Choosing a cabin site is really two questions; where in the world (or, in my case, BC) would you choose to be and, of course, where on your selected property would you place the cabin?  So much of that is subjective that I’ll keep it short. I am only mentioning it at all because so many of my friends have asked me to look out for a ‘certain kind of site’ for them.  That ‘certain kind’ likely represents what is typically desired when contemplating cabin locations.

Firstly, I am Canadian and I know Canada.  Some.  And I know BC much better than most other provinces.  Having said that and, in my humble-but-biased opinion, the only provinces to seriously consider having a cabin in are BC, PEI and Nova Scotia.  My favourite, BC, is far and away the most temperate.  At least around the Gulf of Georgia or what we are now calling the Salish Sea.

I have ruled out huge swathes of Canada due to the bug count.  The prestigous ‘lakes’ region of Ontario is probably the largest area of free protien in the world.  If you are a bird with a taste for bugs!  And, trust me, a lot of the other provinces are close in that category.  If the bug count matters to you, stay on the coast.

But the Gulf of Georgia in BC is, in my opinion, the best.  The rest of the province (and the country) can and does get as severe a winter as our ‘eskimos and polar bears’ reputation suggests.  40 below zero is not an unusual number to read about in any place in Canada but the coasts and the Gulf.  And the Gulf often goes the entire winter without more than a couple of weeks with below freezing temperatures.  If temperate is what you want, then the Gulf of Georgia is where you want to be.

People like water front.  I do, too.  But, truly?  It is not as necessary as you might think.  Canada does not allow upland owners to own the beach.  Beach is public.  So that means you can access any beach at any time (if there is an access point or you have a boat).  What you really want (if you are an ocean watcher like me) is a water view.  And a clear, unobstructed water view property is significantly less money to buy.  I know of one couple that is probably two miles from the beach and can see clearly over the water to the nearest town 25 miles away.  They have a lovely view to enjoy every day.

In Canada, you want to face south.  You need the sun.  This is not Arizona where you need to get away from the sun.  This is Canada and the further north you go, the more you covet the sun.  In the winter, for sure.  Face south.

You need water.  Most of the Gulf receives about 60 inches of rain a year or more.  You can catch and store rain water but a stream or some other small source is usually pretty reliable.  Sadly, much of the Gulf Islands have water problems.  That is because they are basically just huge rocks and rocks don’t absorb and store a lot of water.  But it is also because the islands are popular and what water resource is there is fully utilized by the people.  Frankly, I’d advise finding a property that has it’s own water source and the locally organized water-sewer-grid is one to avoid.  Too expensive.

Arable soil is not in abundance.  But there is some.  It tends to be ‘back-in’ from the coast in clefts and small areas.  With the exception of a few valleys on Vancouver Island (Saanich peninsula, Cowichan, Comox, Strathcona), large tracts of good soil are somewhat hard to come by.  But a few acres here and there are still findable.  Typically cabin dwellers are not the same people as full-on farmers so you’ll likely have enough dirt for a vegetable garden.  We do.  Barely.

I think the most important factors when choosing a site are access and neighbours.  Most neighbours are great.  But some aren’t.  Do a bit of research.  You don’t want to be living next door to the unlicensed shooting range of the poor, paranoid nut-bar who spends his day in camo and keeps adding to his tattoo collection.  It can get a bit disconcerting at the very least.

And access is an issue.  Even though you are wanting to be off the grid, off the radar and off on your own, you will still need to get places and have some people get to you.  We live two hours travel from the nearest town.  It feels further because we travel by boat, car and then catch a ferry.  We definitely feel as if we are way, way off the grid.  But some people on another island have to take a ferry to another island to then catch that ferry.  They are not off-the-grid so much as on-the-ferry.  Takes them longer to get to town but much of the time is spent waiting in the ferry parking lot.  That loses it cachet rather quickly.

Seriously consider access.

Property values fluctuate hugely.  There was a beautiful piece just down the way with everything anyone would want in a five acre lot except it was not waterfront.  Stunning views, tho.  It was only 75 yards away but it was not waterfront.  They couldn’t give it away.  I’ve seen small pieces moldering in shadows with nothing going for them get a big price because they had waterfront.  So,  prices aren’t always logical in my opinion.

You really have to get to know the area before taking a leap.

Like the post on generators, this one only touches the surface of the topic.  If anyone wants additional information about my area, please contact me by e-mail.

A reader asked about generators.  But the topic is huge.  There is so much to know.  I won’t attempt to address anything but the most basic this time.  If people want to know more, I’d be happy to elaborate in an e-mail.

There really is no such thing as the very best generator.  Some, of course, are better than others but the definition of best has to include a lot of criteria such as price, noise, portability, voltage, fuel and purity of power, just to name a few that come readily to mind.  Bottom line when it comes to generators: you need three of them.

Caveat – bear in mind that I live completely off-the-grid but I live a modern comfortable lifestyle.  There is usually only my wife and me and we have pared our electrical requirements much leaner than we did before when we lived on the grid.  We reduced our electrical requirements partially by revising our habits and partially by using propane appliances.  The house is only 1200 square feet but I have several small outbuildings, a funicular and lots of tools.  We are NOT the same as everyone else but, I think, we are reasonably ‘normal’ in our power needs.

Probably the most useful generator, for me, is the Honda EU2000.  Yamaha has a comparable one and so do many others manufacturers from Subaru to weird Chinese brands but the Honda and Yamaha seem to have the best reputations around here.

The EU series produces ‘inverter’ power meaning – for the most part – that the power is ‘clean’ enough to use with computers.  In reality, you are unlikely to fire up a generator to power something as small as a computer but a lot of products these days have computer chips (dishwashers, washing machines, etc.) and so having an inverter-series is safer for your appliances.  But significantly more expensive.  You can buy a generator twice the size (Honda EM5000) for the same money and, if you have a separate inverter for the house (which you should), that should do fine.

The main benefit of the Honda 2000 for me, though, is portability.  I can carry the thing all over the property and take it to the work rather than taking the work to the shop.  As soon as you are generating 3000 watts or more, the generator gets too heavy to carry easily. Especially on hilly terrain.

The second genset you need is one ‘sized’ right for the houseload.  But do not make the mistake of adding up the power requirements of all your appliances (there should be a label on them giving the specs) and letting that determine the size of the genset.  Doing that ‘addition’ thing is the usual advice from the experts and they are wrong!  In reality no one has all their lights and appliances on at any one time – especially in an off-grid situation.  Just think about what you might be using at the same time (and then add the water pump.  It kicks on whenever it feels like it!).

Sally and I can – generally speaking – get away for weeks on end with running only the Honda EU2000 for a few hours a day to charge our batteries.  But that is partly because we have solar panels and a wind generator to add juice to the battery bank.  Which means the Honda and the battery bank together get us through the day.  Without the battery bank or the alternative energy sources, a 1200 square foot house might need all of 5000 watts.  To be on the safe side, I would recommend 7 – 10Kw with my inclination closer to the lower number.

The ‘house unit’ should be diesel or propane.  And if the fuel can be delivered, so much the better.  Fuel handling is an awful job.  And fuel spilling is worse than spilling milk. Diesel models run longer, as a rule, and propane is cheaper and cleaner than gasoline.  Most gensets run at 1800 rpm or 3600 rpm.  And, to my mind, the 1800 rpm units are way better.

Always go liquid-cooled if you can (but you can’t in the small sizes).  They are quieter and generally run better.  In this category, you are looking at Yanmar first, maybe Kubota.  There are lots of good small diesel generators but stay away from the cheap Chinese brands.  They simply don’t last.

I have an Isuzu-powered 15Kw house generator and it is way too big.  15Kw is total overkill.  But the Isuzu is a good engine.  And I bought it second or third hand so it wasn’t very expensive.

If I was to buy a new house generator, it would likely be a Honda 5/6/7 Kw unit converted to propane.  It would not, however, be the best unit.  But it would be the least expensive-but-still-reliable unit burning petroleum products. And I think that any longer term planning has to consider that fuel will become more of an issue as the years go by.  Put another way: I wouldn’t invest heavily in gas/diesel burning infrastructure.  The ubiquitous ‘they’ will have something better soon.  I hope.

Like many technologies, improvements in generating power are incremental.  And the latest improvements include co-gen plants.  Co-gen basically means ‘very efficient’ use of the energy used.  Cogen plants make electricity and capture the heat for household hot water and such as well.  Plus they are ‘inverter’ types that save a bit of fuel by adjusting for demand.  Yanmar makes a 7 and a 10 kw co-gen plant that is ideal if you are starting from scratch.  AND I am pretty sure it can run on propane.

But, as a retrofit, it is likely impractical.

Finally, you need a third one.  A back-up.  Any good, basic 5Kw genset will do.  Even a good-running Coleman or a Generac will do in a short term pinch.  Generators are machines and they break.  But, when you are off the grid and your main genset breaks, you need to get back on to the e-grid at the very least if, for no other reason, than to find a way to fix it. Plus, you will find that water pumps and battery chargers are needy little users and they demand their juice.  I don’t have a good third one, but it is on the list.

If you are a welder, you will need more power than 5Kw.  If you are going to work at something in a shop all day long, you may need a different amount again.  If you can’t get propane, then all your power needs will be greater than ours as we use propane for the fridge, hot water, cooking and the freezer.  And, so it goes…………..different power needs for different folks.

Having said all that, the biggest tip for those who have yet to make the leap is to design the whole system from the very start so that all components are compatible with each other – and logical for where you plan to be – doing what you plan to do.  There is no sense in having a huge battery bank with a small charger.  There is no sense getting off the grid, in fact, if you don’t employ some solar panels (They are marvelous in the summer in our location with no need for the generator most days).  And there is no sense at all in buying a propane generator just to find that you have to haul in the stuff in 20 pound tanks.  That will become your hobby whether you want it to or not.

System design is not about brand name.  It is about use.  It is about fuel types and it is about reliability and flexibility.  So – the teeny bit on generators?  Start with the whole system design first.  The genset is only a small part.

Oddly, Chocolate snake and the vertically challenged transsexual didn’t make a blip in the stats.  I guess my sense of deviance is off the mark.  Maybe snakes and midgets are all the norm these days?  I dunno.  Weirdos want more than I can give, I guess (not that there is anything wrong with that!).  I am tempted to give it another shot but, if I do, I think I am playing too recklessly with the definition of off the grid.

“Hey, Dave!  What kinda grid did you slip off of, anyway?”

Might be time to rein it in a smidge and just roll out another political rant-blog before I go back to whales and ravens.  I feel the need to vent.

All five of the living presidents met at the opening of the GW Bush library the other day.  Apparently he has the largest collection of Archie Digests and Marvel Comics ever!  Two of the presidents were named Bush.  What are the odds, eh? GW suggested at the time that he would encourage Jeb, his brother, to try to make it a trifecta.  What are the odds of that, eh?  No, seriously….WHAT ARE THE ODDS!!???

One thing is for sure: the Bush family does not seem to face the same 300 million-to-one gamble of becoming president that every other American faces.

By the way, this criticism of the rigged democracy we seem so enamoured with is not limited to the Bush family or Baby and Papa Doc Duvalier and other nepotistic dynasties.  Canada just entered (more obviously than in past) the cynical sweepstakes by anointing Justin Trudeau to the leadership of the Liberal Party.  The man who has done nothing.  Ever.  The man who had his father’s eulogy written for him so that he could make a debutante-like unveiling of himself on TV.  We now have the son of a charismatic leader now long dead as the leader of a major party.

Gee, Canada does seem to follow the States in so many ways…………(see also the Phillipines, North Korea, India, etc.)

We will get another Trudeau as prime minister someday.  I can feel it in my gut.

The US may get another Bush, too.

But nepotism isn’t the only flaw.  In Canada we have a system that doesn’t allow the elected reps to speak or vote for their constituents or their conscience.  They do what they are told by the leader of the ruling party.  Our elected officials are virtually muppets.  In effect, we have chosen a rotational dictatorship.

Here’s another flaw: Our provincial NDP party, likely destined for power after the upcoming election, has a policy that does not allow it to endorse men anymore – not unless they are already incumbents.  A ‘new’ man wanting to represent his constituency under the NDP banner isn’t welcome.  It’s the penis, it seems.  Vagina good.  Penis bad.

In politics, natural selection is anything but democratic.

I once vied for a nomination.  I lost out to a doofus who simply mouthed the party platform.  Seems my ad-libbing, tho, was good enough for the party elites to ask me to run in another area.  “We want you to run in another constituency…you OK with that?  We’ll pay all your expenses, give you support.”

“I can’t do that!  How is there any integrity at all in doing that?  How can I stand up in front of people whose issues are unknown to me and promise to represent them?  How can I be a stranger and do a good job?”

“Never mind all that.  If you get in, you will get a salary and a pension.  Think about it!”

Bottom line: the party system is undemocratic.  It pre-selects candidates and thus limits the voters choice to one of two ‘elites’.  We are supporting a very flawed system.  We should fix it.

There should not be a party system.  Let independents get elected and let them make temporary alliances on issues when they genuinely agree or have something in common.

OK.  Thanks.  Weight temporarily lifted off my chest.  Whew!  Ravens and whales to follow.  Maybe some stuff about building.  Dunno yet.  I am tempted to do some product endorsement………………wanna hear opinions about gensets?  Solar panels?  Tools?  How to choose a location for a cabin?        

I don’t often report on the blog but, forgive me this time, please, as I am going to.

My blog is a three time-a-week affair now and, of course, the numbers were expected to drop as a consequence.  And they have.  But so did the service provider and that didn’t help ratings at all.  My page-carrier fell off the working-duty roster when it got hacked a week or so ago and my blog and a whole bunch of other web-based small businesses went down.  No more Mr. Nice guy-in-the-woods.  I was inadvertently incognito for almost week.

Such is life.  No one needs this blog.  It is just a hobby.  But – damn! – I felt disconnected all of a sudden.  I felt like I was somehow lost.  Lonely, to be sure.  No comments came in.  No one wrote.  The numbers (stats) fell off like I had bird flu.  It felt awful.  So, I did what any blogger over 60 would do, I called my son and asked him to fix it.

And he did.  But in the process, I learned more about the site’s statistics.  I learned that 80% of my readers are from the Canada and spread in a diminishing concentration to as far away as Nova Scotia.  Newfies and Nunavites have resisted jumping on the bandwagon so far.  Disappointing but understandable.  So has the Yukon.  That is because they live this off-the-grid-kinda way, too.  Most of the balance of readers are from the US, as you would expect, but there are people in Europe, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand and, get this: PERU!

Now, honest to God, I like Peruvians.  Why not!?  Machu Pichu, llamas, coffee……what’s not to like?  But why would a Peruvian read about Dave and Sally?  So: If you are that lone Peruvian, please write and make a connection.

I also learned that the average reader spends a minute and 44 seconds on the page.  And that the vast majority come directly from a Google search or ‘bookmark’ familiarity rather than by referral from another site.  The only site that has a noticeable referral rate is A VINTAGE GREEN  (http://www.avintagegreen.com) which has nothing really to do with living off the grid except J & S are our friends.  J has a quite a list of blogs she likes and OTG is one of them.

I’ve had as many as 1300 readers in a day but it wasn’t ever due to my writing appeal.  I inadvertently used a term that attracted some weirdos.  Some phrase that was accidentally used having a kinky meaning in some underground milieu.  Something, perhaps, a smidge less bizarre than this following example:

“I chicken-wrung the big black snake, covered it in chocolate and put it on the trapeze with the naked, transsexual midget for later display at the monastery”.

That sentence alone will likely increase my readership by 100% today.  I may even be able to add a few new countries.

And I will get advertisements for organ enlargement.

The internet is a marvelous thing.

Ex-Wwoofer and his new wife came to visit.  They are from Japan.  It was very good to see Leo again with his lovely partner.  They were very gracious and a lot of fun.  Seems Leo has been talking about our place for the last few years to anyone in Japan that will listen.  And his new wife listened.  So, they came.  Vancouver, our house, Hawaii.  Kind of a honeymoon with a hiccup in the middle.

Leo is an intelligent young man trying to find the right place for himself in Japan while, at the same time, feeling a pull towards Canada and living like we do.  He would rather live in a log cabin, I think, than in a 300 square foot apartment in Tokyo. He’d rather see wolves and whales than Toyotas and Hondas.  In Tokyo he works twelve to fourteen hours a day in the office of a big company and then, of course, commutes an hour or so to do that.  And it is not satisfying him.  He is one of those Japanese who is not comfortable as a ‘Company Man’.  So, he is searching.

I, of course, suggest crazy, off-the-wall, Gaijin-thinking and I am sure it just serves to add to his confusion but really, I can’t see anyone who is healthy and smart spending their youth like so many young Asians seem to……………..Well, I suppose……………how so many young people are obliged to these days.

This urbanization trend/movement/migration is an international phenomena not peculiar to Asia. Young people all over the world are leaving the small villages for the jobs offered in the city.   It may seem logical but, in the long run, I think it will overstress the cities and all those who go there.

And, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Sometime.

So, naturally, that makes me think of going in the opposite direction.  And we did.  If everyone is going to the city, it must be wrong!  If it is not wrong now, it soon will be.  If it isn’t sooner, then it is later.  That is how your basic contrarian thinks and I am basically pretty much a contrarian.  I think Leo is, too.  And I suspect that our Leo will do something rash like apply to come to Canada…………or something…………..

The search for meaning, eh?  To live just for the sake of life is not enough it seems.  The human condition includes a need for meaning, a purpose, a goal, an overarching plan that we think we can get our heads around.

I don’t think we can.  The picture is too big.

In the end we will have simply contributed in some small or large way to the legacy that is our species.  We will have added our bit to the pile.  Like ants that take leaf cuttings, we are not fully cognizant of the piling or the process, we are just there to do our part as best we can.  And, if you are a smart ant, you enjoy it right from the get-go.  If you are not such a smart ant, you keep looking for just the right leaf in just the right place and then you go for that one hoping you will be happy when you get that one to the pile.

That is what I did.  And it worked.  I lucked out.  My advice to Leo:  If you can’t be smart, you had better be lucky.   

Despite my antipathy for the city, I do end up there now and then.  And then is now.  We are in Victoria for Sal’s mom’s 85th birthday.  My wonderful son and his equally  wonderful partner are also here and so we get to enjoy two visits for the price of one drive.

And yes, we bring the dogs.

On the face of it we are just doing what families do.  Visit.  Eat.  Leave.  Hugs sprinkled liberally.  A few laughs.  But, in truth, we are primarily, if not unconsciously, marking time.   This visit is yet another milestone.

I don’t mean ‘keeping time’ or ‘suffering’ time but I do mean, literally, marking time.  Keeping track.  My son is a bit older.  His partner is a bit older.  Their dog is a bit older.  And, of course, we are all marking the progress of time for each other.  It is normal.

But it becomes a smidge more poignant an exercise when you are celebrating some of the higher numbered birthdays.  Sal’s mom is the younger parent.  Her dad is pushing 90.

Marking time with them is a bit different.

Now, don’t get me wrong – those two old sticks are as vibrant and as full of life as ever.  It wasn’t two years ago the six of us were in Guatemala drinking Margaritas and driving about in a Land Rover.  Causing trouble.  We were never mistaken for revolutionaries but we got around.

Life not only goes on, it hasn’t let up.  We are all good to go to Mexico next winter.

But, at the same time, there is a realization that 90 year-olds don’t gad about quite as much.  The action part of their movie will settle down some. Soon.   And they feel the need to talk about it.  And so we do.

Talking about movies ending isn’t something we normally do.  That conversation is still relatively new.  We may be talking about getting older now and then but being old is a new conversation for all of us.  It feels a bit odd sometimes.   “So, I wonder which of you will want my collection of silver spoons, eh?”

It won’t be me.  Our age (Sal and I are in our 60’s) is one of non-acquisition for the most part.  We are no longer adding to the ‘stuff’ even if we are not yet at the stage of discarding it.  The silver spoons will have to skip a generation, I guess.

But I bring this all up because, even though we mark time all the time, we only notice we are doing so once in awhile.  And I am noticing it quite a bit on this trip.  That is what makes it a milestone.

My daughter-in-law (a nurse) added to the process.  “One of my patients is dying.  She’s your doppelganger, a veritable copy of you.  Even says similar phrases, uses similar sentence structure ,has the same sense of humour.  It’s weird”. 

“How old is she?”

” ‘Bout five years younger than you.  But she has lived a lot and we talk about life and stuff.  Kinda like you.”

Living off the grid is for me just a stage in my life.  I know that.  But it is a new and adventurous one.  Full of promise, full of tomorrows, full of future.  I tend to see our life stages like that.  Sal and I have done a lot and intend to do a lot still.  But this trip is a bit different.  This trip suggests that the stages are not limitless.  There are only so many.  I have been brought up a bit short by this visit.  We are on a highway that is about to end.

And I guess we are just seeing the signposts up ahead.

A friend of mine is about to retire.  She wondered what the virtues and pitfalls of retirement were.  Since I had left early and had a head-start she asked for advice.  This is what I wrote:

A neighbour died recently.  Memorial today.  Pretty much everybody will go – most likely.  He was a good guy.  Very gentle, very community oriented, very much a back-to-the-lander.  I liked him.

When you live in a community of only a few dozen people, losing one seems somehow more of a loss.  It shouldn’t be, of course.  A person is a person regardless of how many people live in proximity.  But it seems different.  All part of living in a small community, I suppose.

I remember him for a number of reasons but one of them is a bit odd.  He used to watch me go to the bathroom.

When we were building our house eight years ago, we did so while living in the little boatshed at the waters edge.  We had no plumbing.  We had no outhouse.  But we had a bucket.  I placed the bucket near the water a couple of hundred feet down the beach.  It was nestled amongst the rocky outcroppings and afforded sufficient privacy…..I thought.

Sal disagreed.  She insisted on a barrier of sorts.  Something to block the view of any passersby.  Of which there were virtually none.  And any that there might be were usually passing by in a fast boat many hundreds of yards away in the middle of the channel.  Exposure: maybe ten seconds a day.  Eyesight required by the passerby: better than 20/20 and at least as telescopic as a set of good binoculars.

I felt safe enough without the wood pallet I was forced to erect as a screen.  But, you know……...anything to keep the little darlin’ happy……

Anyway………my body is pretty regular.  So I would visit the bucket at much the same time every day.  That time was, coincidentally, much the same time as my neighbour slowly cruised by in his boat on his way to work at the school.  He passed quite close by the shore.  And his boat wasn’t fast. There I would sit, my head just visible above the top edge of the pallet.  In the middle of nowhere.  On a beach.  Hiding.  Kinda.

And he would cruise by.  And he would see me.  My head, anyway.

We hadn’t been formally introduced and so, because of that, I guess, he didn’t acknowledge the disembodied head and I didn’t wave.  But, as it takes many months to build a house, we both started to recognize a pattern emerging.  Something had to be done.

So, one day I waved.

He waved back.

And so it went for what seemed like, at the time, forever.

Of course, we eventually met in more polite circumstances and smiled and shook (washed) hands.  But our regular morning encounters were never mentioned.  It was our little secret.  No one ever knew.

Now you do.

Readers might suppose that I am kinda macho.  You know?  Wilderness man, deck-builder, blog-writer?  Pretty high testosterone stuff.  That and making sushi.  “I am Samurai!”.  Aaaarggh!

But the truth is I have a sensitive side.  Well, girly, if you must.  Chicken-poop, for sure.  Stupid also works.  Some things terrify me.  Or at least gross me out.  I am pretty squeamish about killing a deer, for instance.  They are just so pretty, ya know?

But I am workin’ on it.  My therapist says that I will be able to kill soon.  All I have to do is listen to more CBC news, follow Harper’s political moves and attend some fundamentalist church regularly and I should be ready to go postal soon enough.  I think it’s workin’.

But trees still frighten me.  I am definitely not a brave lumberjack.  I am not a logger.  Falling trees scares the bejeezuz out of me.  You see, I made the mistake of reading the Worker’s Compensation Fallers’ and Buckers’ Handbook and I am now quite sure it was the inspiration behind the Chainsaw Massacre movie series.  Stephen King probably has a copy.  Dropping a big tree is, it seems to me, a fifty-fifty proposition.  The tree falls dead or else I do.

Anyway, I mention all this because, like the doofus I am, I am halfway through building the deck out back and, starting on the part that will support the new studio, I glanced up and saw a humongous dead tree leaning in the exact direction needed to fall directly onto the building to be.  Clearly this behemoth was going to fall within a year or so and just as clearly it was going to fall on my new building when it did.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I have taken down trees.  A man has to do, after all.  But, until now, I have been able to limit the opposition to skinny little fellers.  I consider anything under ten inches in diameter a tree I can push around.  Anything ten and and half inches or larger is a bully and shouldn’t be messed with. This puppy was at least eighteen inches and I dubbed it Godzilla.

These are the kinds of challenges that keep me in the lower end of amateur status when it comes to building.  “Hey, Dave, have you checked to make sure any huge dead trees won’t fall on your building site?”

“Oh, gee!  No, I haven’t.  Thanks for reminding me.  I’ll look up next time I am there!”

It is truly amazing how anything ever gets done around here and how incredibly unlikely it is that I am still around to record it.

I called a lumber-buddy and he came down.  I stated in my best macho voice that I fully intended to take the tree down myself but, as I was scared and shaking even on the phone talking about it, I would appreciate some coaching.

So, he came down and looked at the tree.  I really hoped that he would say, “Never mind, I’ll do it.”  And I was going to insist that I do it instead, hoping that he would persist and then, after dancing around like that for a bit, I would graciously allow him to do it.

The bastard said, “Of course you are going to do it!  I’m not going to put myself in harm’s way.  It’s your tree.  Time to grow a pair, Dave!”

“Good, we can put this off then?  While I grow a pair?”

“That piddly little saw work?  Ya got a man’s saw?”

Of course, I lied.  Like a man.  “Oh, my really big honker is in the shop.  I’m going to have use this little girly one.  It’s Sally’s.  It’s pretty piddly, alright, but it will have to do.”

He snorted in disgust at what I considered to be a lethal killing machine.  Twirling it over his head like a baton and laughing he said, “Well, we can make it work, I guess.  It is kinda cute.”

And so, with his coaching, I took the necessary steps and watched the tree as it began to topple.  It had moved, perhaps, a foot at the top when I considered that a good enough indication of gravity working and lit out for safer ground.  I was practically in the next county by the time it fell.  I was so far away, I didn’t hear it crash.  Took me five minutes of hiking to get back to where I had cut.  Usain Bolt couldn’t have run that distance any faster.

My friend looked around for more trees to topple.  I suggested tea and muffins instead.  I needed some time for my heart to stop pounding.  As we headed in for tea, Sal looked at me like I was a real lumberjack.  Felt good  Aaaaarggh!

Charming animal visitors may not be quite the right descriptive term but we had visitors yesterday.  Orcas.  Six or so.  And these guys were big!  This was not a pod so much as a chapter, a gang, a cartel of marine bad boys.  I saw three huge dorsal fins and I couldn’t help but get the feeling that this group was lookin’ for trouble.

Or dolphins.  A seal or two, at the very least. Look out!  They looked mean and hungry.

‘Course, in a way, I am only joking.  Orcas don’t really ’emote’ much.  It is hard to read their facial expressions.  They don’t seem to really have faces!  They have ‘sides’ instead.  They just seem to roll along, a little up, a little down.  Cruisin’.  You might catch a glimpse of one tiny eye.  And, even then, little  if anything is revealed.  A few well-placed and loud pssssts will, however, get your attention.  But they don’t really ‘do’ much.  They do virtually glisten wet with force, power and potential violence, though.  They have a huge presence.  They just ‘feel’ like danger-in-the-water.  Oooooooh……..

I dunno…………..you really had to be here, I guess.

And they give me a chance to launch into a bit more description about our environs.  We do have a lot of eagles and ravens and herons and such.  And woodpeckers, kingfishers, and a gazillion other little birds.  And they are all marvelous.  Gorgeous.  Magnificent.  But, I confess, they are here everyday and, while that does not breed contempt, there comes with such frequent exposure at least a little familiarity.  I don’t always look up and appreciate them.  I am a bit used to it, I am ashamed to say.  But even that is good!  Imagine having so many eagles and ravens and herons that you tend to ignore them?  That says something, right?

We will not be talking about the !#@&#! squirrels.

Anyway, today is sunny but cool, windy, blustery and offering up the occasional shower.  It is almost a fall-like day.  A mixed bag.  Quite enervating.  I like it.  But I mention it because we can see and feel the weather systems as they come and go.  Our view is grand and sweeping.  We see stuff.  And, of course, we see stuff at night, too.  There is no urban ambient light obfuscating the stars or moonshine.  The point: there is an enhanced experience of something as typically mundane as the weather when you can see it on some kind of scale.  More of a connection.  When you have a bigger view, it becomes something bigger than just ‘getting wet’ or ‘being cold’.  Hard to explain, actually, but I do enjoy the weather much more out here than I did in the city.

The dominant vegetation, of course, are the evergreens, the firs, hemlocks and cedars along with spruce and pine.  Basically giant Christmas trees.  Quite beautiful.  But our obsession with economics has played out with the trees, too.  The forest is becoming more and more monoculture.  Industry wants fir.  So fir is in ascendancy.  Industry did NOT want cedar for a decade or so and so there is currently less cedar.  No one wants cottonwood or alder so there is less of that.  And so it goes.  I admit that changing the make-up of the forest is such a slow process one does not, really, ‘see’ it happen.  It is just something you see in retrospect.  “Gee, there used to be more big red cedar trees, I think?”

The thing about the vegetation up here is what you don’t really notice at first glance – the undergrowth.  The ferns, nettles, berries, flowers and bushes.  The forest floor is literally impassable in some places with heavy ‘under’ growth.  Blazing a trail is no easy matter.  Add in the uneven topography, fallen trees, boulders, streams and rock outcroppings and it is virtually impossible to get from A to B without covering the rest of the alphabet in the process.  Open space is at a premium.  Clear open spaces don’t naturally exist.  Meadows?  Not a single one.

Which partially explains my obsession with building decks, I suppose.  “Level footing!  My kingdom for level footing!“