D.E. Larsen, DVM

I have a good memory, mostly photographic, but I have difficulty reading text in those photos. I can remember outhouses from my third year. And even though I was six years old when we first got indoor plumbing, I have no memory of using one.

The first outhouse I remember was at the house on Catching Creek. We moved from that house a couple of months before I turned five. This photo is a close match for my memory. 

It was out the back door, halfway up a small climb to a field behind the house. I viewed it as a mystery in my earliest memories. Later, I can remember opening the door and peering inside as I passed by on my way up the hillside. I have no memory of ever being inside that outhouse, but obviously, I would have used it many times.

In those years, when we visited other homes, there was usually an outhouse. There were a few homes with indoor plumbing out of town. I always took note and can remember looking inside those outhouses, much like someone checking the medicine cabinet when using another’s bathroom today.

My mother grew up in a house of ten kids, six of whom were girls. In my memory, my grandparents had indoor plumbing. In fact, they had bathrooms both upstairs and downstairs. A real marvel for the time. But their outhouse was there. Out the back door, at the end of a long wooden walkway, at the edge of the field.

What was amazing to me, it was a three-hole outhouse. That must have made for an interesting event on those cold winter mornings as all those kids got ready for school. As far as I know, it was not used in my lifetime, but one never knows. We had many large family gatherings in that house.

We moved to a small farm outside of Broadbent in January, before I was five. It was a hard winter in western Oregon that year. We had nearly a foot of snow shortly after we moved. The house was an old farmhouse with no insulation, and the only heat was a wood stove in the kitchen. You can imagine, the living room was two doors removed from that wood stove, and it was not used much.

The outhouse was out the back door, at the end of a long board walkway. In January, the walkway was buried under inches of packed snow, mostly just ice.

My only memory of inside an outhouse came in that outhouse, when the snow was deep, and the night was dark.

My brother, who was seven at the time, was begging Mom to go to the outhouse with him. He was afraid to go by himself. Mom wasn’t interested in going, and he admitted he was afraid to go out there by himself. Mom made the decision that I would go.

“David is brave, he will go with you,” Mom said.

In my memory, everyone is in the kitchen, huddled around a roaring fire, in the dead of night. At least it was dark. In January, in Oregon, that meant it was at least six o’clock. Of course, I remember it as ten.

So, I end up standing in this freezing little outhouse, holding a lantern while my older brother does his business. I don’t remember a word he said, but I do remember that he talked way too much instead of getting the job done, so we could get back to the fire.

That following summer, Dad dug a new hole and moved the outhouse to its new location. I imagine that in five hundred years down the road, it will be considered a major archeological event to excavate those old outhouse sites. I am sure that the outhouse served as a convenient disposal site for all sorts of artifacts.

During the summer of the next year, we installed an indoor bathroom. My uncle Des from California came up and did the plumbing. All the local uncles were there to do the digging. They dug a large hole for the septic tank and ditches for the pipe to the tank and out to the drain field.

The drain field was just a pipe that ran out to the field where there was a slight slope. The grass grew tall there, but the cows would never touch it.

The men had a case of Olympia beer that was used during their breaks. My California cousin, Harold, my brother, Gary, and I stole a bottle of that beer and took it down to the calf barn to drink it. Being the youngest, I was just a tag-along, so I only got one closely monitored swallow.

When we would go to the old cowboy movies, I would always ask, “Where do they go to the bathroom?”

I was probably in my forties before Hollywood ever displayed an outhouse in their western movies.

The outhouse is definitely a thing of the past today. You never see one. I would guess that they are illegal now.

Photo Credit: Ken Jacobsen on Pexels

First Published December 31, 2019

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Here they come, I could see them walking over from Safeway. My memory fails me to remember their names. Maybe a gap in my memory, but more likely, it was because of the nicknames I attached to them. I only used those names privately, mostly between Sandy and myself. But they fit the roles perfectly.

I think I probably reversed the names from the cartoon classics. I called the short one Mutt and the tall one Jeff. Mutt was shorter than I, maybe 5 feet 4 inches. He was stocky, and he had the face of a prizefighter, or perhaps a barroom brawler. His nose was squashed flat, and the deep wrinkles told of a rough life. Jeff, on the other hand, was tall and sort of thin, with a bit of beer belly. Jeff did most of the talking.

They were frequent visitors, mostly just after free information. But they would bring their dog in to visit a couple of times a year. 

I freely gave advice and instruction to established clients. I felt that education was part of my responsibility to my clients. Most clients respected this, and almost nobody abused my generosity. In those early years, I only sent a bill for consultation on a couple of occasions. Both of those small fees resulted in loud screams, but they served the desired purpose.

Jeff pushed through the door with Mutt right on his heels.

“Good morning, Doc,” Jeff said. Mutt nodded his head.

“Good morning,” I replied. “What brings you in today?”

“We have gone in partners and bought a steer,” Jeff said. “We got an outstanding deal, and he is a nice steer. We are planning to save a lot of money on meat when we butcher him.”

“You will probably do well if you take advantage of the Spring and early Summer grass and feed him a little grain also,” I said. “If he gains well, butchering him in the fall will save on buying a lot of winter feed.”

“He has a little problem this morning, and we are pretty worried about him,” Jeff said.

“He drooling slobber all over the place,” Mutt added.

“Yes, and he is not eating, holding his head funny, sort of extended,” Jeff said. “I think he might be bloated, but Mutt here doesn’t think that is the problem.”

“Well, I can’t tell you what his problem is without looking at him,” I said. “But it sounds like he is choked. Do you have an apple tree around?”

“Yes, we have him in Mutt’s sister’s orchard,” Jeff said. “There are apple and pear trees everywhere.”

“Maybe I should come out and get a look at him,” I suggested.

“If it is just an apple, maybe we can get it out. I think we will try that first,” Jeff said as they turned and headed out the door. 

Just as the door was closing, Jeff leaned back in and said, “Thanks, Doc.”

“Give them an hour, and they will be back,” I told Sandy. “You better mark me off for a farm call in the afternoon.”

“They never call, they must not have a phone,” Sandy said.

It was less than an hour, and they were back at the clinic. Pulling up to the front in their old pickup this time.

Jeff was talking even before he got through the door, a little excited this time.

“Mutt thinks you need to come to look at this guy right away,” Jeff said. 

“I think he is bloating,” Mutt added. “And we don’t want to lose him now.”

“Okay, I will come now and eat a late lunch,” I said. “Where do you have him?”

“You can follow us,” Jeff said. “It is almost to the top of the hill on Turbyne.”

As I headed out to the truck, I stopped and grabbed a wire coat hanger from the coat rack. Jeff sort of looked at that a little funny but did not say anything.

The trip up the hill only took a few minutes, and we pulled in a driveway that leads to a level spot where the orchard was located. The steer was tied to the corner of a small shed in the middle of the orchard.

It only took me a couple of minutes to ascertain that the steer was indeed choked. There were apples on the ground everywhere. Most of them were small.

“How are you going to get the apple, Doc?” Jeff asked. “Mutt wants to know.”

“This one is going to be easy,” I said. “It is just in the back of his throat. They are more difficult and even life-threatening if they are stuck in his esophagus in his chest.”

“Do you think you can get this one?” Jeff asked, anxiously. 

I went to the truck and retrieved the wire coat hanger and the nose tongs. I stepped on the coat hanger and stretched it out, leaving a bend in the middle about the size of the toe of my boot.

After securing the steer’s head with the nose tongs, I slide the bent end of the coat hanger down the roof of his mouth. I could feel the loop slip over the apple. One quick jerk on the hanger and the apple popped into the steer’s mouth. A loud belch of rumen gas followed the apple. It would be fine, but I looped it one more time and pulled the apple out of his mouth.

“He will be fine,” I said. But I would pick up these apples or at least cut them into a pieces. You don’t want to have me up here again.”

“That looked pretty simple,” Jeff said.

“Everything is simple when you know what you are doing,” I replied.

We didn’t see these guys again until an early morning in October. They pushed through the door, and Jeff had both elbows on the counter.

“How much do you charge to neuter a tomcat?” Jeff asked.

“By the time we vaccinate, deworm, and neuter him, it runs about forty dollars,” Sandy said.

“That’s a lot of money for a tomcat,” Mutt said. “Maybe we should do it ourselves like my grandfather used to do.”

Jeff looked at Mutt for a full minute. “You really think we can do that on him,” he said.

“Okay,” Jeff said, “We are going to do it ourselves.” And they turned and were gone in a flash.

Sandy came back to the treatment area and related the story to me.

“They will be back in a couple of hours, probably with the cat,” I said.

Sure enough, in the early afternoon, their old pickup pulled up to the front of the clinic. They were struggling to get a large box out of the cab.

I came up and stood behind the counter. I didn’t want to miss this story.

“We are just going to leave this cat here, Doc,” Jeff said, almost out of breath.

“You just take care of him, and we will be back in a day or two to pick him up,” Mutt said.

“Yes, we tried to neuter him,” Jeff started. “Mutt here figured he would do the cutting, and I would do the holding because I was taller. So I sat in a chair and clamped this guy between my thighs. I have ahold of the back of his neck and his tail. I am hold him real tight. Then Mutt, here, takes his pocketknife that he had just sharpened, and grabs the nuts of this cat.”

“Doc, I am telling you, it started as a low rumble, then it just sort of exploded. I am telling you, Doc, for a couple of minutes there, I didn’t know who was going to get neutered. This cat damn near ruined me.”

“Jeff, you go take care of yourself,” I said. “You might want to see a doctor if you have bite wounds. We will take care of the cat until you get back to pick him up.”

Photo Credit: Yücel Bengü on Pexels

D. E. Larsen, DVM

One of the most enjoyable things about veterinary medicine is the people you get to know and the trusting relationships that develop with those clients.

One young man was telling me about the first few weeks of his marriage. He was a logger, a choker setter to be exact. Anyone who knows anything about logging knows that these young choker setters work for a living. They burn a lot of calories during their day’s work, and they need a good meal to replace those calories in the evening.

Anyway, this young man was in love with this gal. They got married and took a few days off work for a short honeymoon on the coast. A few days was probably more than he could afford, but that is what happened.

A few days later, he brings his cat for shots. After the exam, he asks, “Doc, do you have a few minutes to talk,”

I have never understood how veterinarians become counselors. Still, people often seek our advice of problems far removed from veterinary medicine.

“Sure, I have some time, just don’t ask for marriage advice,” I reply.

And then he starts in on a long story.

“We got home to our new apartment on Sunday afternoon last week,” he said. “We had it pretty well ready to live in, but we needed to go to the grocery store. I needed lunch stuff for the morning, and we needed food for breakfast and dinner.”

“I was a little concerned when Susie filled the shopping cart with items from the freezer case,” he said. “Mostly justTV dinner type stuff. But, you know, Doc, I had a lot else on my mind, and I just figured she was going to make things easy for a few days.”

“I got up early on Monday morning, I made my lunch. Look in the refrigerator, there were no eggs or bacon. I just figured I would stop at Molley’s for a breakfast sandwich,” he explained.

“I got home in the middle of the afternoon. showered and shaved,” the young man continued. “I greeted Susie when she came through the door.”

“I am as hungry as a bear,” I said.

“She acts a little alarmed,” he said, ” but with that little twinkle in her eye, she says, “Okay, I will get dinner going right away””

“Doc, I sat on the couch and turned on the TV as she was busy in the kitchen,” he said. “In what seemed like no time at all, she is back from the kitchen and curls up beside me.”

“The timer is set,” she said. “My grandmother said it would be easy.”

“That seemed like a strange comment,” he said, “but I was engrossed in other thoughts.”

“It wasn’t very long, and the smoke detector goes off,” he said.
“Those new things were more of an annoyance than anything. We ignored it for the moment. Then there was real smoke billowing out of the kitchen.”

“I jumped up and ran to the kitchen,” he said. “Susie called the fire department.”

“They said they were only a couple blocks away and would be there in a moment,” he continued.

“When I got to the kitchen, there was one hell of a fire in the oven,” he said. “I looked for a fire extinguisher. Hell, I didn’t know what to do.”

“All of a sudden couple of firemen burst through the door,” he said. “They opened the oven and doused the flames.”

“What the hell were you cooking?” the fireman asked.
“Sue was peeking around the corner,” he said. “She says to the fireman, ‘Just a couple of TV dinners.’”

“Doc, the fireman looks in the oven and then he looks back at Sue,” the young man explained, “with as straight of a face as he could muster, he says to Sue, “You are supposed to take them out of the box before you put them in the oven!”, I thought I would die.”

“I tell you, Doc,” the young man said, “she can’t boil water.”

“Well, you obviously didn’t marry her to have a cook,” I replied. “That old wive’s tale, about the way to a man’s heart, is through his stomach, that was made up to use in polite company. I guess you already know that you are going to be doing the cooking.”

Photo by Kristin Vogt on Pexels.