I had the barge drop off almost 1000 pounds the other day. Seven hundred and fifty of it was gardening supplies. The balance is a steel fuel tank. Sal and I had built a ‘place’ for it over the last week and now we can install it. Of course, wrestling a 250 pound tank into position and uphill at a steep angle won’t be easy but, after schlepping gardening supplies, the tank felt light. Still, even if it is light, it was ‘billed’ as 250 pounds plus plus valves and crap.
But Spring begins with the garden and when the supplies are delivered, the garden effort begins. We unloaded it and got it all up the hill and into the green house this morning. “Want a cup of tea?” “Yeah but I am not sure I can lift the cup. Just pour the tea on my unconscious, supine body. I’ll lie here in the meantime.”
“I was gonna suggest you go and make it. I can’t move. Maybe we will both just lie here instead.”
As I lay on the ground staring up into the trees, I noticed that the sun was pretty high in the sky. “We have to adjust the panels. They are still on winter setting. The sun is higher now. We’re losing power.”
“I have no power.”
So we just lay there.
But, eventually I got up. And staggered off to build a little prawn trap base for the new boat. We will go prawning over the next few days and lay in a few pounds for the season. No sense in overdoing it. They keep fresher in the water. And in May the commercial fishery guys come in and clean the area out. They decimate it. The fact that there are a few prawns left to start the next year is a miracle.
I hate DFO. Their official ‘policy’ is that, “If the commercial fishery kills it in one area, they will move on. Then the area can restore itself. No problem.”
Maybe we don’t pay those degree-holding, Ottawa-residing bureaucrats enough?
Anyway……this blog is about starting up again. It feels like that for us. Every Spring feels like a beginning. Of course, it is NOT a beginning, it is a continuation but, in nature, it feels like renewal at the very least. And we feel that so much more than we did when living in the city. The seasons mean something out here.
And this Spring feels late in coming. My recent recollections of previous years were that flowers were blooming in February but, here it is April and we have the stove still going full tilt. It is still cold.
Regardless, we are doing what we do at this time of year and hope the natural way of things simply catches up. We’ll see.
Our Off the Grid Home 
What will be planted in the garden?
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Knowing Sal, TOO MANY flowers! But at least half will be veggies. I love produce from our own garden. It has taste. It feels and tastes right. Way, way better than store-bought. A carrot from our garden tastes carroty!
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I see a lot of fish in shops that look like no-one is going to buy. I really think we should be asking questions about how much of this precious marine resource ends up in landfill.
There were changes to fisheries management announced here last week. Need I say more. Anyone would think I didn’t care about people’s livelihoods, but this is an entirely different kettle of fish (boom, boom).
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Livelihood is one thing, extinction is another. If homo saps had half evolved, we’d leave the oceans alone but protected for a decade at least. And clean up the garbage in the meantime. But we are NOT evolved. We don’t learn. We are a stupid, brinkmanship species that doesn’t see or act until it is at a critica breakingl point. The oceans are almost there. And national DFOs are where the stupidity is most concentrated. I hate DFO.
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You don’t say! But I totally agree.
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Yep. Spring is definitely later this year.
As for the DFO….
The initials should stand for “Dummies FO”.
But I wont say that here..
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And about dfo and your prawns, to add insult to injury, next to none of the commercial catch is available to locals, then there is the 25$| lb halibut
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We read that DFOs mandate is to ‘market our resource’. That’s insane! Every Canadian thinks DFO is protecting and managing the resource but they are NOT. They are SELLING it! Our taxes are paying bureaucrats to find markets for our natural resources, the proceeds of which go to corporations and governments. Like tar-sludge, the resource does not benefit the Canadian taxpayer/citizen but we subsidize the industry.
I hate DFO. I hate the NEB. And I hate the organized crime syndicate that is our Federal government.
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Without a doubt Harper destroyed the DFO and judging from the shrill cries from the media, they want Harper back.
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As the old story goes.
A govt beaurocrat in the Dept of Fisheries in Ottawa entered the 40 story DFO building and took the elevator to see a friend.
As he was walking through the massive floor of one dept he heard uncontrollable sobbing coming from one of the many cubicles staffed by DFO .
He walked by the cubicle and noticed a burly fisheries officer , seated at his desk ,crying his eyes out..
The beaurocrat continued on to his friends office and they bothe headed out for lunch.
“Why is that guy crying?,”, asked our inquisitive beaurocrat.
“His fisherman died.”
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All too true.
How about this….? I saw a fishboat illegally fishing. I ignored it. Everyone needs dinner. I saw him the next day and ignored it. Everyone has a few friends. On the third day I called DFO. “I think someone is committing a crime.”
“Can you go get the name of the boat?”
“No. Send a patrol officer.”
“We don’t have any. We don’t have any boats. We rely on the public to report poaching.”
“Great! I go out, get the name, send it to you. What do you do?”
“If it is a registered vessel (90% are not) we send them a letter. When the file is thick, we prosecute.”
“You don’t have any boats? DFO has no boats? Are you kidding me?”
“If we need a boat, we contract with someone.”
“Someone with a thick file, I guess.”
” Excuse me?”
“Never mind. Go for coffee.”
100% true story.
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Andrew Coyne wrote his bring back Harper column citing how Harper cut over 13 billion dollars of government programme spending and no one noticed. Ask a Canadian veteran if they noticed the effects of the government cuts by Harper. Ask the Canadian Coast Guard if they noticed the effects of Harper spending cuts.Bring back Harper before Canadians recover from his cuts.
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Harper, Harper, Harper. Canadian wheat is not moving fast enough to market. Where is the Canadian Wheat Board…Harper killed it.
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Am I sensing rising ire in ya, Sid?
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Not in the slightest but I am enjoying the irony and hypocrisy on full display. Kill the Wheat Board and blame the present government when wheat lies on the ground on the prairies. Many farmers wanted the Wheat Board dead without understanding what the Wheat Board did. Karma! Be careful what one wishes, it might bite back.
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It may have been spring on April 2 on your side of the Strait, but it’s April 4 and it is getting ready to pour on my side. I did get a little time in the floating garden today to pick kale and broccoli. We didn’t go shopping so having a few winter veggies still producing is a bonus. Wish we had a barge that delivered up the lake. It takes several hours for us to unload our quads, motor down the lake, get what we need loaded and then back up to the cabin. It’s a whole day chore. But at least it only costs gas and time (which we have). – Margy
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Admittedly it is a luxury. I try not to fall to the barge’s siren song but sometimes I do. This time the tank was simply too big to take in our boat so I doubled my list and got the peat moss and crap. I do not want it to become a habit. Slippery slope.
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