W’fer gone.  Miss her already.  Well, I miss her cooking.  She was great but her cooking was even better!

H didn’t have a lot of work foisted on her as our hard-work season is over (Spring) and we tend to lapse into an easier schedule when the summer gets warmer.  So she ‘added value’ to her stay by cooking Japanese food four or five times over her week’s time with us.  Tempura, sushi, gyoza, yakisoba – all from scratch.  Also some kind of ‘bowl’ thing.  Mmmmmm.

I seem to have an unusual effect on people, especially young women.  Neither good nor bad, it is just a smidge odd.  They seem to get the measure of me and then tease me.  I dunno.  It’s kind of fun but, really, it is a bit odd.  H was no exception.  It wasn’t too long into her stay that she began saying things like, “You are lucky man to have such a good wife.  I don’t think you deserve her.  Or the dogs, actually!”

I mean, it is all said with a grin and I know there is no malice and it is just humorous teasing but, like, I am wondering who issues the licenses to all these young women who say these things?  Do I have a target on my forehead?

Well, to be more accurate, H didn’t say such a thing.  Not exactly.  She actually said, “You a rucky mon who have such good rife!  Ah don’ think roo deserle ér.  O the dogs, acturarry!?”

She hasn’t mastered her ‘r’s and ‘L’s, yet.

I replied, “Ah so……….me no have risten you…..you say funny Ingrish.  So solly!”

Sally thinks that kind of exchange may account for it.  The teasing, I mean.

Maybe a bit more political correctness is in order?

H was great, actually.  Lot of fun.  We kept up a running exchange of nonsense and there was lots of laughter.  It was, as usual, very good.  I highly recommend hosting a W’fer now and then.  Keep it to a week.  Share a slice of your life.  Don’t ‘host’ so much as live normally and they seem to – as a rule – fit right in and friendships are the result.  We’ll likely do it again next year.  Mind you, it doesn’t hurt to have the Orcas go by or the dogs at the ready for ‘fetch’.  W’fers seem to like it here.  Can’t brame ém. I rike it too.

As you may recall, I went through a winch-collecting period.  I bought winches.  It was like a sickness.  Well, actually it was more like a runaway train.

I needed a winch but, as I don’t know much about them, I found one I thought would do the job on Craigslist and bought it.  A friend was down in Victoria on other business and agreed to pick it up for me while down there.  While that was happening another winch came up and it seemed better than the first so I bought it.  And that one was was in transit, too, when I found a third.  It seemed perfect so I bought it as well.

I had purchased three winches in the space of a week and lost my standing as a sane husband in the process.  Sal didn’t approve.  Still doesn’t.

To be fair, it was not like I didn’t have a winch or three already.  Having six seemed to her like overkill.  Women, eh?  I tried to explain but we eventually had to agree to disagree and, of course, Sal tried to ‘put away’ the ugly winches so that she didn’t have to look at them every day.  For the record: there is no such thing as an ugly winch!

An extra winch is like a garden ornament to me.  Looks good just sittin’ there, ya know?

Anyway, she had a bit of a point and so, as the months wore on, the presence of all those winches seemed more hormonal than logical to me and I felt obliged to put at least one of them to work so as to save some semblance of face.

Over the last few days I have been working on my winches.

We pull logs up a steep hill for our firewood.  The winch I use for that is a replacement, one-half horsepower, belt-driven contraption I bought for $100.00.  one winter many years ago.  It replaced a noisy, smelly, prone-to-break down gas-powered winch that offended everyone and often hurt or burnt me.  Number #2 was a real ‘contraption’.  It was a Rube Goldberg designed hodge podge of shafts, gears, levers and gizmos and it confounded everyone.  Weighs a ton.  And it was slow.  Took us twenty minutes to bring up one log.  But it worked.

The most recent purchase is a three horsepower, specially-designed winch that also weighs a ton but seems just right.

If not, there are two others under the shed to try…….but let’s stay positive, shall we?

Winches are not like lawnmowers.  You don’t just ‘roll ’em out’, fire them up and do the job and then ‘put ’em away’ all in one motion.  No.  Winches need to be prepped, mounted and hooked up.  And mounting a winch is bit of a science in itself.  

The first gas-powered winch was anchored by a chain and, even though it tended to move about some, it was somewhat manageable.  The second also moved around but it was so heavy it was barely manageable.  So lining up the pull so that the machine stays put is critical.  Otherwise the machine or else the cable wants to move and it then wraps on the drum incorrectly.

I also wanted to make the pull different from before.  This time I wanted to be able to see the whole ‘lift’ operation from start to finish.  The previous winches had been set back from the edge of the embankment and I couldn’t see the lower half of the operation. That seemed a smidge dangerous as Sal sets the chokes and is at the bottom of the hill.  I’d prefer to see that she is out of the way before pulling.  To date we have used walkie-talkies.

As you also know I tend to salvage junk hoping to use it someday.  And I had some old steel tubes and frame-type junk that I wanted use up before it rusted away.  The challenge was to hack and chop, bolt and strap, fix and place and secure and anchor whatever junk-based platform I could make suitable for the new winch and then align, rig, paint and test it before it was needed.  And that was how I spent the last few days.

“Dave!  So what!  Anyone can do that!”

Yeah.  I know.  It was not rocket science.  But you’d be amazed at how much it challenged me.  Anyway, it is solid, looks good and, after I fix the electricals, I am hoping it will do the job nicely.  If not, it will be dismantled and put under the shed with all the other lawn ornaments and I’ll go back to ugly #2 winch until the mood-to-build strikes me again.  It is not like I don’t have other winches to try out!

Quick apology: this is so far off-the-grid as to be almost unrelated.  I promise to go back to ravens and seals for the next one.  But I had to write this.  It’s an idea, really.  A theory, kinda.  Probably just a delusional, paranoid conspiracy theory.  Read for amusement only.

The theory is simple to say: No one knows how much money is out there, and that such ‘not knowing’ was planned and that it is an aggressive act.   

Furthermore, even if they (?) did know how much there was today, it would not matter because the source of money is running amok and more and more is being created without any sort of controls. As a consequence of this, money is no longer real, it is just fantasy.  But it’s a fantasy that is being used as a weapon.

Bear with me on this:  I have no idea what I am talking about but I’ve been thinking and I want to get this off my chest.

Most everyone knows that there are a number of ‘monies’ out there.  Depending on the nation, they are generally referred to as M0, M1, M2, M3 and so on.  It’s a fairly simple concept that describes money and ‘actually-used-as-money’.  The printed, coined, hard currency that one carries in one’s pocket would be M0 or M1.  Easy to count.  M1 or M2 (depends on where the country starts – at 0 or 1?) would be the additional money created by having credit.

For instance, I might have only $1000.00 (actual dollars) in the bank but that, a good credit rating and a job allows me to borrow as much as $100,000 more should I need it.  If I buy a house, I may be able to borrow or ‘create’ even more.  In effect, my ‘credit’ created this ‘optional’ money that I am now responsible for. Money was ‘created’.  Like amoeba.

This optional money includes credit cards, car loans and the like.  If I add up my ‘creditworthiness’, I may be able to ‘control’ as much as $1M depending on the perceived value of what I buy with it.  I.e. it is easier to buy real estate with little real money than it is to buy chocolate bars (but it can be done with chocolate, too.  See: Commodities markets).

There is another level of money that is also created by my $1000.00.  The bank is allowed to loan out to someone else a ‘ratio-based’ amount of money based on that $1000.00.  They used to have to keep a ‘real amount’ in case people wanted some to buy bread, butter or gasoline but that amount was only a fraction of what the bank could lend.  The last time I read about that it was less than 6%.  That meant that my $1,000 created another $16,000 in money supply that was ‘just created’ and can then be lent.

And so it goes.  Here is a typical breakdown of money supplies from Wikipedia:

But there is more.  Way more.  When the US needed a couple of trillion dollars to ‘stabilize’ the system back in 2007/2008, they didn’t tally up what the ‘M’s represented and use that as a guide.  They just printed it.  And that is the really funny part – they didn’t even print it!  They just ‘authorized’ the adding of zeros to bank accounts!  Little digital ‘zeros’ to AIG and Fannie Mae and so on.

So bloody ‘unreal’ as to be just the stroke on a computer keypad.

And Brussels (Euro) is doing the same thing.

Put another way: no one sits in a room full of lawyers and pushes briefcase after briefcase full of money across boardroom tables anymore.  Only the ‘criminals’ who are officially branded as criminals do that and even they ‘launder it’ (HSBC was the Chinese Laundry of choice) so that the money they have can eventually be ‘swept up’ in that great Money Morass we call the money supply(s).  Then it is ‘somehow’ legit.

“Dave!  So what?  Computers and accountants keep track.  It is all accounted for.  What’s your point?”

Well, in 2006 the governments decided that keeping track of all the ‘M’s was too much trouble.  They stopped doing it.  In effect they said, “Sheesh!  There is so much money out there and banks and credit unions and crooks and department stores and hedge funds are just continuing to create it willy nilly, we just can’t get a handle on it.  To hell with it!”

So then there were no controls over how much money is out there.  There may still be some kind of control over how much is ‘hard currency’, that is the stuff-in-pockets and purses and in circulation but the rest, I think, is just an ephemeral number.

If you control the reserve currency as the US does, think what that means…………it is a license to ‘print’ money (actually, as I said, they do not have to print it.  They just have to authorize the zeros).  They can buy anything.  Spend whatever. They can take over the world.

“They are not that irresponsible!”

No.  I agree.  They are a bunch of great guys.  But let us imagine what would happen if some creative but not-so-great guys got involved. Staying on a corporate level, a Gordon Gekko type says, “Let’s buy XYZ coroporation!”

“We don’t have the money!”

“Never mind.  I’ll get my buddy at the hedge fund to front it.  It’s just zeros.  We buy XYZ with imaginary zeros!”

But what if the shareholders of XYZ want their money?”

“Don’t be crazy!  No one takes their money anymore.  They just get zeros added to their electronic accounts.  We’ll send them zeros!”

“But someone, somewhere has to have real cash.  Ya know.  Like for the pizza delivery guy, right?”

“Yes.  Of course.  We’ll have to find some ‘real money’ for that sort of thing but real banks seem to do OK with just a 6% or less reserve amount of real cash.  The banks will have a token amount of real cash and that should do the job.”

“This is crazy!  You can’t buy stuff without real money!”

“You can if there is agreement between us (corporations), the banks and the government.  We three could control the money supply.  Ooops………the illusion of the money supply!”

“Why would they cooperate with that?”

“Well, the banks get their cut so they are naturally in.  And the government allows us to ‘wage financial war’ on the rest of the world so that eventually we own everything!  It’s beautiful, man.  It’s so simple.  No guns.  Just ‘play money’ and we will own everything!”

“The people will catch on! We will bankrupt them! They’ll revolt.”

“What are they gonna do?  Occupy Wall Street!?  Ha ha ha.  Give your head a shake.  And even if they do, we’ll just pepper spray them, arrest them for having nose-rings or whatever.  C’mon!”

OK.  It is just a thought.  Just a theory.  Call it paranoid.  Delusional, if you prefer.  Or could it be a sophisticated kind of warfare?  Could it be like the cold war only with zeroes and dollar signs?  Coming to a theatre near you:  MONEY WARS   

For the most part, people out here are disengaged from the rest of the rhythms of our larger world.  Not like hermits so much, but rather like anti or ambivalent non-consumers, they just aren’t ‘in the game‘.

They don’t buy much.  They don’t want for much, they lust for less and they work usually only for the basics.  And this tends to disengage them from the larger society who – on the surface anyway – seem more inclined to keep up with the Consumer Price Index folks.

Disengagement manifests in so many ways it is hard to see at first.  There is, of course, the obvious eschewal of fashion (or even new clothes) but that is not unique to off-the-gridders.  There is also the lack of societal consumer habits from frequenting Starbucks to hooking up with cable, from air-miles to car-miles traveled.  From credit card use to regular office-type working hours and from regular upgrading of consumer items to even attendance at regular meetings, our locals just don’t mingle in.

People out here buy less stuff, have few consumer habits and simply encounter fewer people in the course of their day.

Off-the-gridders are, consequently, quite a bit more socially disengaged comparatively speaking.  On the negative side, they may even lack for a few basic social skills now and then.  Off hand, if I was estimating social engagement on a scale of ten and a movie producer in Hollywood was a ten and a typical Vancouverite was a seven, the local off-the gridder is at 1 or 1.2.  Some even less.  A few not even on the scale.

The exception to the above observation is their engagement in the environment and all things eco-politics.  Ask an off-the gridder about Greek politics and the likely answer is, “I dunno.  All Greek to me!”  Ask an off-the-gridder about Justin Bieber and the answer is invariably, “Justin who?” Ask them about the Canucks and almost all of them just shrug and say, “Who cares?”

But if you ask them about the Mountain Pine Beetle, fish farming practices, mono-culture re-forestation, Enbridge pipelines or even seaweed and ravens……well…………the ensuing conversation may threaten your schedule for the summer.

They know their stuff on that score and they care passionately about the subject.  And, for the most part, they practice what they preach.  These people compost, homestead, conserve, preserve and make do.  They consume little, drive less, eat local and think globally – as in Gaia not the UN.  These people are very engaged on a personal scale with their natural world.  The societal one?  Not so much.

A wonderful and somewhat quirky side benefit to this lack of involvement/dependency is their tendency to be innovative and creative.  They (and increasingly, we) do ‘work-arounds’, make inventions, solve problems and create magic from nothing.  They make stuff they need from scrap.  Really!  One guy a few years back – when his gen set burned out a main bearing – machined one at home from scrap metal!  That’s right!  The guy made a bearing!

That is not easy.

And the examples are too numerous to mention.  In fact, there is hardly any place I can think of out here where the people haven’t shown independent, creative thought and actions.  It shows up right in front of you.  It is pretty neat.

There is a great deal of grass roots resistance to the Enbridge proposal to construct a pipeline across northern BC.  I think. (Hard to tell with Canadians, actually.  If it ain’t hockey, no one knows what the hell is really going on up here.)

They (corporations, China, Canadian federal and Alberta governments with BC Liberals wanting in on some of the goodies) want to pump tar (not oil, but tar sludge!) from Alberta to the coast for off-loading to ships destined for China.

Lots of people don’t like that.

The bad guys call it progress, development, revenue and, almost at the same time, ‘inevitable’.  They want it.  They want it bad.  And they figure to ram it through.

Which, by the way, is the modus operandi of the Federal Govt./Harper Conservatives.  They tend to ram things.  They have to, really.  No one else, it seems, ever agrees with them.  “So, damn the torpedoes and prepare to ram!” 

But they just might get torpedoed themselves this time.  We’ll see.  Dark clouds are looming.  Lots of chest-thumping.  Lots of lines being drawn. Lots of posturing.

Mostly we just see the stupid stuff, tho.  Politicians strutting their stuff.  But not many people are watching them.  Not really.  They weren’t trusted the second they opened their mouths.  Things are really just getting tense.  The real conflict hasn’t started yet.  I have no idea how it might show up.  But I think it might.

I hope so, anyway.  I am hoping for a real confrontation.  We the people really should stand up and get counted for something other than a sales tax, don’t you think?  This might be the thing that puts some real spine into the population.

One can hope.

Pumping tar sludge to China is such an obviously bad idea, I can’t imagine how the idea ever got legs.  Corruption?  In Canada?  You don’t say!

I mean; REALLY!!??  Isn’t it obvious?

Did you know that China just awarded the management of a special fund (gazillions) that will form the basis for a Chinese social security program to the same gang of crooks who played in the Sub-prime mortgage fiasco under the name of the Royal Bank of Canada?  Well, RBC’s private arm, that is.  The one not so regulated. That’s a nice way to pocket a bit of change.  Wonder how the trickle down theory will apply this time?

Whoever is doing this is not putting Canada’s interests first.  That is for sure.  Aside from all the ecological mayhem and catastrophe that truly will be inevitable, one has to wonder why we can’t refine the black poison up at the scene of the original crime (the Athabaska Tar Sands) and simply sell the crap to Canadians.  I mean…..is that so hard to figure out?

We pay more for gasoline than do Americans and they get most of their oil from Canada!

Did you know that you can buy a propane freezer from a dealer in Colorado and have it shipped here to BC way cheaper than if you buy it from Ontario…….where it was made!?  Automobiles made in Canada cost more here than do the same vehicles after having been shipped to the States.  Cell phone service costs in Canada are the highest in the world (CRTC?).  We are a country of patsies and we have been continuously ripped off for decades if not centuries.

But, really………does anyone care?  I mean, really?  I don’t think so.  Canadians got their food, their TV and whatever their basic wants are have been met – for the majority of us, anyway.  Why rock the boat, eh?  “Have a beer, watch some hockey and put a steak on the barbie and quit yer belly achin’ bub.  Nuthin’ ya can do about it, anyway.  Rich get richer and all that.  C’mon, Gretzky’s daughter is on the TV.  In a bikini!”

Will we ever rise up?  Do the right thing?  Or is it only other countries that have real leaders?

Ever since my unfortunate experience with the Russian cyber-guys who almost-hacked my website (They did not but they did enough nonsense to get the Google warning label activated which was almost as bad.  Getting that scarlet letter removed was the bulk of the challenge), I have felt a smidge neglected.  Not lonely so much as, well, not so popular. (My definition of being popular or not hovers around the 300 visitors/day mark).  Off the Grid Homes has not had 300 visitors a day in over a month!

I am pretty mature.  Sane, I think.  I have perspective.  Mentally healthy, kinda, ya know?  I am not even as insecure as I once was.  But, well, let’s face it – numbers don’t lie.  And my numbers were bad.  And I expected better.  Clearly I was out of the ‘popular’ neighbourhood and into the ‘shunned’ area of town.  Wrong side of the tracks.  It hurt.

But surprise!  the day before – 290.

Yesterday was 390!!

Now how is that possible?

What happens that makes 100 more people visit the site?  I wrote about our W’fer…….wazzat it?  Did a bunch o’ w’fers look up ‘w’fer’ on Google and all of a sudden I am on the map?  How does this sort of thing happen?  Is this how a message ‘goes viral’?  (Does 100 more readers a viral message make?)

All of a sudden there is a ‘blip’ on the search engine and you are Warhol-famous for fifteen minutes?  “Hey, Groucho!  What’s the secret word?” (Groucho Marx had a quiz show on TV in the late 50’s.  Part of the quiz show format was a ‘secret word’.  If a contestant said the secret word in any part of their participation, they won something.  The secret word was a big quiz-show deal until the $64,000 Question.  But, I digress).

Anyway my point is this:  social media (of which I am a micro-part) is a crapshoot.  Some things click’.  Most things do not.  And ‘clicking’ is a big deal in this brave new world.  People become famous for being on a viral wave of some kind.  I guess Paris Hilton was built on such a foundation, now that I think about it.

But no sane person wants that.  I don’t.  I don’t think I can take the lows.  The ‘highs’ would be nice but the ‘lows’?  Not so much.

However, I would like to communicate what I am going through – chronicle my devolving consciousness, as it were.  I’d like to record what a guy who is over-the-hill and off-the-grid, off-the-wall and probably under-surveillance is going through and observing.  You know, while the synapses are still signing and not napping?

It is not about profundity so much as sharing perspective to see if it resonates with anyone.  To see if anyone else feels what I feel.  In other words: the feedback is important and only about 1% of readers ‘feed back’.  Therefore, to get ten comments I need 1000 readers.  It’s all in the numbers.

OK, I am still a bit insecure, I guess, but, hell, I am male.  I have an ego.  Egos are fragile things.  Old male egos are tortured souls.  We need support, ya know?

What caught your eye (I am talkin’ to the mysterious 100 now…)?  The word: Japanese?  Sake?  Was it the picture of a fish farm pen? 

What is it with you people!?

H came to visit.  She’s a W’fer from Japan.  About mid twenties.  She’s been in Canada for ten months but has spent all her time in Campbell River.  Recently she decided that she should get out and see a bit more of the area.  So, she applied through the W’Fer organization and came here.

We are glad she did.

Pretty interesting girl.  Seems her desire is to soon go back to Japan and work her grandmother’s rice patch.  She wants to work in the fields.  H has no time for modern malls, fashion, electronics and all the rules, rules, rules of Japanese society.  She’s much more an independent thinker.  She wants to recycle, grow her own food and maybe have a goat.  She opposes nuclear power and corporate Japan. She does not desire money, status nor even full engagement in anything remotely societal.  She’s like a rebel Japanese hippy-chick except that there is no anger and she seems very grounded.  Sensible.  Smart.  Mature.  Very likable.

H, as from so many of our other ‘W’fer encounters, gives us the feeling that there is hope for the world.  Having w’fers is almost always a good experience.

H and I will go to the weekly Wednesday ‘milling about’ later this morning,  maybe do a bit of work on my boat which is up at the Q-hut and then come back later in the day and make sushi, yakisoba and gyoza for dinner.  Sal’s going to town.  She’ll bring back the sake.  Looks like a very good day is in the offing.

Tomorrow, Sal and H will gather seaweed and dirt for the garden.  I will likely drill some holes for a bit of concrete work (if my bashing hard Reddi-mix bags works).  Stick in some re-bar, wire down some mesh.  Make a frame.  The next day we may continue those two tasks or, perhaps get a bit more done on the funicular tracks.  Plus I could use some small boulders gathered and hauled.  H is strong and sturdy.  I’ll delegate the boulder-gathering to her.  And so it will go for her week here.

After her week with us, she heads off to another week somewhere else on the outer islands.  And then H will be home again in October.  And we’ll both be richer for the experience.

I like this WOOFER program.

When you buy cement (Portland cement) with which to make concrete, you buy it in 80 pound bags.  If you buy a bag of concrete mix (Reddi-mix) you get a 55 pound bag of mixed sand, gravel, cement powder and, perhaps some other bits and pieces.  Should you decide to mix Reddi-mix up for a sidewalk or something, it is a good idea to add a shovel or two of cement to the batch because it is the cement powder that is the valuable gluing agent in the Reddi-mix and the companies tend to skimp in their recipe.

If you are buying a bag of Reddi-mix, you rarely buy one.  One bag of Reddi-mix requires the above-mentioned ‘extra’ cement powder at the very least and that bag of Portland cement is enough to supplement at least fourteen more Reddi-mix bags.  So, a typical purchase of Reddi-mix – which is only good for a cubic foot or thereabouts anyway – is ten or more bags.  If I buy more than 15 bags of Reddi-mix, I add another bag of cement powder to the order.  My last purchase was 30 bags of Reddi-mix and I included two bags of Portland cement.  About 1800 pounds in total.

That is 1800 pounds in the truck and trailer, 1800 pounds carried to the boat, 1800 pounds to unload onto the shore and, of course, 1800 pounds to carry up the beach and stack in the boat shed.  At that particular time, I needed only five bags to make the step I wanted and so I kept in dry storage the remaing 25 + 2 bags in the boatshed.

But, after the step was complete, I did not have an immediate requirement for the rest and, lo and behold, a couple of years have passed.  I now have a concrete bunker inside the boatshed.  It weighs – I am guessing – in excess of 2000 pounds.  I am in the unenviable position of having a ton of concrete in my boat shed.

“How is that possible?”

The magic of desiccants.  Desiccants absorb water from the air.  BC has lots of water in the air especially if you live right on the ocean.  Despite the dry shed and the packaging, the Reddi-Mix bags have absorbed enough moisture to become 60-70 pound bricks.  “If you don’t use it you, you lose it!” does not apply here.  If you don’t use it, you may have it forever when it comes to Reddi-Mix.

Actually, the material – so far, anyway – will break up and one can pound the pseudo brick into powder again.  Shades of a stint on a Georgia chain gang, eh?  I’ve done that kind of de-constituting before. And the sweat wants to get in and make it all hard again!

Think about it – you buy, carry, lift, carry, lift, carry and lift and store.  Then after awhile, you pound the crap out of it……..all to make a rock.  And we have lots of rocks already.  So, why do it?

Well, duh, isn’t that the way things are done?  I mean, like, don’t we need concrete and stuff?  Actually NO.

The common thinking (by those who hire others to work with concrete), of course, is that you can make the rock in the shape you want it in the location you want it and concrete rocks have the advantage of sticking to other rocks and other concrete.  But that advantage was not considered enough of a bonus to warrant the labour and expense for some of the earlier ‘homesteader’ types and they dry-stacked natural rocks in such a fashion as to make foundations and such with just the rocks at hand.  No sticky medium like cement or mortar for them.

And homesteader-type people make steps out here in a similar way even today.  Just dry-stack slabs in the right way and you don’t need to cement them together. ‘Course I read handy-dandy Home-depot brochures on easy-concrete instead.  Next time around, I talk to the oldest geezer I can find before buying anything.

At first glance, dry stacking seems like a lot of work.  Not so, little butterfly.  A bit of skill, perhaps, but not as much work as paying, carrying, lifting, ferrying, storing and subsequently bashing when, in fact, you end up dry-stacking the damn things anyway.

The more I learn about living the simple way, the more I wonder how in hell we managed to invent the expensive, modern, complicated way and why.  Almost everything I see in off-the-grid construction can be done two ways – the old fashioned, aesthetically pleasing, skill-requiring cheap or free way vs the expensive, stupid, typically modern way that practically kills you.  We like to think that we are getting so much smarter but it is not apparent from what I am learning.  The old guys knew better.

Me?  Well, perhaps I could teach them thing or two about desiccants!

….how the unusual becomes usual.

When the kids were to return home after a fun and riotous three days with us ‘oldies-but-goodies’, the tide was out. Quite far, actually.  Which is not all that unusual in the summer.

But when the tide is that low, getting on to or off of the beach is tricky at best, often treacherous and nigh on impossible at it’s worst.  Always dangerously slippery, the sloping, irregular beach is covered in kelp, barnacles and algae-slime.  Footing is always precarious and, at a very low tide, non-existent.  There is simply no place to stand or even to get some purchase on a very low tide.

On this particular day of departure the tide was predicted to fall even further than it had already at departure time and so the current going by the front of our house was still running two or three knots.  Current makes it even more difficult.  When you are approaching a rocky, slimy shore in a small boat going slowly, you have less steerage and with a strong current you are virtually out of control.  I am somewhat used to it but still, it is no walk in the park (more like a crab-walk in a river).

Usually when the tide and currents are like this we go around to our neighbour’s dock and depart like civilized people but getting there is a bit of a long schlep especially when you have luggage and a puppy crate to carry.  The battery in my car had died a couple of days ago and so we also had a leaden car battery to get down to the boat on our island and then up the hill on the next island to get to the car.

Because of the aforementioned baggage, we opted to load from the beach despite the tidal-caused, current-exacerbated awkwardness.  I went around and got the boat. The kids came with me.  Sally stayed on the shore-front and awaited our arrival.  She stood on the lowest step of the sea-stairs (itself covered in seaweed) in order to pass us the luggage, the battery and the dog’s kennel.  That was the plan.

I came around the point and nudged the little fifteen-footer close to the intended point of transfer.  Sal hung over as far as she could balancing with a heavy weight (a car battery?!) at the end of one arm and my son stretched over as far as he could to take it from her.  The boat swished by the ‘transfer moment’ at three knots and he managed on the first pass to get the battery.  I went around and made another pass and we got a piece of luggage.

And so it went until, after five or so passes, it was only Sally that needed to be ‘captured’ and, of course, the boat was pretty full, the dog crate was on the bow (only place of access) and we would pass the jumping-off point (literally) and be in a safe position for her leap for less than a second, maybe two.  Sal leaped, landed on the small patch of deck left for her and settled into the boat as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

It is not.  Not many ‘seniors’ are leaping on to moving small boat decks from slimy rocks and passing heavy things with one hand.  It may be ‘normal’ around here but it is also extraordinary in most other places.

It doesn’t end there…………

Today my neighbour and I had to move a fish farm pen across the channel.  His boat is powerful.  It has 150 horsepower.  As Sal had taken my boat to another island to pick raspberries, we went with just the one boat.  We picked slack water (when the current stops as it changes from ebb to flood or vice versa).  Even with lots of horsepower we didn’t want to buck the tide.  But, we miscalculated.  We were off by almost two hours.  The tide was not slack at 11:30 like we expected but ebbing until 2:00!  We felt the current as we left with the pen but, sure in our knowledge that the tide would turn, we continued.

Not good.

As we approached the main channel our neighbour, R, saw our struggle and came out in his small boat to assist.  He tied on and we now had 185 horsepower.  We veered one way.  We veered another.  And all the time the pen and the two towboats were being swept up channel.  We were losing the struggle with the current.

After a couple of hours of trying to make the best of it, it was pretty clear that the right thing would be to stop towing and let the tide change on its own time.  It sure as hell wasn’t changing according to our information!  So we dragged the pen over to the shore and I scrambled over a similar but wilder beach to our own to secure it with a long line to a tree.

We planned to go back and finish the job when Mother Nature is on our side.

The point?  Well, ordinary is not always ordinary.  Whether it is leaping onto moving boats, carrying heavy objects up a hill or simply your everyday, ordinary, tow-boat kinda job with a fish-farm-pen (just your every day, run-of-the-mill stuff, eh?) it can get kinda adventuresome out here.

Also kinda neat, don’t ya think?

Epilogue: Sal came back with the boat and the raspberries and so we all went out together to finish the tow when the tide had well and truly turned.  Three boats this time.  The first pic is of me and our neighbour R.  The third, more powerful boat is tied up at the pen on the bottom pic.  Job completed within an hour – just like Bruno Gerusi and Relic of the Beachcombers. 

I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that I would relate so well to Relic!

History:  I recall standing on the front lawn of the cul-de-sac house we had just bought and a neighbour came over to introduce himself.  Dave ll.

After a bit of chit chat he asked me, “Geez, I have always admired this lawn.  What kind of lawn food do you give it?” I burst out laughing.  “Lawn food?!  I dunno from lawn food!   I just moved in.  Never really had a lawn before….well, not a green one, anyway, ya know, nothing like this little patch of perfection.  Enjoy it while it lasts.  I can kill a lawn from thirty paces and this one’s days are very likely numbered. Hahahah!”

He was shocked at my callous attitude.  His face showed visible worry that such a man had moved into his neighbourhood.  He was clearly concerned. And, with the rhythm of the conversation shattered by such surprising ugliness, he soon moved off.  I stood alone on the lawn with my hands clasped to my chest and cackled hideously while he was still within earshot.

No, I am not exaggerating.  It was fun.  Took that other Dave about three years to accept that I was not all bad but even with that, he kept his distance.  We were never close.

I mention this because, in a minor way, it illustrates my basic lack of interest in so many things normal in city and suburban living.  I don’t hate them so much as I don’t appreciate them.  I don’t care about lawns, for instance.  Not in the least.  To me, they are like any ‘fancy show’ of materialism intended to impress strangers. Like giant stainless steel BBQs.

I have never understood the need to impress others with the notable and completely logical exception of cars, boats and macho-trucks.  And now workshops.  Maybe guns and home theatres (jury is still out).  Those – the vehicles – are true and accurate personal statements about who you really are.  That I understand.

Lawns?  Not so much.  In fact, the rest that makes up the urban ‘imagery’ is mostly just nonsense to me.  Efforts misplaced at best, just plain stupid most of the time.

Apologies to all who love their lawns and/or giant BBQs and treat them as one of their family.  I really do accept that each to their own……………it is just that my own is well, my own. 

I think I value experience more.  The stuff of story-telling.  Of course, I want ice cubes in my martinis and hot showers and to be able to watch cheap B-action movies on my large screen TV but, really, the measures and milestones I use to keep track of my life are mostly experiential, mostly real-life education.  And my friends.  I guess I tend to look at my life as more of a documentary than an oil painting, a story rather than an estate, an ever-changing condition rather than a status or goal to be achieved. For me, it truly is the journey rather than the destination.

I think our society tends to emphasize the other.

Anyway…..all that was in aid of trying to describe the quiet, desperate-but-not-fully-conscious frustration of living and working in a system that rewards one’s  efforts with ‘not-quite-the-right’ reward.  Not for me, anyway.  I liked working but I wanted something other than what I was getting.

I just didn’t know what.

It is hard to imagine a whole other context of life possibilities when you are completely immersed in just one.  To be able to step outside the box almost requires that you first have to bump up against the sides of the box and feel the frustration of that.  Your movement has to feel restricted to know that it is.  And so many people (me included) spend time bumping their foreheads up against walls and not quite knowing that there is another side to the wall that might be more to their liking.

I had not planned for this exit ramp off the highway.  Not really.  Even buying our remote island property 35 years before moving to it is inexplicable.  Pure dumb luck, really.  Just a fluke of timing and circumstance.  We hadn’t a well-established affinity for cabins and forests and such either.  No skills or ‘natural’ interests.  Nothing that even hinted at this kind of lifestyle.  And, even though I was losing interest in the city rapidly, I was still pretty much involved in it if only by way of duty and obligations.  Plus Sally was actually more deeply immersed and interested than I was.  We didn’t plan for this so much as just bumping into the walls.

Thank God for the bumps, eh?  Sometimes they seem a little harsh.  I know that.  Surprising at the very least.  But it is the bumping into obstacles that gets you to change directions.  They can be gifts.  The bumps were gifts for us.

Like some of our friends recently, we had a few bumps to experience and figure out.  And sometimes the bumps hurt us a little.  It isn’t always an easy process.  But we were sent the bumps for a reason.  And we responded.

Responding to bumps.  I think that was another part of the reason for heading off the grid.