When most people in the city come to visit you, they bring a bottle of wine or, perhaps, a nice bouquet of flowers.  It has become somewhat traditional in polite society, I gather (Sally covers those bases for me, as a rule.  I just have to show up – a duty I am increasingly failing at ). 

People behave much the same way out here, of course, but the items presented at meeting vary more.  We have had wine and flowers, of course, and at least half the wine is home-made (Rieko’s is the best) and the flowers are usually in clusters and lumps and presented in plastic bags.  The point is to plant them not just vase them.  Vegetables come that way, too.   

A dozen eggs would not be unusual.  These would be your real free-range, home-grown, wandering-amongst-the-orchard-chickens we’re talking here.  Real chickens.  Real eggs.

Just as likely we’d get a few pounds of apples in the summer or a nice fish (sometimes salmon from the fishing guides) – had a few of those over the years.  Even had a few pounds of prawns from the commercial guys in trade for an apple pie.  And Judith once gave us (the dogs, really) a bunch of deer bones with plenty of meat and blood as a nice bonus. 

Books are naturally and freely exchanged but that is not so much hospitality as it is simply community consideration and, sometimes, a little not-so-subtle ‘influencing’.  We get books on issues dear to the heart of the giver.  The more ‘dear-to-the-heart’, the more of an obligation to read them.  Movies are equally as freely distributed.  In fact, one of the locals set up a lending library that boasts about a hundred or so titles.  We do the same with some clothes, too, if they are pretty much intact.

Naturally, hardware, boat items, bits and pieces and garage-sale-type items are also  exchanged and money is never involved although one can ‘carry the debt’ if the item given was pretty good. Mind you, there are exceptions to that, too.  For the Q-hut woodworking shop we have been given outright a lot of stuff from electrical supplies to tools, from the generator to the wood required for the workbench.  Most things are just gifts.        

There is a lot of give and take up here and no matter how hard you try to keep it square, it seems that there is always a lot more giving going on.  These are very generous people.

I have to say, though, that it would be hard to top our last ‘hostess’ gift.  It came from one of the Dougs.  Last week we were talking ‘pecker poles’, the long (thirty foot plus) logs that are essentially too small to mill.  They float out there amongst the bigger logs.  Typically, they are no more than eight to ten inches in diameter but I suppose one with the thick end at twelve inches would still qualify.  Pecker poles are used for posts when building small buildings like wood sheds and such.  I had mentioned the desire to ‘get me some’ of those ‘pecker poles’ some day.  Doug had mentioned that he goes pecker pole hunting all the time.  I mentioned that I’d join him some day.  And that was that.

Today, Doug dropped by with a nice, small bouquet of pecker poles in tow.  Four of them.  Smelled bee-yoo-tee-full, they did.  He stayed for a coffee and a visit and we talked boats for awhile and then off he went as Sal and I went upstream again to clear debris from the water pick up.

When was the last time someone dropped in with a nice bunch o’ logs for ya?