Am I back…….well, kinda.
The last few months I have been a bit odd. I know that. I took a month off from blog-writing and that was mostly due to Trump Fatigue, mild depression and accumulated isolationist syndrome or ASS for short. I was out of sorts. I still am to some degree but it is mostly just pure ASSedness now. It turns out that all men are usually pigs but, once in a while they are also ASSes.
Such is life, woe is me, and basically it was all much ado about nothing. We are settling in again. We are ‘back in the groove’, doing OTG things. This past week was an example of the ‘life’. But first – another part of the life:
…….I was ill for awhile. I eventually figured it out and confirmed it with my doctor. I had Giardiasis. Giardiasis is better known simply as Giardia or Beaver Fever. It is a parasite that one can get from drinking water in which bears or beavers have pooped. Sort of a northern exposure kinda thing. OTG with parasites. Altered gut. It’s a simple disorder and rare even out here. More than a bit draining, though. First time in 15 years for me (our drinking water is filtered at the sink but the household water is straight from the stream). I guess the odds caught up with me and I was out-of-sorts for awhile. I can confirm beyond a doubt that bears do, indeed, poop in the woods.
But then….I fixed it with anti-biotics and I am fine. But, at the same time as I got ‘fixed’, I was scheduled for dental surgery in Victoria so off we went. That was a fun trip. But we got to see our grandchildren, Sal’s mom (92), and some friends as well. THAT PART REALLY WAS A DELIGHT! And we shopped for crap (very much non-delightful). And we ran around doing chores and six days later came home too late to brave the weather so stayed in Campbell River for the night and really started to go home the next day from an easier starting point. No big deal, really. Just travel, Tylenol, logistics, lifting, packing, socializing and the constantly doing of chores while hemorrhaging money …..not unusual on an extended ‘town week’. .
And then we got home. Of course I knew the car was full…but….it is always full. And I knew that the large steel second-hand Craigslist-find, sand-blasting cabinet strapped to the roof kinda added to the ‘fullness’ but….well….I often have to strap stuff to the roof. When you consider that I aspire to never leave the island, then when I do, it only stands to reason that I come back full to the brim and then some.
We got up at 8:00 am and did some more local chores. We arrived at the end of the road about 2:00 pm. Sal went off with a neighbour to get the boat from our place. I started to unload. And then unload some more. And then I finally unloaded the last of it. I had two full boatloads on the dock when Sal got back with our good-ship Pumpkin. The wind was picking up. So we double-filled the boat. What that means in reality is that we were overloaded in the boat but still afloat and a ‘boatload’ is really a term we use to describe a funicular deck-full of stuff in actuality. We were not 100% sure the weather would hold for two trips.
The fun-deck is 4’6″ x 100″ or basically the size of a sheet of plywood. Sal lowers the fun-deck into the sea and I sidle up with the boat, tie up, and unload the boat until the deck is full. And that was what I did but the winds were increasing and the boat was leaping like a lord (7 lords-a-leaping?). Sal had managed to leap/climb to the lowered fun deck from the beach and that allowed us to efficiently fill the deck from side to side, front to beck. Then I took the boat and ‘stood off’ (bobbing like a cork) while she brought the first load back up to the deck and unloaded it. When that was done, she lowered the fun-deck again and we put on even more crap the second time. By the time I was sidling up the boat to the fun deck the second time there were whitecaps and Sal and I had to yell to each other over the howling wind. The boat leaped, I tipped and tripped around the boat as I offloaded stuff and Sal stood like a surfer-dudette on the fun-deck efficiently placing the crap around and then, she clambered back over it all to make the leap back to the beach for the second haul-out.
What with engines, bags of blast-sand, fluids, tools, metal cabinets, cases of wine and many containers of Costco bulk, I figured we had over 1000 pounds of crap to get home. And getting home did NOT just mean getting to the fun-deck nor the deck to which it arrived. That 1000 pounds had to be transferred to the second funicular that took the load up the last 100 feet from the lower deck to the house.
Sal transferred the first load to the second funicular while I took the boat around to the neighbour’s dock. It was blowing a gale by then. I tied up, scooted back to our house and Sal and I then spent the next two to three hours getting the stuff up the hill and put away. That took two trips of the upper section, too. We sat down to a thawed out left-over stew dinner around 7:00 pm.
“Hmm….I think we are running out of shelf space.”
“I know. That was why I was talking about building another shed……..”
“PULEEZ…no more sheds! Let’s just jam the stuff in nooks and crannies and call it a day. We have a years supply of most stuff now.”
“OK. But we only have about three months of scotch and maybe the same in wine….?”
“Well, since you put it that way, maybe a small shed, then….?”
Our Off the Grid Home 
i agree no more sheds. it took me 3 years to clean out all the sheds on our family farm. grandfather bought stuff after WWII and stored it in a shed. my father bought stuff at auctions and stored it in a shed. my brother brought more stuff. my BIL left a truck to my nephew who stored it on the farm. my older sister stored guns with us. my husband stored stuff he hoarded. what can i say other then welcome to the family Dave
ps: just for fun go to djtrump.com
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Very enjoyable post! Nice glimpse into transferring supplies on the Salt Chuck into the teeth of a gale. I like this niche.
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All men aren’t pigs.
That giardia sounds dreadful. Glad you have your crap together now. The scotch will help that. Now you and Sal can hunker down for winter after that mammoth trip.
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Oink!!
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Sheds are nice, and come in handy too. But the “art” is to keep the content under control and get rid of some stuff from time to time. But you NEVER can have enough space to store Scotch and wine! And Scotch will help to cure the giardia, I heard it is difficult to get out of your “system”, even with antibiotics!
Glad to hear that in the end you succeded in bringing all the stuff safely home, even with the nasty weather. I guess because of COVID you don’t plan a trip abraod to escape from the ASS syndrome? Same thing over here, all travel is banned, so we plan to have a “cosy” winter at home, doing all kinds of stuff at home. Take care !
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You are right. We are planning stay-at-home to an even greater degree these next few months. BUT – reality check: C-19 is not getting better and so planning for a few months is not really enough. 2021 will be all screwed up, too.
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We are in the middle of our second COVID peak, with a second lock-down in progress as we speak. So no “plan making” for some time, just wait and see what happens. Economy is further suffering, with all non-essential shops closed, so a lot of people will go out of business for sure! Only positive is that Trump (hopefully) lost the election, now we have to wait and see if he leaves quietly (which does not seem to be the fact). Also Christmas and new year will be like never before, we will not be allowed to invite family for Christmas dinner (we have a tradition to invite all the kids and grandkids, so it will be quiet this year)….damn COVID!
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Well, DAMN Covid is a common refrain but, from a perverse perspective, “Thank you, Covid!” also works. So many people have rediscovered family, the outdoors, nature, quiet time and the release from racing-with-the-rats that some good has come about. And that is not to mention that, despite everything deplorable, Trump was still a viable force to be reckoned with until C-19 took him down. Thanks to 250,000 martyrs, Trump was defeated.
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I partially agree, I had the same feeling during the first wave. The racing-with-the-rats came to a halt (or a slower pace), and finally there was some time again for family, outdoors, reading and other activities. But now in the second wave, it feels differently, maybe because I feel more now all the things we have to give up (we are not allowed any more to have any visitors, so I don’t see my family, kids, grandkids,friends,…) so that is becoming quite difficult emotionally. And that counterbalances enormously the extra “time off”. It is kinda shifting to the “DAMN Covid” to be honest! Maybe it’s because I AM still in the rat race, and because of the bad financial situation of most companies, pressure is building to an almost impossible level, professional life is REALLY tough these days, and the rats are running faster and faster. I honestly don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep up this pace. Government is telling us that by Christmas 2021 everything will be “normal” again as far as contacts, travel, sports, theatre,…is concerned, but that just seems such a long way off. Christmas will have to be celebrated without the kids for the first time ever, so I DON4T look forward to that…extra time off and all.
So yeah…a real DAMN Covid as far as I am concerned
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Guardia eh? Pesky microscopic gut buggers.
Hmmmm.
Could you hook up a UV light to your water supply to “nuke” the bacteria?
We have become a “hoarding society”.
Understandable if you’re OTG, the nearest grocery store is 50 miles on logging roads, a boat ride and a Nepalese pack train up a mountain in a gale …..away.
(Personally I consider OTG when hot pizza isnt a phone call away.)
The amount of “Storage Warehouses” popping up everywhere and now the popular TV show “Storage Wars” confirms our obsession with “things”.
A few years ago I moved from a residence where I had lived for 20 years…..the amount of crap that I hauled to clothing bins, the Sally Anne, recycling depots, etc etc etc was endless.
It took about 3 months of purging to clear out everything I had bought over the years, never , ever used and then “rediscovered” as I cleared out closets, drawers, sheds, garages, etc.
My rule now?
If I havent looked at it in at least 2 years OR if I forgot I own it….. gone.
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When we lived on boats (sailboats) the space was at a premium and our similar rule was: If not used or worn in the last year – gone! But this truly is different. To avoid town (a goal at the best of times and these days are not even that good) one really needs to ‘prep’ to some extent. We decided to plan to last a year even if that meant a lot of beans and rice in the last few months. As we looked at the beans and rice, we were driven to add some more stuff not quite as basic. In fact, I bought a can of Muhammed’s desert truffles while down in Victoria last week.
We are starting to act a bit odd, don’t you think?
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Odd?
Hell no.
Eating the same rice and beans diet day in and day out can wear on you.
Refried beans and rice for a breakfast side dish in Mexico for two weeks straight was enough for me.
Variety…the spice of life.
I plaanted some lemon seeds in a pot at home…My lemon “orchard” now consists of two “trees” two inches high.
Who knows, 40 years from now, when I’m 100 and global warming is reality, I may be the lemon king of Canada…..
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When we were required to pull our shed down due to lease rules, we found that the majority of the stored items hadn’t been used for years and most likely wouldn’t be ever. We were able to downsize and Wayne’s writer’s retreat gutted and converted 24′ boat became a floating shed, all within the government rules. – Margy
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Big winds coming tomorrow Brudda!
Time to batten the hatches, build a fire, drink some coco and crack a good book.
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TRUE!! Last night it began to snow and blow and get cold. Sheesh! But it was early this morning it really howled. Wind over 40 and constant with gusts to 50 for sure. Maybe a bit more. I love this weather. The more wind, the better.
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