That's why they have chamber pots....
The chamber pots are for the nights; they still have to be emptied.
Living off the grid is unfathomable to someone like me who grew up in the suburbs of the northeast (though I love camping - backpacking in the woods, not in campgrounds); I certainly wouldn’t try it in places with harsh winters. The area needed to provide for a family is so large in terms of growing food and providing firewood. Small “sustenance farms” in our area centuries ago often provided only part of a family’s livelihood; it had to be supplemented with other work (usually iron mines, furnaces, and forges along the NY/NJ border). The iron industry didn’t just provide work directly for those employed at those locations, but also a lot of work for those that grew the food for men (and draft animals), chopped the wood (and later made charcoal) for the furnaces/forges), and transported the ore and finished products.
Many of the things you couldn’t provide for yourself would have to be obtained elsewhere, and if you are too remote you risk being snowed in for indefinite periods. Living off the grid definitely seems to be for areas with less severe winters, for longer growing seasons and less required heating.
Yeah. In winter, we wore our coats to the outhouse.
- Chamber pots were emptied into the outhouse hole, then
rinsed out. We didn’t use them during the day unless we
were sick. (We weren’t sick much; got enough germs to be
healthy!)