As you know, we had previously – over the past few months – gathered a legion of logs down in the lagoon.  They were awaiting my saw, some good weather and the w’fers muscles.  The idea was to chop them up and then haul the then-smaller lengths up the hill on the highline so that they could be further processed into stove-sized pieces later on.  That was the plan anyway.

But the logs we had gathered were strewn in a fan-like spread in the water at the bottom end of the highline and some were laying on others, some were balanced on rocks and all were long, heavy and slippery.  Plus the latest storm had carpeted the lagoon in greasy kelp.  We all approached the heap o’ Hemlock with some trepidation.

And, of course, we all fell down at one time or another – usually several times.  We slipped and slithered and clambered over rocks and pushed and pulled on logs and ropes and generally manhandled tons of wood in an effort to get them all properly positioned for lifting and hauling.  It was a greater challenge than I had first thought.

When the tide is in, the logs float.  And, when floating, they are easy to move around but impossible to cut with a chainsaw.  So, you first get them roughly ‘sorted’ and then wait for the tide to go out so that you can then walk about the now-high-but-still-wet collection doing your cuts.  But by then some of the logs are out of position.  That means cutting them while wielding the chainsaw at awkward angles and while standing on slippery footing with the logs sometimes poised to roll or drop on you should you be in the way when the cut is made.  This is all very normal for real woodspeople but I still have a city-streak in me and the w’fers are from England.  ‘Nuff said.

I cut the logs into eight-to-ten foot lengths for easier handling.  Because the furthest ends cut from the longest logs are fifty feet from the high line, those ends have to be grappled with the log hauler and schlepped over the muddy-soft beach to the pick-up point.  That is hard enough but, with the floor carpeted in kelp, it is damn near impossible.  Thus another reason to have w’fers.

So, I cut them up and they hauled them into the beach.  Sal then tied them all close to the haul-up point for lifting later.  Of course it was raining.  Waddya thinkin’?

When we were done we had 45 lengths tied up ready to be hauled.  Each one takes ten minutes after it has been hitched up to haul to the top.  Then I unhitch the piece and send the haul-line back down to the beach where Sal hooks up another.  We can do four or five an hour.  The pile represents ten hours of winching.  Give or take.

We’ll take our time with that.

“Ohmygawd!  All that wood has to be found, towed, tethered, sorted, cut and hauled – just to get it into position to buck and chop and stack!  I can’t believe it!”

“Yes.  And we consider ourselves lucky to be able to find the logs floating by.  Can you imagine having to go foraging about the woods for them, chopping them down, limbing them and then dragging them to the water first?  That is what the old-timers often had to do.  And then they had to build their house, farm their land, catch fish, find work and raise children.  We just quit at the end of the day and drink wine.  Those old homesteaders were tough!”  

“This is tough!”

“Well, it is a bit difficult at times.  I’ll grant you that.  But it was really tough when we were building.  Back then there was no highline.  There was no funicular.  Or even stairs until I built them.  I swear I lifted and carried every item in this house at least five times.  And then Sal carried it all a few more.  What we did eight years ago, we could not do now even with some of our labour saving devices like stairs and decks and machines.  I complain now if I have to go to the food shed for another roll of toilet paper.  We got soft fast.  Well, first we went black and blue.  Then we went soft.”

“We had no idea how hard it was until the last few days.  It is not like the work you give us is hard.  In fact, it is fun.  But, of course, you don’t think about all the work involved until you do something as simple as gathering firewood.  Looking around the house, I marvel at how things like stoves and furniture and roofs and chimney’s were all built.  It is hard to imagine.”

“Well, that is the way to appreciate it.  You learn a lot by doing.  And part of it is learning how huge something as simple as the water system is.  Or even the garden.  But here’s the weird part……………for both of us, now………..after having been here for eight years, we would find it impossibly hard to go back to the office.  We couldn’t do it.  We think living in the city is really, really hard.  Too hard for the likes of us.  Weird, eh?”

It’s raining.  Yesterday my chainsaw packed it in.  Gotta get another.  Kiss some more dollars goodbye.  And we’ve got two woofers here sitting around getting bored.  You’d think we’d all be a bit frustrated.  But we are not!

Yesterday- just before the saw quit – we finished the wood!  That’s right!  Winter is handled.  Wah-bloody-hoo!  And the w’fers are great.  We are all getting along hugely.  I get to tell stories, wax on about life, religion, sex, politics and various sundry topics and they are trapped by the rain like lab rats.  For me a captive audience is the second best thing to getting work done.

Plus they are loathe to leave us because of Sally’s food.  We have seafood galore and this, it seems, is a great treat.  Generous amounts of wine are helping, too.  So, all is good.

I’ll borrow a chainsaw to finish up some more wood (future winters) and we will all go out, get wet, get tired, get sore and get things done.  It’s what we do.

And I try to make our conversations a bit colourful to say the least.  Well, my part in it is, anyway.  They seem a little shocked at times (which is the point).  Last night I introduced the topic of Jesus.  Nothing quite like Jesus to shake up a burgeoning relationship.  God! I love having w’fers!  Heheheheh.

“Hey!  You two wanna know what Jesus really looks like?”

“Pardon?”

“Jesus.  You know?  God’s son?  Wanna know what he really looks like?

“Well, like the pictures?  Or the guy depicted on the cross, you mean?”

“Yeah.  Had him in my car once, I did.  Wanna know stuff about Jesus?”

“Uh, well, that would be nice.  But I was just thinking about that ol’ chainsaw.  Maybe we can take it apart and fix it………………waddya think?”

“Nah.  I think the chainsaw breakin’ was a sign from God, ya know?  We are supposed to talk about Jesus.  Wanna hold hands?”

And it goes on from there.  Gawd!  I love w’fers.

I am an ordinary guy for the most part.  With a bit of character, I suppose, and my own sense of humour, of course.  We all are like that, I think.  But sometimes it is hard for people to know where one part leaves off and the other part begins.  Especially for w’fers from a foreign country. Is this just Dave being Dave?  Or is this a Canadian thing?  Or a rural, feral thing?  Is he always like this?  Or was he cracking a joke?  They have no reference point.

They are like putty.

It usually doesn’t take people long to learn that they should look to Sally for a clue.  She’s the sane one.  Mostly.  So, they tend to ‘check with Sal’ before taking me too literally.  Even when I am dead straight, they aren’t too sure as a rule.  “Sally, David just told us to come in for lunch.  Is that true?  Is there lunch?  Should we come in?  We just don’t know anymore!”

Typically, there is a time when I tell them a story that is just plain crazy-sounding, outrageous, ridiculous and, of course, true for the most part.  They crack.  “That’s just insane.  You are lying.  I am sure of it.  You are just trying to wind me up, you are.  Just being goofy!”

“Sal.  Tell ’em.”

“Yeah.  Well, sorry guys.  That story is true.  I was there.  It does sound crazy and he tells it kinda exaggerated but, honest, that one is 99% true.  Really.”

They slip into a state of confusion.  I grin from ear to ear.

Who can we trust?

First of two parts:

R&J arrived yesterday.  They are woofers from England.  Under thirty-ish.  Traveling around the world.  Nice couple.  We took them up to the arts and culture day at the school and they mingled with the fifty or so local people doing what constitutes doing at an arts and culture day.  Then, when we had finished doing that, we came home in the rain and, since already wet, we decided to start on the chore of building the wood-pile.

We host woofers for a number of reasons, most of which are just ‘fun’ and the meeting-of-young-people-kinda thing.  We don’t work ’em very much.  It is too much work on our part to oversee a lot of work on theirs.  But the exception to that is wood-getting.  We need to get in a few cords of wood for next winter and that chore is getting increasingly difficult for us.  NOT impossible.  Just increasingly more difficult.

Hurting my back riding the motorcycle through the baseball backstop last summer didn’t help.  I still feel it.  Now I leave the chopping to the young men.

Well, first I teach them how to do it.  Then I do it a few times to set some kind of standard and then, before my back packs it in, I stride off with a bit of a macho challenge.  “Hell, son, even the little Chinese girls who come here in the summer can chop that wood.  It’s not muscle work, it’s just rhythm.  You should get good enough that you can just whack and whack all day.  Doo, dah, Doo dah!” (to be sung to the tune of Camptown Races)

And I look like I know what I am talking about.  I always wear one of my lumberjack shirts and my heavy boots.  I really do look the part.  I’m not light  and, put as nicely as I can, I am somewhat compact.  Some might say ‘dense’.  Like a boulder packed in bubble-wrap.  But not just a little of that is muscle.  Plus I have been doing this chopping thing for a while.  I have the rhythm.  So, I pick up the splitting maul and, with indicating barely an effort, I split a piece neatly and efficiently.  One blow.  Impressive, if I do say so myself.  Then I stop and hand the implement of destruction to the smaller of the two – usually the female.

What they don’t know is that the piece I chose to demonstrate on was pre-selected for being knot free and dry.  A real logger could have split it with a  large spoon.  Still, it looks impressive and it is to them.  They are impressed.  So, then I give them a knotty, green piece of spirit-breaking wood and say, “Here, Janice.  You try!”

The results are predictable but Janice doesn’t care.  She wasn’t looking forward to swinging an 8 pound maul around anyway.  But the contrast of my proficiency with Janice’s lack of it, is what we are going for.  The fellow can see that this is his chance to impress me and, more importantly, Janice.  His  hormones are rising to the challenge.  Like sap!

I discretely remove the gnarly piece and give him a nice dry, easily splittable round.  He whacks.  It usually still takes a few good swings but he gets through and we all ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaah’ at his burly man-ness.  Janice looks on approvingly.  And the guy is hooked.

Young men, eh?

I then go in and get a few ibuprofen for my already hurting back and go out to encourage the macho display a few more times before heading out to cut more rounds for the new, starting-to-sweat, macho-splitting man-machine.

But all is not quite right.  Not yet.

I whisper to Janice, “I gave him an easy round to split.  I gave you a hard one.  Doing it this way means he is even more proud of his work, you see.  It encourages him.  I hope you don’t mind? If you want to give it a few whacks some time, I’ll get a regular piece for you.” 

“No.  I don’t mind.  I do the same with him, myself.  Give him something easy and then oooh and aaah.  He falls for it every time.  But I had no idea guys were on to this.”

“Just gettin’ in touch with my feminine side.  Have to.  My masculine side is sore and hurtin’.  Gotta get smart like you women.”

Part two

Did a good half day.  R split all day, ‘doo dah, doo dah’.  But before I had a chance to come clean with J she had decided that she could ‘split’ wood too and when I eventually went back out, she was hard at it.  Even my confession of ‘manipulation-of-young-men’ was not sufficient to deter her for long.  She went back to stackin’ for awhile but later she took the job from her partner.  She was gonna master the maul and chop like a logger.

And she did!  It always takes awhile to see who has it and who doesn’t.  Splitting really is a rhythm thing.  Strength is a factor (tho I lie and say it is not) but the real role of strength is in keeping the maul and the chopping head straight and true at the moment of impact.  A strong person hitting slightly off target wastes their energy and gets nowhere.  A weaker person who hits ‘dead on’ will still split wood.  She got it.  She then got a good rhythm.  And the wood started to fly!

Young women, eh?  (Manipulating them is always harder).

It was only a long half day because these two, being English and not living near a beach (that is only possible if you live in the middle of England and even then how far can you be from a beach?  But, in England, being 30 minutes away from anything is a long way), were amazed at ours.  Free and plenty of seafood!  In the afternoon Sal put them to work getting and shucking oysters for dinner and they also brought up a bunch o’ clams for Sal’s famous chowder.  So far, so good.

I took the opportunity to have a brief nap.  Old men, eh?

It’s 5:00 and time for a glass of wine.  So, we will have one.  They will join us when they have returned from kayaking.  To us, it is a normal day.  A nice one, a productive one, a physical one but a nice day.  For them?  It is marvelous.

And that is the main reason for hosting woofers.

“Hey, Sal, look at those two over there.  They look like us, kinda.  Same weather gear, boots.  Driving an ‘island’ boat.  I’ll bet they live on our island.  I’m gonna introduce ourselves.”

It was about eight years ago.  We were unloading at the neighbouring island’s local dock readying our little inflatable for another death-defying ride up channel.  Even though we had owned our property for decades, we hadn’t really gotten to know any potential neighbours and this seemed like as good a place as any to start.  Anyway, I had a few questions rolling around in my head.

After approaching them and introducing ourselves, I said, “Well, enough with the pleasantries.  Tell me – how much does it cost to live there?  You know, monthly – like?”

R turned to R and they conferred for a bit and then he turned to me and said, “About $1,000 a month.”   Just then, she nudged him and they whispered again.  “Sorry, I was wrong.  It’s more like a $1050.  Forgot taxes.”

“Yikes!  You guys live for a $1000 a month and think in terms of $50 dollar-bills!  OMYGAWD!  Sal, we can afford this!”

I continued that ad hoc, unscientific poll of people who lived out our way and, of course the numbers have changed even in the past eight years.  The poorest I interviewed lived on $8,000 a year but she was subsidized by wealthy parents every now and then (boat motors, etc.) and the richest (at that time) was living off $22,500 a year, the bulk of which was made in December when the wife went to Vancouver and worked retail for 12 hours a day for three weeks in a row.

Since then I have met the couple who runs and owns part of a global gold mine and is worth billions and I have local friends and neighbours who I know live on less than $6,000 a year.  At least two of them live on less than $4000 a year.   The first couple who were content at $1050 would likely say $1500-1800 today.  The increased cost of fuel has hit rural people harder percentage wise.

But the point is not that the cost of living is rising. It is not even that it is rising faster for rural people.  The point is that rural people ‘burn’ through money at a considerably lesser rate.  We just don’t have the umbilical costs of cable, phones, TV packages, domestic help and ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’.  (Well, we do a bit but our Jones family is poor as dirt so it is still easier).  We don’t do restaurants.  We don’t get pizza delivered.  We don’t do Starbucks.  And we don’t have to park our car downtown (when I worked in the city, I often averaged around $20.00 a day in parking.  On our last trip there, that wouldn’t cover four hours!).

On a straight ‘compare-my-day-to-yours’ basis, I go two weeks sometimes without spending a dime.  I never carry a wallet – what’s the point?  No place to spend anything.

Of course, it is not as simple as that.  Our last trip to Costco was $1200.  When the barge fills our propane tank it is $1200.  When we do anything, it seems it is $1200.  So we do pay.  But, regardless of that, there is no question: we spend less overall.

Offhand, I would say that a couple living rurally with a car and a boat and the house paid off can easily live as well as they ever did in the city for less than $3000 a month.  But by ‘well’ I mean ‘different but still really good’.

“Why tell me this, Dave?  I don’t believe you, anyway.  Costs my wife and me almost $10000 gross a month.  There is no way we could live like that on a third of that!”

Well, that is why I am telling you this.  Rural living is less expensive.  OK, you give up Starbucks and golf and parking downtown.  You give up cable, restaurants and delivered pizza.  Maybe your car gets older and less shiny.  Couple of dents.  Bit of rust.  But you get better health, more free time and the odd pod of Orcas going by.  The raven becomes a friend.  The seafood is fresher, the stress levels are reduced and you can read more books.  It’s a good trade-off.

Put another way: those financial consultants that tell you you can’t really aford to retire yet are wrong.

Something to consider.

I mentally ‘checked out’ of the urban rat race at fifty.  I physically left when I was 56.  The years in between were transition years.  I worked but my heart wasn’t in it and I was looking for a way out.  I was intent on leaving the boiling cauldron of the cul-de-sac and the modern work place but I had nowhere specific to go.  I spent those transition years in a bit of a struggle.

So, I took almost 6 years to actually choose where to go, how to get there and how to extricate myself.  What may have looked like a sudden ‘leap of faith’ was not.  It was a slow, drawn-out leap of slo-mo planning.  Still brave, courageous and wild, of course, to me anyway and not just a little bit of a surprise to Sally but not quite the spontaneous leap it may have looked like to the casual observer (and that I have implied at times in this blog).  Change can also be slow.

I mention this because one of the catalysts to making the change was Ken.  What a guy!  I was, at the time of meeting him, immersed in my work.  I was about 45.  I was doing mediations at a prodigious rate for the government and traveling all over the province all the time while doing it.  It was really hard work but I was keen and so the time is remembered fondly.  Still, getting argeement from a crowd of up to 30 disputing people on financial matters in one three hour mediation is not easy.  It can be and was quite draining.

We were in some interior town at the time  – Kelowna, Kamloops, Salmon Arm – they were a blur of cheap motels back then.  And my government liaison on this case was Ken, the government’s lawyer.  He was the guy who put the disputants in the room and handled all the pre-mediation work.  He was great.  Ken was also a nice guy, smart, funny and full of energy.  He was a dynamo.  He was also at least 65.

When the settlement was reached, it was Ken who would do follow up for the bureaucrats.  So we would see him the next day, as well.  But the next day was easy.  We had lunch together and mostly just talked.

“Listen.  Thanks for your work on all this.  You were great.  And, you know, all the usual pleasantries professionals usually say to one another…….I mean them, too.”

“Hahaha!  No problem.  I had fun!”

“Yeah.  I was meaning to ask you about that.  How is it that a government lawyer – probably my definition of being-in-hell-in-an-office – can be so healthy, so ‘up’ and so well, fun?  How can you do that?  Especially since you are as old as the bloody hills!”

“Well, I just started here a year ago!”

“Wow.  That is a surprise.  I just assumed that you grew that grey hair sitting in that office listening to bureaucrats.  What did you do before this?”

“I was retired!”

“Oh, well, that makes sense.  That accounts for the grey hair.  You retired, got bored and went back eh?”

“No.  I’ve been retired for almost twenty years.  It was great!  I loved it.  Just before I was fifty I realized that I had to get on with some things before I got too old to do them.  So, I quit my practice and went mountain biking all through the US Southwest.  Also snorkeled all over the Caribbean.  Traveled everywhere.  My wife and I had a helluva time until I was 65 and then I decided to go back to work.  You know, something slow paced and with coffee breaks?  And I found that I had the curiosity of youth all over again.  After almost twenty years having fun, law had changed, I had changed and now work was fun again!”

“OHMYGAWD!  That is brilliant!”

“Yeah.  I think everyone needs to have time to do what their heart leads them to but so many people think they have to wait until the end of life to do it.  I decided that I could retire in the middle of working life and I would likely have a better retirement as a result.  And No!, I was not well off.  The bonus was that I came back re-interested in my work.  That was an unexpected treat.  I highly recommend thinking about that should you ever get bored at what you are doing.”

And, of course, I have never forgotten what he said.  In fact, I kinda thought I’d do a David’s version of it.  You know………..?  I would quit at 55 and ‘do my thing’ and then, at 65 or so, go back to work.  As a mediator most likely.  Just like my hero, Ken.

But I am getting along to that age now and, at 64, I do not see myself plugging back in.  Mediators work in cities.  And I am not going back there.  So early retirement may turn out to be just that – early retirement.  We’ll see.

So, the next day………….

We arrived at the site from having spent the night at the farm stay on the other island.  The farm stay is a B&B on a small hobby farm that raises sheep and keeps chickens and teaches English to Japanese students.  It’s a lovely little place and the owners are characters fitting to the scene and endemic to the area.  Completely mad in an entertaining kind of way.

When we got to the site, the box was – just as planned – lying just below the high water mark and approximately 6o feet from where it should eventually be situated.  And, of course, it lay amongst the poor footing of slimy boulders, kelp and barnacles at the bottom of a steep incline.

I rigged a block and tackle to a tree up the hill and lashed a heavy nylon belt around the box.  My neighbour came over to assist us and, after hooking it up, we began to pull.  Sally and J were at the ‘dry’ mid-station pulling for all they were worth and I was at the tail end – just into the high water area – with the rope wrapped around my waist to ensure purchase.  And we pulled.

The block and tackle was rigged for four-to-one and so with roughly 100 pounds of pull, the box would move.  We aided the progress by placing little rollers (short log bits) under the box wherever it hit the rocky surface.  In theory, it should have been easy.  In fact, it was not.

The box caught up on a rocky outcropping every five or so feet and so one of the upper helpers would leave their post and lever it back up and place a roller.  The little logs, of course, would eventually roll out from under and so the same helper had to go fetch them and put them under again.  Each time, I would hold the weight – which was not hard as I was substantial enough and I also had at least one assistant helping me.  It went slowly but it went.  And we were in a good mood.

At one point the box held up and both assistants went about trying to make it free again.  I relaxed somewhat and laid back on the rope that was wrapped around my waist.  I was leaning at about a 45 degree angle over the beach rocks below.  By then I was about ten or so feet up the beach on the ‘dry’ side.

The rope parted.

I fell downhill over big boulders to the even bigger boulders on the beach.  I somersaulted actually.  Backwards.  Two complete rolls.  And then I smacked the back of my head heavily into the biggest rock which immediately haulted any further movement on my part.  In any way.  I think I was knocked out for a few seconds.

But I came to quickly and, except for a smashed and bleeding elbow and a completely whacked out state of consciousness, I was fairly intact.  J and Sally helped me to the deck and I just lay there for about half an hour while Sal fussed and made me tea and stuff.  I always love those times.

After I recovered somewhat, we used the cabled come-along to get the box into position and now we had a box on a beach that would hold tools and keep them dry from the weather.  Never has so much effort been expended nor danger and injury suffered for so pathetically little.  We were very proud.

That little inflatable boat did yeoman’s work.  I carried everything from bags of concrete to wheelbarrows, from luggage to drinking water, from food to building supplies and much much more over the two years we used it as our main supply vessel.

My single biggest load was when I brought up a few weeks of supplies and luggage for six and the boat was completely filled.  The load was like a small mountain.  But I was also running short of fuel so I didn’t want to do a second trip.  The water was dead calm so I suggested that the members of the family (with the luggage) who was coming to visit stand along the outside pontoons of the boat and lean into the middle against the pile of stuff.  In that way, they could accompany their luggage and we could all make it in one trip.

As we were leaving the loading area (about three miles from our beach) and everyone was standing aboard while I asked for directions (’cause I couldn’t see over the pile), the wife asked me, “Is this really necessary?”

“Not usually.  But I am very low on fuel (I was exaggerating.  I had enough to get home but not enough to do two trips).  I am hoping we make it before we run dry.  I’d hate to be floating around out here in the dark.  It’s already raining slightly and it gets bitterly cold at night.  And even if we should eventually drift ashore……well, then there are the wolves and bears to contend with.  And I don’t have my gun.”

They were European city folk.  That was enough to keep everyone quiet for the rest of the trip.  The visit went well but they have not been back since.

Towing the Water Tank

I once brought a huge water tank to the property using the boat.  It wasn’t heavy, it was just big.  But the cost of the barge was still prohibitive.  I figured that if it was good enough to keep water in, it should be good enough to keep water out.  So I fitted a few bungs for the holes and put a towing hook in one of them.  Then I slowly towed the whole thing by way of the little inflatable tug-that-could.

Now that really looked like a submarine!

Back to history: As stated, we didn’t know much about building before moving to the island, but we knew that we had to do some.  So, before anything significant was undertaken but after many materials had been purchased, it seemed like we should get at least a level surface built.  Ya gotta start somewhere.  We planned a deck at just above the high water level.

A level surface is a wonderful thing...

To do a deck on the island meant – at that time – purchasing all the materials from the local supply store, hiring a barge to bring it all over and then for us to be there to schlep all the stuff up onto the beach – the 30 degree beach without a level spot anywhere.  Ideally, all the tools I would need would have been delivered in advance (by me, of course).  And, of course, all the tools delivered needed a safe, weather-secure enclosure to be in place before even that.  Step one: tool storage on site.

I bought a large steel locking box from BC Hydro Salvage (Surrey) and delivered it to the nearest loading ramp on the next island with my car and trailer and then put it in the 11 foot inflatable dinghy we were using as our commuter boat.  An 11 foot dinghy has about 7 or so linear feet of floor space.  The box took five feet of it.  It also loomed four feet out of the boat and was two feet wide.  It weighed 400 pounds.  And it literally filled the boat completely.

When in place, the box looked like the conning tower of a just-submerged submarine.  My steering position was one of stretching out one leg along a pontoon and scrunching the other into the same space as the outboard engine steering tiller and the gas tank.  And, of course, I couldn’t see directly ahead nor to port which was completely blocked by the steel box.

When it was loaded the boat floated a smidge low in the water and I was positioned like a trailing fender on the starboard side.  “I think there is room for you, sweetie”, I said to Sal.  “Just climb on and stand with your feet apart at the bow like Leonardo on the Titanic (poor choice of analogies) and hold onto the box.”

Sal just looked at me.  She didn’t move.  “David, it is starting to blow up out there.  I don’t think you’ll make it.  And I sure as hell am not going with you!  We’ll die.  You can’t go.  And, if you go, you can’t take that box.  You can’t see where you’re going and the whole load is way too top heavy.  Don’t be insane!”

She had a good point.  But men, eh?  I mean I had struggled like hell to get the thing this far.  I needed it.  And delivering unwieldy stuff to our property was supposed to be part of the plan.  I couldn’t wuss out just because of an impending storm and the need to be a contortionist.  This was a test!  “No, I can make it.  You comin’?”

“No.  I’m sure you’re going to die.  I’ll drive up to the closest point I can get to and hike to the beach. If you get that far, I’ll climb on for the last few hundred yards.”

“OK.  Help me tie this thing down.”

“Are you mad!?  If you tie it in, it will flip you over.  When the seas fling it  overboard, let the damn thing go!  At least you’ll be alive and I’ll have somewhere to sit!”

“Good thinking.”  And I headed out.

The seas were two foot swells until I got out of the harbour.  And it was pouring.  Just about then the wind got up, too.  And it felt like all hell was breaking loose.  The boat was definitely top heavy and I was describing arcs with the top of the box that had to be eight to ten feet in distance from one side to the other — maybe more.  It seems like I got to the tipping point at every wave.  I slowly headed up coast with my body straining to keep the huge box in the rolling and rocking dinky boat into which I had squeezed myself like a pair of socks in a drawer.  This was not turning out to be a good day.

Of course I got soaked.  Immediately.  But that wasn’t the real problem.  The real problem was that I couldn’t turn back.  Turning the boat sideways into the seas to effect a reversal of direction would have definitely sent the box over the side and, since I was into it this far, I wanted to make every effort to keep the damn thing.  But Sal was right: tying it in would have been suicide.

Even though the wind got up to the low twenties and the seas were high enough that I disappeared deep within each trough, I seemed to be keeping it all together as I slowly motored up channel to the pick-up point.  It took about three hours to get there, maybe more.  When I got to Sal, she was standing on the shore looking amazed.  I was shaking like a leaf I was so cold.

“Wow!  I never thought I’d ever see you again.  Which didn’t feel as bad as I thought it might, you idiot!  I really thought this cabin madness would be over, settled by your early demise at sea.  I’m shocked.  Can you get us over?”

“S-s-s-s-ure.  P-p-p-p-ice of c-c-c-ake.  J-j-j-ump in!”

An hour or so later we arrived at our beach.  The waves were breaking on the unwelcoming rocks.  Somehow I had to get on to the shore and lift a 400 pound steel box out of the boat and up the beach.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Time to get a plan.  A bit late in the day, perhaps.  But I needed a plan and I needed one quick.  Otherwise I might look like a fool!  “It’s high tide.  I’m going to get as close to the beach as I can and then we just tip the sucker over the side – into the drink!  It will sink a few feet and catch up on the rocks below.  Tomorrow we’ll come back at low tide and it will be high and dry.  Then we’ll drag it up the shore.”

Tool Locker as it stands today

We shoved it over and it rolled out of the boat amazingly easily.  Our inflatable dropped down on the starboard side as it tipped and, as the box left the boat, we shot to port like a watermelon seed.  There we sat – looking at the beach.  No box in sight.  It was underwater.  Davey Jones’ locker – literally.

And Sal had doubts!  Can you believe that!?

Bit o’ politics………….not much…..  just a bit……sorry…………I’ll keep it short.

Liberals got crushed in the two byelections (Port Moody & Chilliwack) – both held by them previously.  The people are still mad, it seems.  Rolling back the HST wasn’t enough.  And the way cutey-pie Christy is handling matters, I don’t see the mood of the electorate changing much.  The other day she announced consideration of cutting some old growth forests to keep a certain sawmill going.  It didn’t occur to her to stop shipping raw logs to China as a better solution.

Well, for that matter, it doesn’t seem to occur to Harper to refine the oil at the tar sands site and ship it to eastern Canada where oil is imported from the middle east either.  I gues he is too busy wondering where to deploy the fighter jets this party is still considering.  You really have to wonder about these people.

Our politicians lie, cheat and are corrupt.  No doubt.  But, OMYGAWD, they are also so incredibly stupid.  Danielle Smith of Alberta’s right-wingy party just announced that exploiting the tar sands was OK since there is “still debate in the scientific community about the cause of climate change.”

Did some lab somewhere start cloning Sarah Palin?

Oh well, I will stop.  I apologize.  I have learned that people do not change their politics.  Nor do they ‘get’ that the party that calls itself the name they most relate to is not necessarily oriented that way.  Conservatives are not conservative and Liberals are not liberal.  Neither, for that matter, are New Democats new or even newly Democratic.  Mind you, Wild Roses are pretty wild so…………

On a brighter note, we relaunched Sal’s boat yesterday.  It went well.  The old log slides (ramp) allowed it to slide down to the rocks from the deck, held in check by me working a block and taykle.  There it sat until the tide came in and floated it off.  Sal then got in and rowed it around to the dock where we will re-install her engine and miscellany today.  Cap’n Sal will once again rule the high seas.  All is well in Sal’s world.

And so, all is well in mine.

Friend of mine brought me a magazine.  Western Living.  We cracked up!  Neither of us have any idea of western living by the standards promoted in that magazine.  It might as well have been the Robb Report for all the relevance it had to us.   Who are they kidding?

“Hey!  Didja see the piece on cutting boards?  Page 26.  Not gonna believe it!  hahahahahaha”. 

Page 26, Western Living, an article titled Chop Chop shows ‘designer’ wood cutting boards.  Designer Christian Woo has a slab o’ wood in ‘his customary rectilinear style’ priced at $210.00.  It’s a short plank, fer Gawd’s sake!  Another hunk of wood was $260.00!  A dinko piece we would burn because it was too small to use was fetching $49.00!

“Hey, this is good.  We’ll cut planks and make a million bucks!  Fuggedabout skill, style and workmanship.  I can do that with a chop saw and a sander!”

“No, Dave.  You missed the marketing angle.  That one was made from the joists and rafters of an old horse stable.  That kinda cachet is getting harder and harder to come by, ya know.  Adds to the cost, don’t you know?  And the other one came from a family-owned sustainable woodlot.  We’re talking history, ecology and family values, here!”

“Sorreeee….I thought one was a piece of wood and the other was another piece of wood.  I had no idea of the significance.  No wonder it is priced so high.  Still, I may just use only sustainable, west coast, heritage, first growth, family-loved and cherished wood myself when I cut slabs.  Got me a pile of it sitting under the house.  Sorry, I meant to say: ‘shaded and matured in an au natural air-dry, no-animals-harmed environment’.  Surely people can’t be that stupid?”

“I dunno.  Look at page 44.  See the bathtubs?  There isn’t one there that doesn’t cost more than the cars we drive – yours and mine combined!  Consumerism is attaining new heights in the city!  By the way, didja know that a cord of wood delivered in Campbell River now is going for $200.00?”

“Wow!  Didn’t know that.  Got me a grand’s worth of wood sittin’ down on the beach!  Yikes!  May have to hire security.  Sheesh.  Mind you, I bought soup and a sandwich for my friend, D, and I the other day down south.  It was a trendy, funky kind of place but still the kind where you go to the counter and order off a chalk board.  Bill came to $54.00.  Small soup each.  Nice cheese sandwich.  Two cups of tea.  Good thing Stats Canada assures me that overall the cost of living is still only rising at around two percent, eh?  Musta accidentally ordered one of them fancy cheese sandwiches.  My bad.  I woulda worried about the bill but I was buying gasoline a bit later at $1.40 a liter and nothing seemed to make sense after filling up anyway.”

So, I won’t go on.  You know the spiel.  What started out as a joke on silly consumerism became a bit of a lament about the rising cost of living.  Maybe it’s a habit.  I dunno.  Costs always rise, it seems.  And I always complain about it.  But I am now largely a non-participant in that madness most of the time, thank God!  I do, however, feel sorry for young people, single parents, the working poor and those who still believe in a system reliant on inflation.

I am glad there is real growth in the forest.  At the very least I will always be rich in breadboards.

“Hey, R!  You goin’ up to work on the kitchen this week?”

“Nah.  Too frustrating.  There’s no plan.  No direction, ya know?  I like to have a specific task assigned and the materials and a set of plans nearby and then I’ll just get on with it.  But this project is too loosey goosey.  I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing.”

“Yeah.  I know.  But that is the only way it works.  No one will work if anyone is in charge.  And all the plans are changed by the one doing whatever it is they choose to do.  It’s all very organic.  You just gotta go with the flow.  The good thing is that it is working.  It is coming along nicely.”

Every Wednesday is community work-day and people show up as their schedules, hormones and whims dictate.  Once there, they decide to stay or leave as their mood determines.  Sometimes the mood is affected by who else is there or who else isn’t.  You never really know who the crew will be.

And then they do what they do depending on what tools someone else may have brought, if someone was kind enough to bring some lunch or whether the work is going according to their personal standards.  It is hard to know what the crew will be at any given time and it is just as hard to determine what they will do next.  It is all pretty fluid.

Plans change, too.  Our community has a very dedicated designer who almost always strives to provide an overall plan on paper and it is usually deemed to be pretty good once presented.  It is what the schedule, budget and decision to proceed is based on.  But available materials might change the plans.  And who is willing to take on a certain part (framing, drywalling, etc.) is a definite game/design changer as some guys only know how to do things a certain way or because they just think they know better and do it the new way because they can.

Materials and tools are also huge variables.  Sometimes we ‘just have’ a spare five gallons of paint – and that might be the colour decider right there.  Other times, we have someone choose it and buy it and that kind of commitment is sufficient to constitute the decision making process all by itself.  This time a paint store donated some paint and so they decided the colour.

Other times we have a lumber supply of certain dimensions and that might influence things.  The kitchen, this time, has dry wall in no small part due to a recent neighbour bringing in more than they needed and willing to part with the extra.  And the stove is a generous contribution from another neighbour – style and size decided by the price!

Tools are a real bugaboo.  Some people bring ’em.  Some don’t.  But everyone working usually needs a tool of some kind so that means we are usually in a tool shortage situation.  Two weeks ago I was instructed to bring a hose and air-nailer.  Along with the other tools I brought, I had a good schlep from the dock getting to the site.  When I got there the requester of the tool was working along fine without it and so it wasn’t required.  But another fellow working on cutting lumber was without a pencil and a tape measure.  So, my trip was useful after all.

That week I was not required to actually work as all jobs were adequately staffed.  So, I left my tools as my contribution.

And, so it goes.

When you see a school of fish, like herring or smolts, zipping in unison one way and then another, each movement a brilliant display of instant choreography, you might think they are pretty marvelous.  I do.  What coordination!  What unity!  What kind of communicative and cooperative genius!

We’re not like that.

We’re more like a hockey riot.  ‘Cept we seem to get things built rather than destroyed.

It’s a miracle.