Woofers are coming.   We made arrangements last February for two young men from Belgium to visit us for a week or so and we have not had any confirmation until yesterday.  But, it’s on! They are on their way.

Woofers arriving means another town shopping day a week ahead of normal schedule.  But that’s OK – I need more welding wire anyway.

The biggest challenge for us is to line up work for them to do – that they can actually do.  Right now, most of my chores are a cut-above ordinary chores in terms of skills required and complexity of the project.  I am deep into the solar array upgrade including welding the frame, re-wiring, adding panels and trimming trees around the site.  All these things are more significant chores than wood-gathering or garden-work.  And even wood gathering is a more complex chore than gardening due to the use of winches, highlines, chainsaws and splitters.

We don’t want our Woofers getting hurt.

Woofers are a crapshoot.  Some of them are capable and strong and keen and generally competent at whatever they do.  But some aren’t.  Some are simply out of their element.  You don’t know what you have until they arrive.  If those under-skilled ones are pleasant and help with the dishes and cooking, it is still considered a successful visit.   But then there are the ones who really want to ‘try’ but, when doing so, scare the hell out of me.  Those young keeners are gonna bleed.  You have to watch them like hawks.   With the trauma-tempters, we try to encourage them to do more kayaking and oyster collecting.  And dishes.  It usually works out.

And therein lies a bit of irony: the better I get at what I have to do, the more complex my chores become and the less valuable the unskilled help is.  If I ever get good at anything, there may be a lack of Woofers in our future but, at my skills building rate to date, we won’t have that much to worry about for awhile.  Still, I am finding that I have fewer simple, grunt-work chores and more ‘rocket-science’ tasks (to my mind, anyway – like welding) and so the Woofers are having to work a bit more on their own.  Collecting sea-weed is a typical Woofer chore now.  Getting dirt for the garden.  But, in the beginning of this OTG adventure, they might have been hands-on with building a shed or cement work.

I confess that – for me – cement work and Woofing are made for each other.  I hate cement work.  I only have about five or six small sites to pour (15 bags) but if they are any good, they will be mixing bags of Reddi-mix and forming cement pads while I continue to do work on the frame.  That would be great!

Keep your fingers crossed.

We’re going to a party tonight.  By boat, of course.  Everyone will arrive by boat.  It’s the only way.  By 7:00 pm there will be a flotilla of small boats rafted in clumps against anything that floats – a dock, an anchored buoy, a couple of trees near the shore…whatever.  People will be dressed in layers with the top layer likely a logger shirt or a Gore-Tex jacket.  Under that will be another logger shirt.  Some wag may show up in a Hawaiian shirt (there’s always one).  It will be fun.  Nice.  Community.  There will be the usual chit-chat, catching up with others that you haven’t seen in a year or so (since  the last party) and there will be the usual avoidances with those currently in the doghouse.  Hatfields and McCoy stuff.

I like everyone.  Well, there are a few McCoys for me, too.  But I am not keen on going even if I loved everyone.  I have never liked parties.  Hate’ em, actually.  I like dinner parties (mostly because I like dinner) because I can actually have a real conversation.  But chit chat eludes me.  I don’t ‘do’ weather.  I don’t care about the latest appliance.  Smartphone apps are not interesting.  I am ‘beyond’ real estate prices.  And, sadly, I am too old to flirt.  Being ugly was always a challenge to flirting but one I overcame because I had a motive (never mind).  But now I lack motive and all the women wear logging shirts anyway. Hell, some of them are loggers!

So, except for adding a little mortar to the walls of building community, what is the point of the party?  For me?  Not too much.  OK, there’s the dinner.  So, I’ll go.

My friend and neighbour and I have a rule.  We like each other.  A lot.  But visits can be no longer than three hours.  That’s the limit.  We start to fidget at the 2-hour-and-fifty-minute stage.  And we leave ten minutes later.  Even when visiting each other.  In fact, I raised the topic to him at the last ‘visit’.

“Hey, ya know the three hour rule we have….?”

“Wanna change it?  Say, two and half?”

“Deal!”

“So, your time’s up.”

“Great!  See ya.”

We’ll likely remain friends for the rest of our lives although – near the end – he and I will visit for no more than fifteen minutes.

Here’s the funny part – most of the guys going to the party will be striving for the 3 hour rule, too.  The older ones are aiming for two.

Go ahead – write to me.  Tell me I am wrong.  I dare you.

Well, I beat the snot out of my days work and it turns out that it was the snot that was holding it together.  It all fell apart.  So, a smidge frustrated but warming to the challenge (catching fire, actually. Literally!).  I did it again.  ‘Course, Einstein pointed out that doing the same thing expecting different results is pretty dopey and so I at least proved Albert right once again.  Beating the snot out of the second batch of welds saw the pieces come apart a second time.  I was doing something wrong.

Quel surprise!

So, I read the book.  I looked up the directions.  I googled it.  I watched the attached video and then I did it again.  And the pieces still fell apart.  When in doubt, go to Sal.  “Hey, Sal!  Waddya know about welding?”

“Nothing.  And I am not interested.  And I don’t want to come over and look at what you have done.  Especially with all that snot all over the place.”

“You are not being supportive, sweetie…………you know the deal………….you support and nurture and frequently forgive, and I provide the humour and make sushi now and then.”

“OK.  I’ll come.  Sushi it is for dinner tonight, then?”

We go to the welding spot – where there is a lot……….of snot……..and it is hot………..and what not……what have I got?  Was I taught?  My clothes are shot – like a raggedy tot – And I am not, I say I am not, I say I am not a welderrrrrr! (sung to a rap tune beat with hands waving and logger shirt on fire). 

Sal looks at the welder.  Looks at the knobs.  Looks at me.  “Geez, I dunno….”

But she is also looking at the box and her eyes are focused on the part where the lid is and I seem to recall that the inside of the box had further instructions so I open it up.  I read.  Seems I have been welding at too low a heat setting.

“Sal!  You are a genius.  You led me directly to the answer.  Thanks.  Bril!”

“I did nothing.”

“Do you want sushi?”

“Right.  Hope you learn from this little supervision.  Its a good teacher who speaks little and lets the student learn at their own pace. Doin’ good, butterfly.”

So, I crank up the heat and weld the pieces again and then beat ’em.  Like hell!  They stand strong.  I am pleased.  This is manly stuff.  Real manly.  Stupid, of course.  Dirty, too.  And snotty sometimes.  But there is no avoiding the manliness.  Argh!

Now to the raw fish!

I am welding away, grinding, cutting.  Things are progressing on the steel frame.  But I keep catching on fire.

Except for a few minor burns on the tummy, it doesn’t amount to much more than the odorous destruction of my clothes and a bit of skin discoloration where a hot sliver has lodged on me.  I just flap my hands and put out the burning round hole in my outer and inner shirts (or skin) and carry on.  I have a lot of holes in what has become my main ‘sacrificial’ shirt.  I just hope I don’t have to throw another shirt of homage to the Angel of Hell (welding) before my leather apron comes.  And I hope it comes soon.  I have more than a few minor black spots on my stomach and they do nothing to make me more appealing.  In fact, Sal tends to recoil in horror.

More than usual, I mean.. 

And it is horrible.  She is right.  Once again I have a greater appreciation for a trade.  Fabrication ain’t easy.  Especially not if you want clean nostrils.   And I do.  At the end of the day, when you begin to clean up, I advise blowing your nose first.  Then get a vacuum and suck deeper.  The Kleenex is black.  The second Kleenex is black. The third Kleenex is black.  It is hell in there!  And that is just my nose.  Everything gets dirty.  Hair, skin, clothes….all blackened in some sort of way.  Plus the tummy scars.  I’m telling ya….welding ain’t a pleasant hobby.

Mind you, I am not doing it right.  I am just a backyard goof trying to cobble up a weird thing from scrap metal.  Lots of room for error and I am taking all the room I have.  Lots of errors.  I asked a more experienced friend of mine, “How do I know if I have a good weld?”  “Well, if you hammer the snot out of it for a minute or so and it holds, ya did good!”

“Is that the technical, official, by-the-book-way…?”

“Who reads about welding?”

“Right.  Of course.  What was I thinking.  So, we employ the beat-the-snot method?”

“Yeah.  keep it simple, Dave.  Kiss.”

“Get away from me!  I’m disgusting.  You should see my nostrils.”

“KISS means ‘keep it simple, stupid!”

“I knew that.  But you got a bit too close there, ya know. Looming.   Personal space – thing.  Now just move along, will ya?”

“You’re crazy, you know that?  And, at our age, we only just cuddle anyway.”

“Oh, that makes me feel a lot better!”

Town day yesterday.  Big shop.  Heavy schlep.  Got home at 7:00 pm.  We got packed away and had eaten our purchased-at-3:00 pm take-out (cold) by nine.  Tired.  No doubt about it – town day is getting to be the biggest challenge we face.  It’s an age thing.

We still have plenty of rigorous challenges out here, of course.  My new-ish, junk-pile-sourced, scrap-built solar panel frames, designed, welded, bolted and assembled by me and Sal, all to be relocated to a high rock is still the current project and, given the skill set and energy expenditure required, a not-so-insignificant challenge.   But, to be fair, we can pretty much address the developmental steps of that task at our own pace.  And we do.  In fact, Sal has left me to address all the issues so far.  I’m the ‘fabricator’.  She will be the high-wire act when required.  She gets the glamour job.

It’s a big job but it’s a slow job.  As it should be.

But shopping is as much about spoilage as it is about schlepping and so the pace is dictated by that (we never buy ice cream, for instance).  The ferries, the stores we have to hit and any appointments we might foolishly have made basically dictate the schedule.  Town day is a challenge logistically.  We tallied 24 stops-and-shops on our last trip!  It’s a big job, too.  But it is a very fast-paced one.

This trip was less stops but two 45-minute-apart towns had to be visited.  Yesterday we missed a store closing by five minutes but, thankfully, they were accommodating and let us in so that our chore got done anyway.  Had we missed them, Fid would have had only kibble for a month instead of his usual gourmet blend of raw guts, noses, ears and fat packaged especially for dogs on a raw food diet. Not so important a stop, I suppose, but he does like his noses and guts.

Throw in a dozen other purchases, two ferries and a bloody painful visit to the dentist and you have a pretty full day.

So, I have been thinking about how to make it simpler.  Firstly, there is no way to making dental appointments or doctor visits simple (although remote doctors are experimenting with video conferencing).  And blended packages of noses and guts are a staple at our house.  So some things simply have to be dealt with the hard way.  I figure at least half the logistical challenge will remain for awhile.  But food shopping should be an easy ‘cut’.  I think.  Phone the list into the store, have them deliver the boxes to the water taxi and meet the taxi as it goes up channel.  Simple.  With a little coordination, auto parts can be added to the dock delivery list – they deliver anyway.  Home Depot and Costco will do it too.  Our local doctor will carry prescriptions.  A neighbour will pick up a small package now and again.

It is time to delegate.

Remote camps get stuff flown in or water-taxied in but that is too expensive as a rule.  Our local mail plane will transport at a reasonable rate if we pick up at the post office.  And the water taxi is almost as accommodating if they don’t have to ‘go off-route.  As long as the package is not heavy, that can be a fantastic deal.  Weight-wise, a pizza air-delivered (cold, mind you) is $1.50 or $2.00!  OK, maybe a slice missing.  So, it can be done!  The water taxi will ‘drop’ as much as 200 pounds for $50.00 so long as the packaging is good, easily handled and we meet ’em mid channel.  It’s worth it.

Funny thing about living remote, it is a conundrum.  The appeal is being isolated, the challenge is being connected.  The appeal is hard work and being outdoors but the work is all about building indoor places and making systems work to ease the burdens.  It is almost as if we are working against what attracted us here in the first place.

Now I am planning pizza delivery!

Yin and Yang of life, I guess.

Sal and I are pretty good partners.  VERY good, actually.  We really seem to fill in for each other.  And I have known that for some time.  And I totally appreciate it.  I love it, in fact.  But sometimes it hits you like a fish in the face.  Last night seeing ourselves in film was just such a moment.  There is no way that our lives would have been anywhere near as rich as was being portrayed without each other.  Impossible.

The irony is that we are not anywhere near the same.  We don’t really have similar interests.  We have similar values – but not interests.  We don’t work well together.  We do things together and I love her company but she has her realm of work to do and I have mine.  God helps us overcome when they overlap.  And I have no idea how her mind works.  Freud and Jung would have no idea.  Maybe Lucille Ball would have some kind of inkling but I don’t.  And that’s a good thing.  Makes every day a surprise.  A series of surprises, to be more precise.

We have different temperaments, too. And we are both temperamental.  Plus, I have a little extra temper side.  She has a little extra ‘mental’ part.  I live in a semi-grouchy state and Sal lives in a ‘Wonderful World’ kind of state.  Sal has a nuclear strike capability but generally speaking is pretty placid and calm.  I tend towards seeing the glass half empty and what is left in the glass is flat beer.  Sal tends to see the glass full of champagne and accompanied by flowers.  And puppies.  She makes Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm look bi-polar.  So, that’s good for me – she keeps me happy so to speak and I keep her in touch with the dark, bleak and dismal.  Seems fair, don’t you think?

But here’s the weird part – lately she has begun to show ‘Dave’ tendencies while I am constantly striving for more ‘Sally’ qualities.  We are actually becoming a bit more like each other.  You should hear her on the job site!  You should hear her on politics! That woman can rant!  And, despite throwing like a girl, she can accurately throw tools and scream epithets at inanimate objects.  Sometimes we are really close to one another in that way.

And I am spending more time smelling flowers, loving hummingbirds and watching puppies frolic. Baking cookies has even crossed my mind.   It’s sick but it’s true.

We both have a long, long way to go for anyone outside of our lives to see what I am talking about.  Sal still presents like an Audrey Hepburn in the forest and I like a Shrek but we are both indelibly changed by living our lives together.  For the better, I hope.

Why the self description?  Because a friend who is into making movies (short ones) made one about us.  To accomplish this fer-sure Sundance Film Festival winner, he had to somehow capture the essence of us in five minutes.  The link is how he must see us.  I am Shrek-with-an-axe, Sal is an Amazon with grace and beauty.  And we look good together if I do say so myself. 

OK, she looks good.  I look unbelievably lucky. 

Mind you, he was careful NOT to shoot any footage of us building together.  That tells you something.  It’s like the dog NOT barking in the night (Sherlock Holmes).  Speaks volumes.

Clicking the link below did not work for me so I right-clicked it and then hit ‘open’.  It works that way for sure.  I’ll have a word with the editor…….

Leaving by Randy Cole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMXeAv2hlaM

Fuel prices are a big factor when living off the grid.  Mostly because living OTG means reduced income, lots of engines and further distances to go.  Ergo, fuel is a larger factor than you might first imagine.

Ironically, we actually use less fuel OTG than we did in the city by quite a large percentage but it is also used in different ways and so a direct comparison of consumption is difficult to make. Especially when you don’t make a conscious exercise of it.

Still, over the years it has been made fairly clear – we use less oil living out here than we do in the city.  I estimate 40% less.

A mile traveled in a small boat takes the equivalent in fuel of 10 miles in a car.  So, on the face of it, boat commuting is over-consumptive.  On the other hand, most of us travel relatively short distances by boat and then get into cars so the comparison falls down a bit.  When we shop, we buy BIG and for weeks at a time.  Our SUV runneth over, so to speak. And so our frequency of car-driving is pretty low.  Twice a month on average.  We average about 5,000 kms a year.  So that is pretty indicative of less consumption.

But we also have gensets.  And we use ’em.  And our appliances run off propane and we use them, too.  So up goes the needle.  A ball-park average is that, all-in, everything included, driving and appliances, gensets and boats, we average about $250.00 a month for energy (oil) costs with not much variation with the seasons.

When Sal and I lived in the city, we ran two cars and my son and daughter each had cars intermittently.  Our house power consumption was about $250 a month and the vehicles easily doubled that.  I would say that we likely averaged $600 a month one way or another in power consumption and that might be as high as $750.00 today if we were all still there doing the same things.  But that is not a fair comparison either – then we were working and now we are not.

I mention all this because I am in the process of tripling my solar panel array.  I will – eventually – get more free energy.  Not ‘free’ so much as ‘free’  from now on.  All the cost in this kind of energy consumption is up-front.  Well, except for batteries, of course.  Those suckers revisit their cost on your wallet like a seasonal flu.  Anyway, I will have more power and my monthly costs won’t appreciably rise.  You’d think that would be a good thing…………………….and it is………..kinda.

Don’t forget, my appliances and engines run off oil.  To really benefit from the solar array, I would have to shift to electric propulsion and/or electrical appliances.  That shift would be a huge expense.  So, I won’t do it quickly.  Maybe an electrical freezer or fridge to start.  A microwave?

See where this is going?  We may not consume less oil, we may just consume more energy.

“So, how would you do it differently again, Dave?”

“Firstly, go big, go really big, right from the get-go.  Make an OTG system that works in balance right from the start.  The Piecemeal plan is more costly in the long run and results in inefficiencies.  And that is hard for people to commit to – I know that.  I didn’t do it that way and that is why I know where my mistakes were.

Solar is the most efficient for most people.  If you have a strong-flowing stream for micro-hydro, that is the best way to go but most people don’t have a stream and will use solar.  Wind turbines are just not cost effective nor are they are as predictable a source of energy.  We’ll have about 2000 watts of panels working for us soon and, for our needs, that is about right.  We use as little as we can and yet we’ll easily be able to use the extra power.  The goal is to be able to use it where oil was being used before.  That will be more difficult.  Had I started with more electrical appliances and, of course, more panels, it would be an easier transition.  We are likely to get more ‘electrified’ as the years go by and the current infrastructure breaks down.

“Dave, why tell us this?”

Well, a reader is contemplating going off the grid.  That’s all. But off-grid or on, it really doesn’t matter.  Getting some power from your own solar panels is a good thing for everyone.  Even if you live downtown Vancouver.

So, it has only been ten years or so.  Living out here.  Feels like a lifetime – a great and wonderful one – but one so different as to almost erase 50 years of urban memories.

Well, NOT erase them.  I can still tell ‘city-life’ stories for hours on end (but people keep leaving the room, so I don’t).  But this new life in the country has definitely kicked the old life in the city back into yesteryear.  Like I said, it almost feels like a lifetime ago.

The title of my blog describes me as an urban guy gone feral and that has been fairly accurate until about now.  I was urban.  I am not now. But I am not yet quite feral. It is a process.

I am NOT wild, untamed or completely free in the least but I also no longer feel the essence of the urban experience.  I no longer have to fit in.  I don’t have to relate.  I don’t have to get it. Not as much, anyway.  And I don’t.

Increasingly frequent mass killings don’t explain it to me very well, either.  Tho I am not in the least surprised.  Yet, such incidents are being adjusted to by communities.  I don’t get that, either.   I wouldn’t get used to that without getting paranoid and PTSD’d upside the head.  Put another way – I don’t think I can adjust to that level of crap.  Not anymore.  I shudder to think what I adjusted to when I was being taught at school and trying to fit in.  Like the old rock and roll song (Kodachrome, Simon and Garfunkel), “When I think of all the crap I learned in High School, it’s a wonder I can think at all!”

I really don’t understand why people endure all that madness when moving away from it – at the very least – is a viable option.

Part of it, of course, is that the urban experience has itself been moving apace.  Vancouver in 2014 is simply NOT the city it was in 2004.  Not even close.  More of the ugly and the absurd is commonplace for instance.  And, even if it wasn’t, smartphones alone have changed the culture beyond recognition. The city is changing and the people in it are changing.  Hard to get off a moving train.

Just for an eye-opener, drive the unit and hundred blocks of Hastings street at midnight.  Do not slow down.  Do not stop.  Just look and keep going. 

Mind you, things change…and they have.  That’s to be expected.  Me and the city are on opposing and different paths and we are both accelerating on our journey.  Well, the city is accelerating and I am just barely moving. Ambling, really.  OK, doddering.  But the point is: oppositely.

But, c’mon…real Zombies and Vampires (see Hastings street) seem to be playing a larger part in so-called modern life these days……………I dunno……..just sayin’.  That is weird.  Ya got plenty of your shootin’ and your taserin’, too.  And those are the cops!  And then there is the normalization of the drugs, of course. Teachers breaking bad.  And generally accepted levels of corruption.  Crimes of mass destruction environmentally.

Ask yourself the question: ‘What am I signing up for here?’

Yesterday, Sal and my friends collected a bit of Cedar bark for crafts.  The day before, he fished and caught dinner.  The garden is being attended to and I am teaching myself to weld (I admit that ‘welding’ does not seem all that primal but it is.  I am practically a blacksmith-in-the-making).  We are deeper into the independent lifestyle even if so much of it is still very dependent.  We need gasoline, for instance.  Food brought from stores…that kinda thing.  But more and more, bit by bit, we are getting free of the umbilicals, the webs, the snares and the traps of modern living.

Leavin’ zombies far behind….

But, even better, we are getting free of the seemingly increasing presence of evil that stalks the urban streets.  Or so it seems, anyway.

It is not easy getting the tar off the baby but we are getting closer.  On a scale of one to ten, we are easily a two, maybe a 2.5.  Should we ever get to a 5 on that scale (needing the system 50% less) we will feel twice as free.  Twice as safe and twice as healthy, too.

Point: first decade was a success!

We’re coming back from a town day, several miles into the last portion of the logging road and quite in the middle of nowhere, whipping past a clump of trees as we pass one of the lakes on the neighbouring Island.  I am concentrating on driving as, like most logging roads, this one is a single-but-wide lane and encountering traffic always feel at first like a collision in the making.  Sal shrieks.  Something falls off the roof.  I stop.  “Hey! There’s a sign in the bushes.  It says, Sally and David.  Think that means us?”

“What fell off the roof?”

“I think it was a roof rack mount.  Was that sign meant for us?”

We found and picked up the roof rack mount and went back to the little clump of bushes.  There was a place to pull off and camp at the lake and so I took the pull-off. Sitting there reading was our old friend, Doug.

“I knew you went to town ’cause I was gettin’ on the ferry you were getting off.  I saw you.  Knew you’d come back so I put up a sign.  Good eyes!”

Doug is 70+, gone camping for a few weeks with just his van – not an RV.  He has the required tent,  Coleman stove, sleeping bag. Bit of food.   He gets water from and bathes in the lakes and streams.  Everything is minimalist but in order and clean.  He’ll forage about for berries and stuff.  He is headed up island before returning for a visit.  Definitely a character…’who puts a very small sign on a bush in the forest and expects it to be seen?’

B and L were on their way up to us for a pre-arranged weekend stay.  He was the reader who offered to bring me welding stuff.  He knows how to weld.  After a lesson or two and a couple of days at it, I do too.  Kinda.  Just little, hobby-boy welding but that’s fine.  I intend no further advancement than hobby-boy and maybe a bit of Honey-do level welding.  Small jobs for sure.

So, the summer is here.  Officially or not.  Using dates or not, summer is here.  For us, the season starts with the first guests and, even tho we have had visitors already, it is the first overnight guest that marks the beginning of the silly season.  B & L were good harbingers of that.  They are goofy as Hell. Doug had a shot at it but he’ll be #2.  Otherwise he had all the qualifications.  Silliness up the ying yang.  But fun.

And so the madness begins…..

Sal spent $70.00 on go-to-yoga-Wednesday.  That is incredible.  Beyond comprehension.  But she did it despite the impossibility of it.  Mind you, she didn’t HAVE $70.00 at the time (nor a credit card or even a purse) but that didn’t stop her.  A man’s gotta do, a woman’s gotta shop.

But you already know all that about women shopping.  That is not news.  What makes this day of expenditure so remarkable is that Sal managed to do it without a store to visit.  In fact, with the exception of some postage from the Post Office, there was not even the semblance of a normal vendor and one had to look hard in places not normally associated with commerce to find something to buy.

I confess that, in this case, the looking hard part would have been the fun part for me because Sal came home with some new bras.  One of the people at Yoga had returned from Mexico with a collection of colourful and captivating custom-made bras for sale and Sal took advantage.  The goods were displayed in situ while attending yoga and who could resist that?  Her word is good so the debt was incurred and the bras handed over.  Ka-ching!  She also, of course, paid for attending yoga ($6.00) and the aforementioned postage.  She passed on lunch…(with new bras, she was watching her figure….).   

While on the public dock at the PO, she ran into G from a neighbouring island.  G raises chickens and had a few dozen eggs to sell and, surprisingly, a frozen chicken.  Our local chickens are more than free range, they are lucky as hell.  There is so much wildlife up here that the odds of survival are higher in downtown Homs, Syria, than for being a free range chicken on a remote island.  But this one made it long enough to get frozen and driven to the PO and so Sal couldn’t resist.  It was good karma in a poultry-kind-of-way.  No money.  Just a mental note…and a sum of money placed in one of several envelopes when she got home.

No store.  No intention.  No money at hand.  But we have chickens, bras, stamps and eggs nevertheless.  I kinda understand the chicken and eggs but colourful Mexican bras found in the middle of the west coast rain forest……?  This is a whacky, fun kinda place at times.