stop and think, he said he never
considered it before. I told him we should mark the best route and over the
years start cutting down trees along that route, eventually it will be
cleared and he can then park in the valley and no more hiking half a mile
over a hill.

He asked me how that would work and I suggested first cutting the trees
then rent a big Caterpillar bulldozer and an operator, one afternoon and he
could clear a path through the woods. He said he cannot afford that so I
reminded him that I can. I saw the look on his face that it really got him
thinking. Now I had to let him stew on the idea and let him mark a
route. It wouldn't be a straight line but a gradual curve. I even suggested
once a driveway was in he might be able to have electrical lines run back
here too and possibly even natural gas and a telephone line. They might be
able to deliver a mobile home into the valley too!

Lee said: "Imagine a four man crew. Two guys with chain saws, one guy on a
full size backhoe, and one guy on a CAT D8 Crawler bulldozer. They could
clear a 12-foot wide dirt path back here in one day. Then I could tow a
camper back here to live in some day and we could park here too."

----

We ate re-hydrated spaghetti that night, and shared another bottle of
wine. Lee seemed to be in a very good mood. I got up the nerve to ask him
to do something for me, I asked him to jerk off so I could record it with
my tablet computer.

I expected him to come up with some excuse why he couldn't but instead he
took off his clothes and stood about a foot from my feet while I sat in a
lawn chair and aimed the tablet computer camera as he closed his eyes and
stroked himself to a rather quick orgasm, maybe three minutes. That one I
got recorded, afterward we both watched the video then I wanked and came
while he watched me.

Mine spurt several inches and the rest dripped for half a minute. When I
was done he bent over and took my dick in his mouth to lick it clean, then
we kissed briefly.

After I came he got on his knees and sucked my dick for a while. As he did
that I caressed his head and shoulders because I get this overwhelming
sense of affection for anyone sucking my dick, I can't help it.

A couple times I pulled his face off my dick and deep tongue kissed him
then let him go back to blowing me.

----

In bed that evening he told me his uncle was coming home in three weeks and
once he was back Lee would spend time almost every Sunday helping him
around the house. But he assured me it was impossible for David to come
back here. I don't think he understands my fear of that happening, but my
fear is mostly for what would happen to him, not to me. I think his
inheritance might be in jeopardy is his uncle came back here and watched us
fuck from a distance.

During the summer he'd mow the grass and help him clean house and make sure
he had enough to eat and his oxygen supply was okay, that the home health
nurse was showing up every day.

----

By late-May Lee finished the outhouse (except the door latch), it was just
a shack (four feet wide, each wall) with a wide door, drop your drawers,
shut the door, turn around and sit down. The roof and walls were rainproof
but allowed gas to escape. We actually kept it pretty clean. Lee said it
was large for an outhouse and thought about adding a small sink too. He
said we could hang a sun shower above the sink.

Lee designed and built a crude urinal for us to experiment with. He had a
pipe screwed to the wall. He took a scrap piece of plastic pipe, six inches
in diameter (18 inches long) and used a hack saw to cut one side off
it. Then he glued an adapter to one end and added a downward pipe to extend
down to the two-inch drain pipe that went through the floor. He capped the
other end of the six inch pipe then screwed it to the wall. So you walked
up to it, unzipped and pulled your pecker out and peed in the trough and it
ran down into the adapter and down the skinny pipe into the tank below your
feet. It worked just like a rain gutter. There was a ten second time delay
between when you started pissing and when you heard it hit the bottom of
the tank.

I asked Lee what he meant when he said he cut one side off the 6"
pipe. "Look at the end of a plastic pipe, it's shaped like the letter O,
but cut part of the side off and it looks like the letter C, that's what he
did. The open side faces up and out to pee into.

Lee added window insulation under the toilet seat and lid so it formed a
more air-tight seal when the lid was down. He added a small window on the
south wall up high on the wall, just a single pane of glass to let in some
light. There was a three inch plastic vent pipe behind the outhouse, it
allowed sewer gas to escape outside instead of into the outhouse. He glued
two elbow pipes on top of the vent pipe so the opening faced down. After
the elbow he clamped window screen across the opening to keep bees out.

His next project was building a picnic table according to a kit I purchased
from Lowe's. It was all made of 2x6 boards, it was my gift ($138). Most of
the boards were pre-cut. We built the kind of table with attached
benches. We may end up adding backrests on both benches eventually but
we'll test it on one side first. We did not get a kit that used treated
lumber, but we did buy the steel brackets to make it stronger, plus it was
assembled with deck screws, not nails. Lee purchased stain and sealer since
it will live outside in the weather for years to come.

I went to T-Mobile and purchased a cheap 3G hotspot. We hung it from a nail
in a tree at the peak of the east trail and could sometimes get marginal
internet service, but it was unreliable. It took almost thirty seconds to
send a simple two-sentence email. Even this was better than cellular, there
was no cell coverage anywhere near LV. I told him we should hang the 3G
hotspot way up in a tree so it got better signals from the tower in town
and hang a solar panel near it to charge the battery all day. I want to try
to someday mount a small solar panel way up in a tree and hang a pulley too
so we can hoist the hotspot up into the tree to improve the signal from the
tower in town. There are many places out here in rural Kentucky with no
cell coverage.

For Father's Day I bought Lee a battery powered Bosch circular saw like the
one he borrows from someone at work, it uses the same battery packs as his
Bosch cordless drill. At first he said he wasn't a father, so I reminded
him he wasn't dead yet.

----

Atlas Custom Tire closed each year for the first half of July for annual
maintenance. We both signed up to take the time off and not use our
PTO. The lab where I worked would be shut down for replacement of our air
conditioning stuff on the roof and the installation of a new ozone/UV light
testing chamber. They needed to shut off the power and water for two days
for those jobs. And part of one wall needs to be torn down because the
ozone chamber is too wide and tall to fit through the doors.

Back in May I went to Mom's on Memorial Day for our annual Zimmer Family
cook out. Lee spent the long weekend at his uncle's doing home maintenance
and repair tasks. He slept in his old childhood bed instead of in the
cabin, Lee texted me that he got us two old wooden ladders and two more
lawn chairs at a yard sale in Alex.

----

Back in June we made two trips to the valley. The weather was wonderful,
the increased altitude meant it didn't get as hot as they forecasted in
Cincinnati, but we got a brief severe thunderstorm. It always bothered me
being in a tent in a thunderstorm, but now that we have the cabin I felt
safer in almost any weather, except maybe not freezing rain. Lee said he
didn't remember ever getting a blizzard in this part of Kentucky but it
wasn't impossible. He also told me he got all the boards stained and sealed
for the picnic table, its ready to screw together.

After a discussion about our plans we decided to look into a one inch
diameter water well, he said he would ask around if anyone could put one in
for us, he'd post a note on the factory employee bulletin board. They were
usually installed with a drilling machine you operated by hand, sort of
like a lawnmower engine with bicycle handle bars. The well pipe tip was
also the drill bit. The machine screwed the casing into the ground then you
removed the engine and add another section of well pipe until (in case) you
hit water or quit trying in that spot and tried to unscrew the pipe from
the hole.

----

At work we mostly avoided each other. We sat at nearby lunch room tables
but never talked or acknowledged each other. Nobody there suspected us as
far as we knew. Even our mutual friend Luke never talked about Lee to me or
me to Lee.

My mom suspected I had a love thing going on. I'm sure my family thought I
was gay but we never had 'the talk.' I really didn't think it's any of
their f-ing business who I slept with and I didn't want to hear about their
private lives either. I hoped to see a time when being gay didn't need to
be discussed any more than owning a goldfish.

On June 21st Lee emailed me that he met someone with a one-inch well
drilling machine, they're about to agree on a price and a day to schedule
the job. I told him I would split the cost with him. I suggested maybe they
could do it over shutdown.

----

July 1st.

Annual factory shutdown arrived, we both signed-up (in April) to take those
two weeks off. Our plans were to spend a week in the cabin, followed by two
nights at my place, then back to our normal routines. I actually told him
after the two nights he could actually stay as long as he wanted, weeks or
even months would be fine.

Sunday.

Like always we made lists of stuff to do, bring, buy, etc. We decided to
fabricate some sort of shower as our first project. This trip I had Lee
drive his truck to my house to get the supplies I needed to bring down that
wouldn't fit in my car. Plus, I didn't want him to see the pile of stuff I
got for us so we didn't get into an argument in his parking lot.

He parked outside my garage door. The stuff I loaded into his truck:



1. Charcoal grille, (slightly used, with no rust) Webber 18 inch adjustable
cook surface.

2. Three #30 bags of charcoal and two cans of starter fluid.

3. Basic grille tools. Charcoal starter volcano.

4. Two sun shower bags.

5. Two grocery bags of canned food and some raw veggies. Can opener,
knives, metal camping dinner plates.

6. Two cases of red wine in bottles (Two Buck Chuck merlot). Cork puller.

7. Camp soap bottles (x2) and a plastic basin for washing things in. Five
bars of Kirk's organic soap, suitable for washing clothes, dishes, skin and
hair.

8. All of my used grocery store bags for trash or hauling things out of the
valley. Two 20-foot strings of 12v DC LED lighting for campsites and a nice
gel cell 12v battery with solar charge panel.

9. Bug spray, insect bite lotion, sun screen, bug repellant.

10. Simple garden tools.

11. Simple hand tools (pliers, wire cutter, pry bar, sharpening stone, 3 in
1 oil, slip pliers, locking pliers, carving knives, another hammer,
pencils, a solar calculator, compass, chalk line, 500ft kite string, grey
tape, and a 300w DC to AC inverter.

12. A bundle of cheap white washcloths.

13. A broom and dust pan.

14. One boy's mountain bicycle with a tire pump and tube patch kit.

15. Boxes of nails of different sizes.

16. Ten fly swatters and two packs of fly paper strips.

17. Two cheap hummingbird feeder stands.

18. Three hundred feet of red plastic rope.

19. Two cosmetic flawed ten foot gutter sections (for the cabin).

20. Two pulleys and two large carabineers for hanging the shower bags.

Lee laughed loudly when I rolled the bicycle to the back of his truck and
set in the back on top of the other stuff. I had no idea why he laughed,
but I'm sure he knew.

I got us two sun-showers at the sporting equipment store on-sale, six
dollars each. Each one held two gallons of water. If you've never seen one
before they're a heavy duty plastic bag with a short hose molded into the
bag and had a roller-pinch clamp and a small nozzle on the end. They had a
reinforced hole at the top to hang them in the sun, and had a reinforced
hole with a cap for adding water.

We backed down my rather long curved driveway, I directed him to the
highway because he didn't know his way around Kettering.

The location for the shower was our first discussion. Eventually, we both
agreed to shower down by the garden. If we located the shower near the
creek our waste water only benefited the weeds and could get soap in the
creek. But the garden nearly always needed more water so if we put it near
the garden, everyone benefited. And the soap we used for the shower won't
hurt the garden (or creatures in the creek).

Just north of the garden plot was a tree with a limb that grew out toward
the garden. I told him my idea was to tie a short rope around it to hold
the pulley. With a second length of rope we'd tie a carabineer to one end
(to hang the sun shower bags on), run that rope through the pulley, and
over to a nail pounded into the side of that tree, and a small loop tied
into the other end of that rope.

You brought the filled sun shower bags over and clamped them with the
carabineer, then pulled the rope to hoist the bags in the air and held them
in place by putting the rope loop over the nail. Easy breezy!

We realized this shower spot would eventually turn into a mud pie factory
but it was the best we could do right then. I suggested we could use one
bag of readi-mix and mold a shower base but Lee said it would probably
crack right away, then we decided to stop briefly at the home store in Alex
and get about ten small cheap gray patio blocks and build a simple base
then dig a small channel to direct the water toward the garden.

Basically how it worked was we filled the two bags each morning and let
them hang in the sun all day and used them each evening. Since each of us
only got two gallons we decided to only shower in pairs because four hands
gets you clean faster than two, and almost always caused a boner which made
your dick easier to clean.

We had a long plastic funnel for pouring water from the bucket into the
round hole near the top of the sun shower. It was a two man job.

The old way with creek water in a five gallon bucket got you a lot more
water but was brutally cold and always gave you an instant headache. These
sun showers would work just fine with half as much water. Lee said the
shower nozzles would eventually get plugged by stuff in the creek water but
we could rinse them out.

I suggested we should build a wood rack to fill the sun shower bags, and
get one of those five gallon buckets with a built-in valve, then set a
funnel in the filler hole with a large coffee filter in the funnel and let
the water slowly drip into the funnel. Maybe I should take them home one at
a time and run them through my dish washer to they don't get plugged up by
tiny plant debris and sand in the creek water.

----

Vacation.

We arrived at the parking spot by the pine trees at 3:10pm on Sunday, July
3rd with fried chicken we picked up in Alex when we stopped to buy ten
small patio blocks for ninety nine cents each.



Back in May Lee planted a small garden alongside the rifle range and hoped
the rabbits wouldn't get all of it. Lee got a 100' long roll of 24 inch
wide chicken wire fence to go around the garden which kept the rabbits out
but not the birds, mice, or snakes. (We learned later that if motivated
almost any rabbit can hop over a 24 inch fence) He planted some sweet corn,
onions, carrots, potatoes, and cucumbers. For this first year it was just
an experiment since neither of us had garden experience and the hours of
direct sunlight may not be enough for lots of veggies, especially corn and
watermelon.

Lee also planted three apple tree seeds and marked them with stakes so
we'll see this summer if they grew. The daily hours of sunlight would be
better this year since we dropped trees last February but it could still be
improved a lot more. Last winter Lee also cut down five trees on the north
slope and one near the septic tank leach field. So we're set for firewood
for the next two years with just those, maybe longer! He usually only cut
two trees a year.

I told Lee, "I think the one thing you planted that won't produce is sweet
corn because they need direct sunshine all day." He shrugged his shoulders
and said `We'll see."

Sunday night we played the radio and re-heated the chicken inside the
charcoal grill. Lee took the wheelbarrow to the river to fill the sun
shower bags while I tried to get the coals started. I wished we had burgers
or steaks to grill on our first night of vacation, but re-warmed fried
chicken was still better than ravioli from a can. When he came back he
said, `it takes two people to fill the bags from now on.'

I'd used a charcoal grille before but I've never used one to re-warm
food. I used about six briquettes and made a tiny fire, then it took about
twenty minutes until they all glowed. We heated a can of corn (in the can)
and the chicken at the same time with the lid shut. It took about another
fifteen minutes but it worked fine. It's amazing, the things you could do
without a microwave oven or electricity (or running water)!

I don't even have any memory of warming left-over food in the era before
the microwave oven. It's as if the moment you plugged-in your first
microwave all the brain cells that remembered how you re-heat leftovers
without one suddenly got erased!

After Lee got back from the creek I grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it off
over his head, tossed it aside so I could enjoy his beauty. While we ate he
said one of these days he was gonna pull off my pants while I made
dinner. I asked him if we could have one day this week when he was not
allowed to wear a shirt, he agreed if I agreed to jerk him off by hand
exactly like he'd show me. I accepted his terms and we both laughed at
ourselves but inside I felt neither of us was actually kidding.

I stopped talking about sex stuff to change the subject, my charcoal story:

"Kingsford charcoal was started by a close partner of Henry Ford, the guy's
name was Edward Kingsford. At the time he was trying to grow trees for Ford
because the Model-T contained a lot of wood, like every wheel had wood
spokes. Parts of the body were also wood, like the floor and parts of the
seats, and structural pieces inside the body. So Ford had a huge pile of
scrap wood and as a successful industrialist he avoided scrap as much as
possible so Kingsford bought the pile of scrap wood from Ford to make
charcoal, each new Ford owner got a free bag of charcoal too because it was
popular to drive out of town on Sunday for a BBQ somewhere.

That is where Kingsford came from: a huge pile of scrap wood outside the
Ford factory where they made hardwood spokes for Model-T wheels.

Lee was unimpressed by my story and thought I made the entire thing up, but
I insisted it was true.

Changing the topic of conversation back to sex, a few minutes later I told
him I'd like him to put on a strip show for me where he slowly took off his
clothes and jerked off and came while I watched. He laughed. I think it
made him uncomfortable, the thought of being a porn actor.

After dinner we walked back to the truck with the wheelbarrow to get more
of the stuff, like one case of wine, the bicycle, some of the twelve patio
blocks, and all the hand tools I got for us at a flea market in Dayton. On
the way back he rode the bike ahead of me with the rain gutters under one
arm. After we got part-way up the hill he decided to walk it the rest of
the way up because the seat was way too low. Even with all the big rocks
gone now the trail was still anything but flat and straight. He rolled down
the path just fine and got back to camp 15 minutes ahead of me!

I kept walking to the creek and put all twelve bottles underwater but saved
the box for storage use in the cabin. Once I got to the valley I emptied
the wheelbarrow and used it to haul the case of wine to the creek.

After all the evening work was done and the sky was dark we started a small
fire in the pit and sat side by side on our lawn chairs.

"Here, want some more?" I asked showing him the other wine I brought for
tonight that came in those reinforced cardboard bottles, those Tetra-Pak
container things. Lee reached for his empty Dixie cup and held it out so I
could pour more for him.

"We got a lot done today." He mumbled.

"Yep, it was a good day. I think this is gonna be a great week." I added
with my eyes focused on the small fire just beyond our toes.



We had a few minutes of silence, just the sounds of the valley and the
occasional snap and hiss of a burning log.

"You want me to play the radio?" I asked. But Lee just shook his head no
and said sometimes he liked to listen to nature instead. I agreed.

"Cool. Here, hit me." He said after he took the last sip from his cup. I
poured the glass higher this time and topped off mine then grabbed the next
wine cask. I like these 500ml plastic and paper bottles of wine I got at
the grocery store. While I poured his wine my eyes glanced at his chest
since I pulled off his shirt hours ago. I don't think he realized he was
still topless.

Lee told me a story about when he was a kid, if they got a big snow him and
the Kline brothers would come back here with plastic disc toboggans and
slide down the west trail and they'd have enough speed when they hit the
valley they'd fly all the way across the flat part and into the trees on
the far side, so you had to be ready to roll off it at any time, it was
great fun.

We sat in silence for a bit when my brain suddenly kicked-in. "OH! I
forgot. You gotta show me the way you want me to work your dick for Lee's
Dick Appreciation Day."

"Ahhh yes." He sort of chuckled at what we were about to do, he was going
to tutor me in great detail how to operate his boner. I suppose each man's
dick was wired differently and shaped different too.

We both stood at the same time, he pushed his pants to the ground and I
stepped between his feet as he sat back down and started to wake his up.

"You think I can do it from here?" I asked.

"No, over here on my right side, its nuthin' special really."

It took a few minutes before he was fully erect. I should have taken him in
my mouth but he seemed to want to bone it himself.

When he said he was ready I turned on my headband flashlight. Lee started
his short tutorial.

"If I had a marker I'd draw a line 'round where I'm talkin' 'bout, but it's
this area here."

He showed me as he drew an imaginary line with his fingertip around the
underside of his dick, the piss slit, and where it crossed the rim around
the helmet shaped head of his dick, a spot shaped like a cross. He showed
me if I 'gently grabbed his dick and moved my hand up and down across that
spot, it stimulated' (my word) 'the hell out of his dick and can make him
come really fast.' Then he added, "And after he started to come, don't move
your hand for a couple minutes." I liked how he referred to his dick as
'he.'

He said if I did it any other way I might as well just not try it at
all. He said the rim of his dick head was also extremely sensitive to
rubbing it gently is also a good technique, which was what I tried to do
with my lips when I put him in my mouth. My tongue against the piss slit
and my lips rubbing the rim of his head.

He dropped his dick, so I gently took hold.

"No wait, I ain't done." He said, so I let go of it, his boner hovered
above his lower belly, now fully awake.

"Gimme yer hand." He said, I rotated my wrist and set my hand, palm-up on
top of his boner. Lee gently took my hand and bent my wrist so we could
both see my palm.

"See this part?" He asked as he slid the tip of his finger across the first
row of knuckles on the palm side. "This part of your hand should go on that
area on the back of my dick." I nodded yes. "Understand?" He asked as he
moved my hand to beside his dick, then he tapped that spot on my palm and
the spot on the back side of his dick. I nodded yes again. Lee's never been
this specific about anything to me before.

We decided it can't be done correctly by hand when I'm between his legs,
I'd needed to be seated on his right side. When I first gripped him Lee
adjusted my hand to show me how he wanted my fingers to grip his boner. His
dick was too fat for me to close my fingers all the way around it. Not only
was he rather long but he was very thick too, and it got thicker the closer
you got to his balls.

With him in my grip I lightly stroked him. Lee leaned his head back with
his eyes closed then added that I could suck on his tit as long as it
didn't change my grip, but for now I didn't want to risk it. But as I got
started I turned my head and ran my tongue all the way across his right tit
then kissed it.

Now I got no problem with working someone's dick the way they liked but his
instructions also included my body, hand and arm positions, and my exact
grip too. Just about the time you think you've seen it all, along came an
even better way of doing something, even something as basic as wanking. Lee
had raised it to a precise methodology.



As the seconds ticked by Lee tightened his leg muscles and lowered his chin
to his chest. Then he clenched his jaw and started to get sweaty on his
forehead. It looked really odd because the expression on his face was like
he tried to dead lift the front end of a Volkswagen. Then he slid his hands
down and tightly gripped the edge of the lawn chair, his entire body became
rigid.

"FUCK!" Lee literally barked through tightly clenched teeth, as I gently
worked the end of his dick.

"Is this okay?" I softly asked him.

"Don't move!" he barked right back as if he was pissed off.

He slammed his heels back hard against the legs of his chair, I kept up my
stroke as he did his best not to move his hips. I'd only been at it for
maybe two minutes by now but the sweat had already trickled down the sides
of his face. Even his chest was shiny wet and I saw his nostrils flare as
he breathed deeply.

He squeezed his eyelids shut and started to tremble from head to
toe. Suddenly he became limp as a shot of semen flew from his dick, over
his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness behind the bench. That shot
was followed by another one that landed on his shoulder and across his
chest and third one on the side of his face. I released his dick (a little
later than instructed) as the rest of his semen oozed out onto his lower
stomach and filled his belly button to the brim.

While he sat their nearly immobilized under a broad layer of semen I dashed
to the cabin to get paper towels, and returned to gently clean off his
body. I leaned-in and licked off the string that ran from his left shoulder
across his tit and ended just below his chest mound. Lee remained silent,
he looked almost stunned.

"You did that almost perfect."

"Thanks. I think mine works exactly the same."

"Yeah, I remember," he offered as he slowly turned his head to look at me
with that 'freshly fucked' look of satisfaction on his sweaty face.

I leaned over, lifted his limp penis and licked semen off the very tip and
dropped it right away. He smiled at me when I did that.

"Question." I said as I gently placed my hand on his tummy. He looked me in
the eye. "Would it be better to let go of him the instant I saw semen come
out or would it be better to try to aim it?"

Lee laughed out loud which made me uncomfortable because I had no idea why
that was funny.

"Don't it make you feel sex was better if yer semen shot really far? I
don't think we can force that to happen, right?" He asked.

"Well to be honest, I'd guess it was involuntary." I replied.

"I guess keepin' it aimed would be better than jus' lettin' go." He looked
at me with a big smile and we both stopped talking for a bit and looked at
his stomach and his slowly shrinking dick.

"You know sumthin' Jimmy?" He said then took in a deep breath.

"No, what?"

"I really love you. You're the best thing that ever happened to me." Lee
said with an honest expression of contentment on his face.

"Same with me hon, I really love you too, thanks for being patient with my
nerdy ways and crap like that. I love you too." Then I reached up and
patted his dick as if it was a tiny dog, "I love you too!" I leaned forward
to talk at his dick then I kissed it.

After several seconds I helped him to his feet, he pulled his pants back
on. He used the shovel to spread the burning logs apart. We both pissed on
the fire, and then we went inside the cabin and shut the door.

As we got ready for bed Lee told me he'd tried to teach several guys how to
jerk him off but I was the first one to actually come close to doing it
right. I asked what I did wrong.

"Two things, as soon as you see the first drop of semen, stop moving yer
hand. And when I say stop movin' I mean stop. Second, you rotated your hand
a little. When it starts he's real sensitive for a few minutes."

He reached over and took my right hand, turned it palm-up and put a kiss
right on the ridge of my knuckles, the part of my hand that made him come.

Without asking I removed his clothes and gave him a bath with baby wipes
then he did me too. Next, he climbed into our loft bed and signaled me to
join him. It was warm inside but the battery powered fans helped. The
sounds of nature outside were loud, the crickets, bats, frogs, birds and
other insects chirping made a loud symphony that I loved to sleep to.

I was in front again tonight, his hand gently rested on my side as we fell
asleep. We slept that night until the alarm went off at 6am, the sun was
already up, and it was about eighty degrees outside.



Monday. Vacation day #2.



There were some flies outside this morning but not too many. We swatted
them as they landed. Snakes and frogs in the valley really kept their
numbers down plus we were serious about not having stuff outside that would
attract or feed them. Lee said they just don't get too many flying bugs
here.

He stapled an insect strip to the shovel handle after stomping one end in
the ground near our picnic table, which slowly started to collect
customers. It was kind of funny to watch the look on faces of flies after
they landed on the strip of glue and realized they were stuck, but
otherwise uninjured.

We did our morning routine of coffee, crackers and cheese for me and
oatmeal for him.

After breakfast I took the hand/arm-powered weed chopper tool and did two
trails myself, it took three hours to trim the weeds. Lee took all our
solar headband lights and set them out south of the garden to charge all
day. He also positioned the patio stones for our showers later today. It
looked like he weeded the garden too while I was gone. Late in the morning
we hiked down south to the pond to fish for dinner.

About 10am we walked down the south trail which merges with the east trail
along the creek then arrives at the fence which is cut open at the trail,
we kept walking for about ten minutes and arrived at the first pond (the
smaller one).

Lee had proper fishing gear down here now. He caught a crappie and two
perch, which were always good to eat. I preferred the flavor of the perch
but the crappie usually produce bigger fillets.

At the pond I asked Lee to take his shirt off, which he did but told me I'd
need to carry it. He sat there all edible and boyish with his fishing pole,
cap, jeans and boots. It took all my self-control to keep my hands to
myself. Lee was focused on catching our dinner.

While he was fishing I hiked around the pond. It was small and kind of
kidney bean shaped maybe 120 feet across at its widest, Lee said it was
maybe 15 feet deep in the center. I asked if he swam in it and he said yes
about ten years ago, but not since then.

After fishing Lee opened the packages of LED light strips that were
designed for camp sites, or like people with motorhomes. They came with a
solar charged battery pack, so he set the battery pack in the sun to charge
and strung the lights from the cabin to a nearby tree so it ran near the
fire pit. We had to wait until tonight to see our first electric lighting
in action.



We both got back to the cabin around 2:00pm but it was too early for supper
so he decided to take us on a short hike.

"Here, come'on down by the pistol range." He motioned for me to follow
him. We walked past the pee pipe and along the rifle range. About halfway
down the range we turned right going into the trees to the pistol range,
which was only about thirty feet long. He had a stack of defective tractor
tires (from Atlas) here to keep bullets from ricocheting off the granite
wall behind the stack of tires. He told me to bring down paper targets and
a roll of gray tape if I wanted to use it.

"Up there." He turned to look at me but his right hand pointed at the top
of the bare granite wall behind the stack of tires. "When I first started
to camp out here with Calvin, that's where we stayed. We named it Granite
Hill."

"Okay, that's cool." I replied.

"Let's go up there so you can see how large the granite shelf is." He
offered as we left the pistol range back toward the path that took us up
toward his truck. We headed up the trail toward the west but a little
before we got to his truck we turned left, heading south along the top edge
of the granite wall. We went south about a quarter mile then turned east,
toward the peak of the wall. I had no idea where we were but it looked like
we followed a path that hadn't been used in a long time. My inner compass
told me were making a big circle that started on the pistol range.

Our path went up-hill as we approached the top of the wall. I saw some huge
boulders scattered around. The trail wound around them as we got higher and
higher. Then we walked out onto an open area with a granite floor, partly
covered with sand and grasses. You could see part way down into the valley
below us. Lee said this was where he usually camped in grade school.

"Lookey here." He said and pointed down into the valley below us.

I walked over and stood near him.

"See that open area down there?" The small clearing looked familiar.

"That's the pistol range."

"Oh yeah, where's the big tires?" I replied.

"They're too close to see, sort of like lookin' down at yer feet but you
cain't see yer heels. This is where we played boner games when we was
kids." He motioned toward the rest of the large rock surface beneath our
feet that formed the top of the valley wall here. Then he mumbled, "It was
mostly me and Calvin back then. That was about twelve years ago now."

We were in an area about thirty feet by thirty feet of solid exposed smooth
purple rock, partly covered by sand and grasses, then gradually back into
pines. I thought to myself that this would be ideal, nice soft ground for a
tent, good view of the night sky, and you were very isolated up here too,
except for down there along the rifle range.

He called me back over and pointed a few spots where we could kind of see
far over the valley, he even showed me one spot where he said you could
barely see the peak of the east trail far in the distance. I told him all I
saw was branches and leaves. We stood side by side staring off toward the
north east.

"Can you see this rock ledge from the east trail?" I asked.

"Yep, purdy good when the leaves `er down. Not so much now." He answered.

In my mind I pictured two sixth grade boys in native warrior face paint,
naked, spears in hand (cut branches, whittled to a point with a Boy Scout
pocket knives then ground sharp on the granite floor).

"Help me get a sense of direction, point to the cabin, please." I asked
him.

Lee looked at the ground about seventy feet below us because the rifle
range was a straight line. Then he raised his arm and pointed way over to
my left, much further over than I would have guessed. "It's `bout 600 feet
that way, maybe closer."

"I thought we were further away than that."

"That's 'cause we get around on hard packed trails where we can walk faster
than back in here." Then Lee put his hand on my shoulder while we looked
around through the trees.

"Let's move away from the edge." I asked because the edge of this rock wall
started to bother me, I don't like being this close to the top of a sheer
rock wall. We turned to step away a little. Lee said it was like 60-70 feet
straight down to the pistol range.

The edge of the wall was rounded so there was no actual edge. It looked
like a nice place to go down by rope.

"Who else camped up here?"

"Usually just Cal 'n me."

"You guys fuck up here?" I asked.

Lee just smiled and looked like he wanted to say yes but just made weird
faces and made a big grin back at me. So I tried a different question.

"You ever have orgasms up here?"

Lee tilted his head and nodded yes.

I took a few minutes to wander around to look at the trees while Lee sat
down to relax on the warm granite floor.

Of course I wanted to know more so I asked if I could ask him something
very personal and he nodded yes. "Who was the first boy who handled your
wiener when you was a kid?"

He sat there staring off into space then mumbled, "Billy Kline." Then I
asked how old you were when he started and he thought about it and said he
wasn't sure but maybe 2nd or 3rd grade.

I asked what Billy did and he said he didn't remember exactly but it was
like we were wrestling on the ground then suddenly his hand was down my
pants, then he pulled my jeans off and blew me. "I think he pissed on both
of us a couple times while we were wrestling too."

So I asked him to explain and he reminded me back then... `Billy was a lot
bigger than me and Cal and when he got us pinned on the ground, sitting on
top of us sometimes he'd just suddenly piss his shorts then laugh and go
home with piss soaked clothes.'

I asked how it all got started and all he would say was he didn't know any
specifics but he thinks Billy was sexually abused for years by both his
parents, he slept in his parents bed until Cal was about 4-5 years
old. Both his parents were alcoholics. After a brief silence he said he
thinks their father raped Billy thousands of times over the years. He also
said that Billy probably got his mother pregnant more than once.

We changed the subject to science trivia when he started to appear to be
depressed.

I offered what little geology trivia I knew, "Granite is volcanic in
origin. There're three types of rocks on Earth: sedimentary, meteorites,
and volcanic. So this flowed from a crack in the earth, this rock is
probably millions of years old you know?" Lee just flashed a glance at me
and smiled as he stretched out on the granite to enjoy the warmth of the
sunshine.

After a few minutes I offered, "It's beautiful up here."

We had some quiet time while he relaxed on his back on the sun warmed
granite and I walked over to a boulder that was easily three feet across,
also made of granite.

The surface of this granite kind of crunched when you walked on it as tiny
flakes broke off. Those flakes would eventually break up and become
sand. But the dark stone was polished smooth by centuries of erosion. The
stone warmed up every day in the sun and felt kind of nice to relax on top
of it.

Lee asked me what day the well drilling guy is coming down and I said,
"...tomorrow morning 10am, I gave him directions to where you park their
truck, he uses a GPS too. We need to be there maybe a little before 10am."

Then I stepped back and said, "I'm getting' hungry." He got to his feet and
motioned for me to follow. This time we walked straight into the forest
where there was no path, I think we went straight west toward the forest
road but we had to circle around several pine trees. After about ten
minutes we broke out onto that grass and weed covered opening with the
familiar two tire ruts.

"There's things I wanna show ya." I silently followed after he spoke.

This time we crossed the FSR and kept going west, back in the trees about
fifty feet we came to an old wire fence on rusted old iron posts. In front
of us was a field of weeds with some trees in the distance.

"Whose land is that?" I asked.

"I don't know no more. It used to be all Burley tobacco, almost three
hundred acres. See, once you grow tobacco for that long, trees don't like
to grow except a few pines. Maybe another twenty years and this will be
hardwood trees like our land."

"Huh." Then Lee said that rain on that field is probably what ended up as
water in our creek, he thought underground water here flowed west to
east. When I asked why, he said that all the places along the creek where
you could see water bubbling out of the ground is always along the west
side.

We turned around and walked back on the FSR (forest service road, aka: fire
road). This time we hiked all the way north to the paved road. Standing at
the edge of the trees I saw an old faded steel sign on a pole that said,
"FOREST SERVICE ROAD 336." We turned left on Pleasant Ridge Road about
fifty feet then down into the weed filled ditch. Just ten feet from the
road was a large piece of old train rail used like a fence post. "This here
is the north-west corner of our land." Lee said with his hand on top of the
perfectly vertical thick iron train rail. Then he pointed south and said it
was about a mile to the south-west corner. I looked down the fence line but
couldn't see the next iron post.

Lee walked out onto the pavement and pointed down the street to the east
and said it was almost a mile that way to the north-east corner. He told me
he saw the exact measurements years ago but forgot the numbers. He said the
property was not square, it's longer north-south than east-west. He also
said each corner has the same train rail post for a property marker and
surveyor's mark.

"How old are those posts?" I asked.

"1800's sometime. The front ones are older because before the civil war
this entire valley used to be part of one huge tobacco plantation. I think
I read this property got cut out about 1870. It's been in my family ever
since." He offered with a tone of pride in his voice and said his great
great grandfather fought in the civil war for the Confederate Army. I told
him my ancestors did not arrive in the USA until like 20 years after the
civil war.

Wanting to hear his political roots and what he was taught in school I
asked him what the civil war was fought over and he immediately said,
`States rights.' Which meant if a state, like Mississippi wanted to keep
slavery legal after the amendments outlawing it did that state have the
right to continue with slavery, and Lee said it was up to the states, the
federal government has a very limited range of authority and the only way
they can stop it would be to march into Jackson with the US Army and start
killing civilians, which is essentially what the civil war was. He told me
southerners tend to take states rights more seriously than northerners
because they were never invaded.

He said the war was never about if Slavery was right or wrong, it's about
authority and rights, and the limits on those rights in the law. Then Lee
also said that it's like killing prisoners. In his mind the government are
our employees, not our masters, they should never have the right to kill
the citizens who are their employers. Then he loudly said, "They work for
us, not the other way around."

Then we had an awkward silence. Lee spoke up again and said that slavery
was alive and well in many prisons all across the USA, so the end of
slavery is bullshit. He said the federal government really only follows the
Constitution when the TV cameras are watching.

We walked back down the FSR to his truck. We stopped to grab more items
that needed to go to the cabin and hiked back home with the sun behind us
in the late afternoon sky. I had no idea what time it was but I guessed it
was almost 5pm and I was hungry.

We used the sun showers that afternoon. The patio blocks on the ground kept
that spot from turning into a mud pie factory. We re-filled the bags down
at the creek and brought back one naturally chilled bottle of wine. After
that it was time to start dinner. We had fish, three fillets each and split
a tall can of peas.

That meal was cooked in the charcoal grille. The pan got a little blackened
but it scrubbed off. After dinner I started a fire with two long logs, and
drank more wine. We told stories and had a great time just being ourselves
without the need for any pretense. But I think we were both still careful
about what we said. I'm probably more guilty of that than Lee.



Tuesday. Vacation day #3.



Our day started with coffee, oatmeal, and some crackers and cheese for
me. At 0930 walked up to his truck to meet the guys with the well drilling
machine. While we waited for them to arrive we unloaded the truck and I
took some photos of that area where he parked. We also discussed farming
tobacco.

We discussed where they'll drill for water, I said they'll probably need an
area to drill and not a spot, they may need to try a few places before they
hit water. "Once you start drilling water wells you kind of grow a sixth
sense about where are the best spots to drill, so we should let them
decide." Lee said we may need to make a couple trips from their truck to
the campsite to bring all their gear down, too bad we didn't own a few
wheelbarrows.

The drilling guys arrived on time. Our agreement was they get to camp and
fish a couple times later this summer after bow hunting season starts. But
we still had to pay for the pipe sections for the well. They needed a
stainless steel drilling point which was also the water screen on the tip
of the pipe, then they needed five foot sections of one inch black steel
pipe and couplings and other assorted plumbing stuff, not to mention a hand
operated pump for on top of the pipe if they hit water.

Everyone carried stuff and one of the guys pushed the wheelbarrow with all
the heavy stuff, which included the gasoline engine and a five gallon can
of gasoline. They had another can of gas still in their truck.

He told us normally they park near where they drill, but this was the first
time they had to walk half a mile to get to the drill site!

He had us run to the creek and bring back ten gallons of clean water, so I
did that while Lee and the drillers walked all around the clearing looking
at the ground for places to drill.

He explained that they looked at the trees and plants, the closer they grew
the more water was underground. About 45 feet away they pointed out a
cluster of Oak trees growing closer and said that was a good first place to
try, so they set up a ladder and assembled the drill, and fueled-up the
tank. One of them stood on the ladder and touched the point of the well
screen to the ground and pulled the start rope (like a pull-start
lawnmower) and then he held onto bicycle handlebars and squeezed the
throttle and it started smoking and screaming and the tip of the well
immediately dug itself into the ground. It took maybe two minutes and the
motor was back down at ground level and they shut down the motor and
unscrewed it from the well casing and attached another five foot section
using pipe wrenches, then repeated the process.

As they drilled they also kept the pipe full of water. In the first hour
they had four sections of pipe in the ground (4x5=20'), it was amazing to
see how fast it drilled. By 1pm they were down to 55 feet (11 pieces of one
inch black steel pipe) and stopped to check. The drill motor had a pump
built-in so they attached a suction hose to the top of the casing and
started the motor and pulled a lever to activate the pump and it spit out
water like ten feet, but that was the creek water we kept pouring into the
well pipe.

He ran the pump for a while, like five minutes and we kept getting water
out of the hose, over time we saw chunks of sand and dirt come up the pipe
but the water kept flowing, so he turned up the throttle to draw harder on
the well and the flow increased and both of them started to smile and shake
hands, it appeared they hit a vein of clean water at about 60 feet down,
just like the trees showed us.

Finally, he pushed the throttle up all the way and the water sprayed out of
the hose and never stopped or faded. Next, he ran the engine about
half-speed and let it pump while we stood around and talked about this part
of Kentucky and about camping and fishing and deer hunting. They wanted to
pitch tents down by the far south end of the rifle range and spend a
weekend (two nights) hunting and fishing.

After about 15 minutes of constant water flow the motor started to sputter
as it ran out of gas, so he shut it down and disconnected it from the well
and set the engine down on the ground.

One of the men grabbed our shovel and dug a hole beside the well, then they
threaded a T-fitting on the pipe and use a big pipe wrench to hand turn the
well casing to screw the well about two feet into the ground so the
T-fitting was below ground because that was where we'd connect a pump to
some day. They threaded another piece of pipe on top of that and screwed it
another half a foot into the ground and stopped.

They unboxed the iron water pump from a box while another guy started
putting away their tools. He suggested building an underground box out of
concrete and putting in it a sediment filter and the pump and a small
pressure tank.

When we mounted the hand pump on the top of the pipe and took turns pumping
it and he said to Lee that it was good to go. The guy pulled a notepad out
of his shirt pocket and a pen and calculated the cost and added-on driving
cost since they lived in Dayton, not Kentucky. Then they agreed on a
camping price and subtracted that from the bill. He totaled it and handed
Lee a bill for $450. I got out my wallet and gave him five hundred-dollar
bills, with fifty more as a tip for a job well done.

Within half an hour they had their stuff packed up and most of it in the
wheelbarrow and we all walked them up the hill to their truck, they loaded
all the stuff in back and shook hands again and left for Pleasant Ridge
Road where they turned right to head for Claryville and the highway back to
civilization.

Before they left the well guy suggested pumping the well frequently over
the next week and not drinking the water for another week without filtering
it first. He also handed Lee a business card and said to contact that
company to get the water tested for contaminants, but then said that way
out here it wasn't likely, but being on the slope of a mountain you never
know where there may be a natural deposit of uranium or arsenic. He said we
could buy a sterile water sample bottle and a shipping box at any
Walgreens.

On the hike back into valley we decided since we had the rest of the day
off to move one of the wood benches over by the new fire pit.

We un-stuck one of the two benches from the ground and removed the wood
plugs which prevent it from rolling over and inched it over by the new fire
pit. That small task took us two hours because those benches are extremely
heavy.

We basically walked it over about six inches at a time, one end then the
other end. The hard part was getting it up on the top terrace then across
the sand pit and out onto the firmer grassy field. We did most of the move
on our knees. We took opposite ends and leaned against it and lifted the
end of the bench and shifted it over like 6-12 inches at a time, then moved
the other end, and walked it all the way by the new fire pit. I convinced
him to park it closer than they were at the other spot.

After it was moved we had to re-install the wood plugs in the bottom and we
dug a shallow trench for it to sit in, maybe 15 inches wide and six feet
long, maybe two inches deep.

We finally got it settled into place and positioned so it sat firmly on one
spot and didn't move at all. We also rolled about five more of the short
log segments over to use as foot stools and small chairs or tables.

After the bench was moved we walked down to the garden with shovels and
worked on removing weeds and fixing the fence. We both saw that damage by
small critters eating our stuff was serious, we needed to start a war on
rabbits and rodents. Lee said we needed a couple outdoor cats.

----

After lunch Lee went to visit Uncle David and did some chores for him and
was gone for three hours, I heard a lawn mower running in the distance. Lee
said that while he was there mowing the grass one of the neighbors walked
over, another elderly man who has known David Charters for decades. His
name was Lyle Ringler, they visited while Lee finished mowing the
grass. Lee said his mail box was nearly full of mostly junk mail.

While he was mowing the grass he helped Uncle Dave to sit outside on a
steel lawn chair and get a little sunshine while he pushed the mower back
and forth. That was when Lyle walked over.

He drove home from David's house and rode the bike down the west trail
alone, I welcomed him back. We discussed David briefly, he said the old guy
was gray colored and looked like he could die any time now. His breathing
was very labored and he still had an occasional cigarette and refused to
quit. He said he's been smoking unfiltered cigarettes since he was in
second grade.

I asked him, "You mean he's smoking while being on oxygen?" Lee nodded yes
and we both made a troubled expression and shrugged our shoulders, it was
his choice. I told Lee that respiratory failure is one of the worst ways to
die because you cannot take a break from breathing you have to keep going
no matter how much effort it takes.

He told me David was as bitter and troublesome as always, he never takes a
day off from being an asshole towards everyone. He said that man is as mean
as a snake and only cares about himself and his cigarettes. Then he
chuckled and said maybe he's exaggerating a little.

----

That afternoon we discussed marking out a path for our future driveway
through the woods, it would start at the end of Uncle Dave's driveway and
continue across the yard at an angle then back into the trees toward the
north side of our clearing.

He also said he told Uncle Dave we built a shed and an outhouse in the
valley and Dave was pleased that we were spending more time back there,
then he told him that he needed to raise a child to inherit the land when
it was his time to die. Lee told him he was working on it. David replied by
telling him he knew he was lying, but he never used the F-word.

So I asked if Uncle Dave ever caught him jerking off and Lee said, "Yes,
several times but he never said anything probably because he was just as
guilty."

----

After Lee got home he seemed somewhat depressed, which did not surprise me
at all. I let him talk for nearly half an hour and he seemed to
cheer-up. Then I suggested as our afternoon project we should make our
first pass across the woods to look for spots to avoid when building a
driveway from the main road back to the north side of the clearing.

We'd bring the GPS along to map any large obstacles, if there are any. He
said he's never seen a wet spot or a huge boulder up there. We might
consider some huge old tree to be worth avoiding.

Lee agreed so we paused to use the bathroom and drink some water and bring
one bottle with us. We took off on foot hiking almost due north toward the
main road. I estimated the distance was going to be around 2000 feet,
almost half a mile from our cabin to the main road.

On the hike I asked if he had something we could mark the trail and he said
no, but we should buy something like police barrier tape to tie around
trees to mark the edges of the proposed driveway.

We started our adventure walking into the woods near where we dropped trees
for the clearing where our solar power array will stand some day.

David ran back to the cabin and got a stake and hammer and pounded it in
the ground at the edge of the woods to say `this is where the driveway will
cross as it emerges from the forest.'

This time I hiked with the GPS in my left hand and both of us looked all
around for any obstacles in the forest. We never saw any but we discussed
the terrain itself. As we walked north northeast we stayed about 50 feet
apart looking for problems on the ground, like standing water or sand. All
we saw was leaves, branches, weeds and black dirt. I never even saw any
deer tracks.

The ground in the woods was black dirt: sand, clay, and black dirt. The
ground was soft but lumpy. Once we entered the forest we both noticed the
ground started to rise ahead of us and the further north we hiked the
higher it got. I think we climbed about 20-30 feet higher than at our
starting point where he pounded-in the stake.

Finally, we reached the peak of the incline, it was about 700 feet into the
trees, less than halfway to the main road. Then the ground felt firmer
under our shoes and it started to go downhill a bit. Lee pointed out a few
trees to avoid cutting down, one was a very tall Oak tree and another was a
cottonwood that was probably the tallest tree in this part of the property,
we couldn't even see the top of that tree but it could be used some day to
make more log sculptures. I bet that cottonwood was over 20 feet around at
the base.

We re-aimed our heading to about 15 degrees to try to run into the yard
behind Uncle Dave's house. We did run into a couple small partial clearings
where there were no trees for like 40 feet around but the sky was still
blocked by overhanging limbs from the other trees. I never saw any signs of
modern humans in the woods. I saw no sign of burnt trees or human trash.

Eventually Lee stopped and pointed ahead and to the right a little, the
silhouette of Uncle's house was visible, we had arrived. I walked to where
the forest ended and set a waypoint in the GPS when we got a little closer
so I could locate where the driveway would emerge from the forest in his
back yard on the same side as his driveway. We were almost centered on the
back of his house, about 40 feet behind the back wall. The clearing for
Uncle Dave's house I'd guess was like 150 feet along the street and 80 feet
deep. There's a driveway too so it's not all grass. Lee says the grass
grows very slowly because of the shade trees.

The Lee chuckled and said Dave purchased a brand new lawn mower, a bright
green Lawnboy, self-propelled mulching mower that cost over $500!

We turned around and started the hike back, now that we had points marked
for where the driveway might enter the forest and exit the forest it gave
me better readings and measurements, plus better land elevations. It seemed
in Uncle's back yard the land was about 3450 feet above sea level, but in
the clearing back by our cabin it was about 3405 feet. I had one way point
near the zero point on the rifle range which was about 3340 feet. The spot
by the ponds where we pump and filter water at the end of the east trail is
at 3295 feet ASL, the peak of the east trail is at 3384 and the peak of the
west trail is 3395 feet, about 60 feet above where he parks his truck. When
you're carrying 75 pound plywood sheets it feels a lot higher than that.

We kept marching south toward the valley and tried to take a different
route so we could look for any places to avoid, but all we saw was soft
black dirt and lots of dead leaves and branches on the ground. Lee picked
up one big maple leaf and showed me how decayed it was already, he said
nature rots quickly back here, another reason why we rarely have wildfires
in this part of the Kentucky Hills.

I asked Lee if there were any Civil War battles near here and he quickly
said No, there were no roads and this area was nothing but trees and ponds,
mile after mile, and it went uphill all the way, there was no reason for
the army or any of the locals to come up here, but when the first road (to
Visalia) went through then things started to change, but that was like in
the late 1920s. He told me there's a big river about ten miles west of here
that is a barrier to people passing through the valley, it's kind of a dead
end because of the river.

We got to the peak of the rise and decided to stop and take a break and sit
on a fallen tree, and open the water and share it. I sat straddling the
log, he sat on one side. I leaned forward and rested my forehead against
his shoulder and Lee kind of leaned back against me. We had some quiet time
listening to nature, I whispered it was beautiful here, so peaceful and
quiet. He told me you never want to be back here during a thunderstorm,
it's dangerous as hell.

I told him I was getting tired, so we got up and started hiking south again
and in twenty minutes we emerged from the forest back in the valley and the
stake that Lee just pounded into the dirt. I shut off the GPS and told him
I needed a nap, he never commented. In the cabin we stripped naked and
climbed up into the loft and I got him facing the opposite way so we were
in a 69 position and I blew him but fell asleep with my face pressed into
his bare crotch!

When I woke up it was dark outside and Lee was listening to the radio for
the weather forecast.

The radio station called for clouds and rain tomorrow but today was
supposed to be nice. I asked Lee to make (Wednesday) that his shirtless
day, he agreed but asked me to remind him. After breakfast we decided to
mount the rain gutters on the edges of the roof, if it rains hard enough we
might be able to shower from the roof drainage.

It turned out that Lee really loved his cordless drill, he jokingly said he
wanted to try to live the rest of his life without hammering-in a nail ever
again.

I asked him about moving the other benches over to the new fire pit and Lee
quickly shouted `NO!' They were part of the original camp site which was
still usable. He seemed upset that I even asked.

I quickly snapped back, "You're being over dramatic Lee."

"What?"

"You don't need to snap my head off, I just asked. You acted like I
suggested Jesus was actually a girl."

At first he just gave me the look, then he mumbled that our dinner food on
the grill sucked, he hated canned foods like Chef Boyardee crap.

We had another awkward silence as we sat on the log bench beside the new
fire pit. Lee slightly apologized for being rude with me, I apologized for
over-reacting. He laughed and reminded me we were gay men, it's our nature
to be too dramatic. We both laughed. "Oh yeah girlfriend?" I said as I put
my hand on my hip and leaned over to look exasperated at him.

The more I thought about what he just said about us being too dramatic I
started to laugh again. My eyes even started to water. That was so true and
so funny.

Trying hard not to cry with tears in my eyes, I tried to tell him we should
re-enact that entire scene again in our best flamboyant gay accents!

We both laughed at how ridiculous it would be. Every time one of us started
to talk we'd both start to laugh again. It's been a lot of years since I
last got the giggles with someone, I'm glad it was with him. We both needed
this.

For about five minutes we could not even look at each other or we'd start
to laugh again. Lee even jogged off to look at his garden and pick a
cucumber for dinner. By the time he came back we were all smiles but the
giggles had passed.

We discussed the selection of food we had for the rest of vacation, it was
all in bags on the floor of the cabin.

The current food inventory consisted of:

Ravioli, spaghetti, meatballs, Spam (3 types), beef stew, chunky soups,
tuna, salmon, octopus, and little hot dog sausages. We also had pastas,
pasta dinners in a box, and small cans of meat sauce for the pasta. There
was also a huge pile of condiments in those little plastic packs. We also
had about six P-38 can openers on the table too.

Tonight we had pasta with meat sauce, with sliced pan-fried spam, and a
large can of German potato salad and sliced cucumber with a packet of Ranch
dressing. It would be chased of course with creek chilled wine, which we
renamed Red Leech Wine, Red Leech, or 'RL' for short. I told him we should
experiment with growing some grape vines up on Granite Hill sometime.

Lee sliced one of our home grown onions in with the sliced spam he fried on
a small iron pan on the grill. We didn't use my camp stove tonight.

We sat on opposite sides of the picnic table while we ate dinner. The bow
tie pasta and sauce was better than I expected, maybe because I was very
hungry. Everything tasted better cooked over charcoal too. I think he added
a lot of pepper and salt which probably helped too.

While Lee sat with his empty plate, he waited on me to finish. After dinner
and clean-up we pulled logs into the fire pit. I dumped the charcoals and
ash in the pit too. I hung my lantern on the stand but left it off. We
decided to walk up to the truck and carry down more of the stuff we needed
for our week stay in the valley, there was no way we could carry everything
in one trip. We still had daylight on the ground so we turned around and
made another trip to the truck and brought down the rest of the food, and
the 2nd case of wine.

Since there was still daylight I rode the bike to the creek with more wine
bottles and pressed them into the sand with the others.

After that project we decided to wash-up after dinner we used the new water
well and the pump to wash up. We put a plastic tub under the pump outlet
and using dish soap and a washcloth he did the dishes while I worked the
pump handle.

Then Lee remembered one thing we kept forgetting and he ran out into the
open field and picked up the solar power supply and brought it over and
hung it on a nail in the outside of the cabin and connected the LED light
strings and suddenly we had electric lights! First time in history! I
applauded the show.

He reached into his pocket and got out a knife and used the tip to adjust a
tiny knob to change the color of the strings of lights from red to
white. But it was very neat to see the yard lit up by electric lights.

We never opened the chilled wine and went to bed early. Tonight, we slept
in our undies only, with our backs pressed together most of the night.



Wednesday, vacation day #4, Shirtless Day.

Our day started with the dehydrated breakfast camp meals of scrambled eggs
with bits of ham and some tiny chunks of diced green and red peppers. I
thought it sucked but I still had my coffee, so everything was fine. Lee
liked the eggs a little but said he'd never buy them again. He said the
scrambled eggs were like clumps of egg flavored foam rubber.

Like a good soldier Lee never put on a shirt this morning. I never had to
remind him that today was shirtless day. I also had a couple other plans
for his body today that I hadn't told him yet.

It felt very muggy outside this morning. The sky was mostly cloudy and we
had a hint of fog in the air too.

After breakfast we decided to go back to the west trail and remove the two
remaining rocks that poked out of the dirt, but were mostly flat on
top. Before we left Lee shoveled all the ash into the wheelbarrow and use
that to fill both rock holes. We ended up pulling three rocks, each a
little bigger than a softball. Once those were out and the holes filled-in
it concluded trail maintenance in the valley for this year.

We also worked in the garden and harvested the rest of the yellow onions
and the potatoes which were only baseball size or smaller. Lee hand pulled
the weeds around the three tiny apple trees that sprouted near the garden.

After the garden work we used the wheelbarrow, hammer, and shovel to
dismantle the old fire pit and dumped the rocks in the bottom of the trench
for the drainage pipe. And we scraped the ground flat of any remaining ash
or bits of burnt wood. The ash went deeper than I thought it would.

While we took apart the old fire pit I got Lee talking about what bushes
might grow on the 2nd terrace or around the new fire pit. We took off with
the shovels and wheelbarrow and found four small pine saplings and
transplanted them to the second terrace and behind the benches on the other
side of the new fire pit.

The last task this morning was to loosely mount the two rain gutter
sections. Lee screwed them into the ends of the trusses while I held up the
far end of the gutter. He wasn't sure they would stay there long term so he
just tacked them in place. We'd mostly use them to capture rain water in
two buckets, maybe save ourselves one trip to the creek. We set three
concrete patio blocks near where he guessed the rain water would land.

At shower time I asked Lee to tell me the story about him and the two Kline
brothers.

"You know that's not a happy story? They're kind of a fucked-up family."

"Did anyone get murdered?" I asked

"No. But it's not a story with a happy end."

"How bad?"

"Rape, theft, incest, prison, death, stuff like that."

I thought about him being involved to some degree since they were like
brothers to him for most of his childhood.

"Whatever you want me to know, go ahead, whenever you're ready."

We sat at the picnic table with bottles of water while he thought about
where he wanted to start telling the story. The first thing he told me was
how he met Cal in kindergarten.



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