Christmas Pageant today.  The all-island community turned out.  Potluck.  Kids.  School.  The usual.

Kinda.

You see we have a one-room schoolhouse…..it is two rooms, actually, but we have only one teacher for all grades from one to 9 and so it is, in spirit anyway, like a one-room schoolhouse in the woods.  To further make the point: there are only four kids this year.

We could probably hold class in a midsized SUV (the teacher is kind of small, too).

Still, it was nice.  About 75 people showed up to hear the little ones stutter and stammer and monotone their way through their lines.  All to huge applause, of course.

That kind of thing is not really me.  I mean, I like kids.  I love kids.  And I like Xmas.  I also like plays.  I just can’t seem to appreciate the combination.  Call me a grouchy ol’crank.  Just not my thing.

Humbug, I guess. (Actually, if you must know – I do kinda like it.  In a way.  I just have an image to keep up – so don’t tell anyone – plus I really empathize with the little blighters.  I remember standing on stage dressed as an elf and singing Rudolph.  They have my sympathy.  It was hell).   

But I go anyway.  Sal wants me to.  And I clap.  And I smile.  And I might even pick at the potluck a bit.

The problem is that it is just not enough about ‘me’, ya know?  Damn kids get all the attention!  But this time was a bit different.  This year the little school kids had some competition.  We took the wooden toys for show-and-tell!  “Take that, Dimples!”

OK, calm down.  I didn’t really compete with the kids.  I know I am way cuter and I am secure in that.  The toy show was ‘off to the side’.  And it was just ‘show’, no ‘tell’.  The kids got the glory.  And I coped very well.  I am mature, after all.  And it was all good.

But one thing was also clear.  The adults all took a few moments to ‘check out’ the toys and the support they expressed was great.  One couple immediately donated to the ‘workshop fund’ and also offered to buy the skidder you may have seen in the previous blog.

This is not big industry we are talking here but I felt like a rep from the US military-industrial complex showing off fighter jets to Harper.  Same gleam in the eyes!

In other words, this was another good Christmas pageant.

Lots of community ‘buzz’ about the woodworking shop.  It’s kinda fun.  Ol’ geezers phoning up and suggesting different types of toys they want to make.  Women talking about learning how to use new and different tools. Even the old ‘cynical’ types are playing with the toys and goofing around.  It’s good to see.

These are all skilled and competent people, too.  They have been living and building and maintaining and creating for years in many cases.  They are handy already.  They know how to work.  And they know what ‘good work’ is and, to a person, they are impressed with the skills of the guy who made the toys.  But the good thing is – they are not in the least intimidated.  They think they can do this!

And, of course, they can.  Having the ability and skill (once they get into it) is not the question.  Will the ‘magic’ of getting together and building stuff in a semi-cooperative way happen?  That is the real question.

Our community is really pretty great but it is not what you might call tight and cohesive in a ‘clubby’ kind of way.  Despite the location, we are not a country club.  In fact, being honest requires acknowledging at the very least the fierce level of independence of everyone – fierce to the point of being somewhat extreme at times.  Most are at least bloody minded.  Many are just plain stubborn.  Some are ‘right out there’.  And some are so far out there, we are not sure that they were ever included.  In anything.

But, mostly, the ‘separation’ manifested is in a good way.  It is just independence.  Character.  Local colour. It is all good.

And so is the ‘getting together-ness’ at a good level.  Our gatherings are generally infrequent but somewhat ‘to be expected’ with one or two scheduled events every year.  Every few months or so something spontaneous happens as a rule.  That fills in the gaps.  And usually these events are for a real purpose, not just getting together.  We are all generally too busy for socializing for no other reason.

There is a limit to our getting together and we just don’t know what that is.  Not yet.

Clearly, joining hands and singing Kumbaya is not everyone’s cup of tea.  Some people just prefer to be more alone than that.  Me, for instance.  In fact, even a cup of tea is not everyone’s cup of tea.  One poor fellow expired out here last year and when we heard, both Sally and I realized that we had not only never met the guy, we didn’t even know he was here.  We had never even heard his name prior to his final departure.

Anyway – you get the point: community is alive and well here but it doesn’t look like a church group or Rotary.  Is it ‘soft and fuzzy’ enough to come together to make stuff on a regular basis?  We’ll see.

Lots of encouraging signs, tho.  A neighbour dropped in today to ‘discuss matters’.  The primary ‘matter’ was winches and skidders and logging and highlines.  And that went well.  But secondary matters included this woodworking shop idea……………….and that went well, too.  And so did the community building ideas.  He was ‘into it’.   This is definitely generating a little ‘buzz’.

Most people would be reluctant to spend sums of money if they didn’t have the cash, credit-line or, at least, a reliable income stream.  I admire that kind of prudence, myself, but don’t really subscribe to it.  Ya know?  I sorta figure that, “If you spend it, it will come”. (quoted from W.P. Kinsella’s nér-do-well brother-in-law).  And so I have been shopping.

As mentioned in the previous post, the Q-hut needs tools.  There are several ways to get tools but I hope we will simply be given them.  It is so much easier, don’t you think?  And I hate shopping.  Failing being gifted with tools (which can be read both ways, in my case), I hope we get them cheap.  Free is good.  Delivered Free is even better.  Set-up is not a problem.

“I’ll have my peeps set the tools up”.

I consider getting a generous grant being gifted.  I consider a miserly grant being gifted as well since I may be able to then buy the tools cheap.  Either way, somebody has to give it up for the betterment of the larger community and, since we are the larger community, my contribution is to go shopping for someone to ‘give it up‘.

That was THE PLAN such as it was.

I started with ‘shopping’ the government but, not unlike shopping in the conventional sense, my eyes quickly glazed over, I got bored and restless and then irritated and edgy.  I verged on mania.  I just want it to be over.  “OH!  Please GOD!  Just let it be over!” 

That is the all-too common refrain expressing my usual feelings after just twenty minutes into just a Save-ON grocery shop.  Put me in a shopping mall for an hour or more and I am literally certifiable.  I swear; I believe in some kind of gun control only for the reasons evident posed by shopping malls, department stores and places with long line-ups and stupidly-slow cashiers.

Mall security really should profile older white males.  They are truly the most likely security risk.  If you ever see a lone 60 year-old male wearing a long overcoat in a shopping mall RUN – do not walk – for the nearest exit.  Just saying.

Dealing with government makes shopping at Xmas with your wife for the entire family (both sides) a golf vacation in Bermuda by comparison.  I simply could not pack enough ammunition if I was to spend too long in dealing with government.  And one hour is too long.  Grant-getting is like prostrating yourself for years along dirt tracks covered in broken glass as you completed your suffering pilgrimage to Mecca.  And being, at the same time, a non-believer!

“Oh God!  Save me from this torture.  Please!  I choose waterboarding instead. With acid!”

Well, you get my drift.  I am not a fan of procurement.

Still, a man has to do what a man has to do………….eh?

So, I shopped.  But I shopped like a man!  Online.  Found an advert for a complete woodworking shop.  It was for sale due to the passing of the gentleman who, with his wife, had employed it for years in the making of wooden toys.  It is a small shop by business standards but a hugely comprehensive one in woodworking scope.  This couple knew their stuff.  It is not just the ‘tools’, it is product, inventory, accounts, goodwill and lessons in doing things.   It is in effect, a business – something much greater than just the sum of it’s parts.

Even better than that: it is one that I like to think of as ‘bite-sized’.  Our little community just may be able to ‘chew’ this.

We bought it.

To be fair, it was as much a gift as it was a purchase.  More a gift, actually.  The lady is very nice and wanted, ideally, to sell the shop as an operating business because she still has roots and friends as a result of years of making toys.  She’d like to see the shop continue to make toys.  That is the kind of business that generates goodwill and they achieved that over a considerable time.  She doesn’t want to lose that.

Secondly, she wanted the business to go to a small isolated community if possible.  She and her husband knew small communities and they knew that there was little in the way of cash generators in places like ours.  They, too, envisioned what we did.  We just had to ‘hook up’.  And we did.

So, she gave us a deal that worked for us.  We can partially pay her from the proceeds.  And she knows that there may not be much so we agreed to a bare minimum price (which I still don’t have) and we’ll make a best-efforts at adding to it.  I sincerely hope that we can pay her as promised.  But she knows the goofballs we are.  H was there, after all.  He accompanied me.

This idea still has to ‘get it’s legs’.  But everyone is optimistic and everyone has their eyes open.  It has a chance.

I had forgotten to take my camera when we visited the shop.  As a consequence, I was wondering how I could convey the idea to those who hadn’t yet been party to much of what I had been doing.  As we were leaving, I asked if she would mind giving us a few already-made toys for ‘show and tell’.  I thought that, maybe, having a bit of ‘product’ would suffice for not having a list of inventory and pictures.

Some things work out better by accident.

Plot 2.  Sally, as you know, was hosting book club on Sunday and 23 women attended.  I had three toys on display.  They were a hit!  Everyone, it was reported (as I am not allowed in book club due to my having ‘junque’), liked them and became supportive if not enthused with the idea of the Q-hut being so equipped.  If you have book club onside, you have the community onside.  They are only 10% of the areas population but boo kclub is the dog, the rest of us are tails.

This is a plan that is coming together.  I will keep you informed of our progress as we ‘go forward‘ but you may to wait until the ‘end of the day’ and after, of course, the ‘re-org’ and subsequent review process to ensure our mandate is being fulfilled.

BIG town day Saturday.  Went south to Comox.  Went into the business………(more on that to follow)

Even BIGGER book club day Sunday.  The action just never stops out here.  Life in the fast lane.  This is the second plot line.

Background to the business.   As you know, we renovated/rebuilt the old Quonset hut over the last year or so.  The idea was to make it into a boat works or, perhaps, a general woodworking shop for the community.  Sounded good.  People liked the idea.  And, like many ideas, the focus of that idea morphed and changed as the needs and moods and even seasons did.

At one point we thought it would be a good ‘shop’ from which all the community projects would get done, like the bunkhouse extension.  Other times it was seen as a ‘male hangout’.  Maybe build boats, maybe not.   All good ideas.  All within a context of a shop of some kind.  And so we proceeded in that general direction.  Whatever that direction was going to be.

We formed a little group of workers (more like independents pursuing similar but personal agendas that were, fortunately, all in the general direction of the overall plan….whatever that was).  And we did good as fixer-uppers-of-the-shop-but-without-further-direction-than-that.

The first real test of ‘whatever-it-is’ was the bunkhouse extension and our little group of independent workers were, fortunately, up to the task.  But not our facility.  Our whatever plan was not looking good enough.  Q-hut was just not up to the first job we encountered.  We did not have enough power to run the tools and we did not have enough tools to do the job we had undertaken.  Well, not easily and efficiently, anyway. We even ran out of materials and had to ‘steal’ constantly from our cache of earlier-obtained boat building materials.  Clearly the larger, BIG picture/idea was half-baked.  Whatever the BIG picture-plan was, it wasn’t enough.

We decided that we needed to equip the shop at the very least.  Properly.  And soon.

And so we went looking to ‘put some meat on the bones’ and make the damn thing functional in the BIG picture sense.  Whatever that was.  We started by asking governing bodies to give us some money.  Seems they have heard that kind of request before and had set up some significant barriers to having to give away any.  “I am sorry but the application deadline has passed.  No word yet on whether we will ever issue grants again.”

“But, you guys have an office and staff.  If there are no grants to issue, what do you do?”

“Receive applications.” 

“So, can we submit an application?”

“No.  I told you that the application date has passed and we have no money for next year.”

“So, why are you still there?”

“Sir!  I told you. To receive applications!”  

There was also the beautiful response from one funding source: “Yours is a very different application, Mr. Cox.  We don’t really deal with your island.  We are the regional office, to be sure, and you are well within our regional definition, but there is no access to where you live. So we don’t do anything there.  Maybe if you hold a bake sale?”

“Uh, forgive me for contradicting you but we have access.  That is how we get to our own homes.  We access them.  In fact, that is also how we get our tax notices.  We go to the post office, access our mailbox and get taxed. We get accessed and assessed on a regular basis.  We can also leave here when we want to.  When we do that, we access your area.  Simple.  We come.  We go.  Ya know what I mean?  And, believe it or not, we often come and go again and again.  We call that liberal and generous access.  But, if you insist in thinking you can’t get here from there, would you at least strike our properties from the property tax assessment?”

That exchange was insufficient to warrant even a return reply from our government chap.  And so it goes.

By the way, the drivel that passes for governmentese on a website describing grants is beyond comprehension.  It is so jargonesque, I half expect to read, “At the end of the day your grant effort will be going forward within the terms and conditions of our mandate which currently, under the present circumstances, is under review and with ongoing consultation with other stakeholders and subject, of course, to due process and required permits.”

“So, does that mean we will get an answer before 2015?”

“Deadlines are also under review.  But the review is going forward.  With stakeholders.  At the end of the day……………”

Just finding an entity to which I might be able to submit a grant request takes hours of reading absolute nonsense and propaganda-speak.  And, of course, no one ever picks up the phone if you call direct.  I once got a guy and he was pretty sympathetic and when the pretty-long conversation was over he said, “Well, I wish you luck.  Sounds like a worthy project and I’d like to think it will get funding.  But today is my last day here.  I am going back to India.  Getting married.  Won’t be back.  Good luck!”

AAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, but sanity is just a book club meeting away.

Today 23 women attended winter bookclub and books were reviewed, stories were told and a gazillion conversations undertaken.  Great quantities of food and egg nog, wine, coffee and tea were consumed. Dogs were petted, people were hugged and, of course, husbands neglected.

Three dour male spouses killed time in each others company while the bookish festivities were underway up at chez Cox-Davies.  We sat in J’s shop until we got hungry and then we ate peasant sandwiches and drank tea (slab of crusty bread, smaller slab of cheese, hunk o’ salami.  Fold over.  Repeat as required).  R got sleepy and he lay on the couch and had a nap. J and I went out and cut up a few logs.  The hours crawled by.

As the ladies were making their goodbyes, I got a call on the walkie-talkie.  “Sweetie, you can come home now, if you want.  Book club is over.”

More on both subjects tomorrow……………………..…(ooooh, the suspense is palpable………)

Sally had been up at the post office and the community centre making social and picking up a few dozen eggs at the same time.  It was about 2:00 pm on Wednesday as she headed home in her little Miata-like speed boat, just a’zipping through the cold December air. Good day to be out and about!

Up ahead she saw what looked like the typical winter high-tide generated floating flotsam or jetsam.  Or log.  It had branches sticking out. “Probably a natural deadfall”, she thought as she altered course to pass safely by.

But this piece seemed to be moving against the current.  In fact, this ‘deadfall’ seemed to be making headway against the wind and the current.  Sal slowed the boat and looked closer.

It was a deer.  The 3-point buck had disembarked from the neighbouring island and had been traversing the channel between – not very quickly – and was making the last few hundred feet to our island shore when Sal hove into view.  The buck seemed to pick up a bit of speed as Sal got closer.  Not easy when you are swimming with hooves and skinny legs, I am sure.

Given the distance and the estimated speed, she guessed that he had likely been swimming for about an hour.

Sal stopped the boat so as to relieve the poor animal of any unnecessary stress and sat there watching as he continued swimming.  He seemed to sense he had a bit more time, after all, and moved with calm deliberation a bit down the coast to find a more accessible landing.  Finding the right depth and lunging out of the water, Buck emerged onto the beach, looked at Sal one last time and then headed inland to try to add to the local gene pool.

Sal restarted her outboard, and resumed her journey home. She arrived home with a wide grin across her face and a brief but ‘fun’ story to tell about passing the buck.

December.  Just getting mail.  Nice to get out and about.

I read the news before I do much of anything.  Well, after a shower and a cup of tea, I mean.  I don’t know why I try to keep current.  I just do.  Curious, I guess.  Mostly habit.  It is a way to start the day.  I have always been a news-junkie but I have pretty much given up on the usual sources.  I just don’t trust them or else I trust them to be completely wrong.  Either way, the usual sources are no longer the usual sources for me anymore.

When I say ‘news’,  I don’t mean the Canucks, the latest gang shooting or lurid Downtown Eastside hard-luck story.  I don’t mean dead bodies found in abandoned cars, lots or buildings.   I don’t mean real estate prices, transit stories or even the latest crooked dealings of one sociopathic, narcissistic fat cat or another.  I certainly do not mean news from techie-shills selling bits and bytes, fashionistas or the drivel of foodies.

And I don’t mean anything that is said by our so-called leaders, politicians, bankers or even, I am sorry to admit, the heads of any large institutions.  I have come to suspect all spokesmen, spokespeople and spokesmodels so much that I now trust them to lie only.  I lost interest in ‘public affairs’ officials a long time ago.  They may as well wear a button that says, ‘liar, spin-artist, diffuser, dissembler and B-Sér’ on their lapel.  Whatever they say is 100% guaranteed not to be true.

And I sincerely believe that any press release is also at the very least, a partial lie.  Most often a complete fabrication.

The Vancouver Sun is abysmal. Same for the whole chain, the Globe and Mail and the National Post. I can’t stand them.  Light-weight, irrelevant, boring, corporate-toadies, writ-by-rote and following a recipe-cum-pattern that, in itself, defies the chaotic and randomness of real news.  Not worth my time to get ’em for fire starter.  It is a crime against trees.  And the columnists that used to actually ‘say something’ have gone flaccid.

On the whole, mainstream reporters have been gelded, news gathering has been gutted and only goofs are put on the air to gab.

The CBC broadcasts hours and hours of nonsense, gibberish and irrelevancies.  There is a woman on in the afternoons by the name of Joanne something that drives me screaming from the room.  I swear that when I was working with the schizophrenic, the demented and the chemically and naturally psychotic, I could tolerate their babblings longer than I can hers.  It is beyond mind-numbing, it is like having a cat sharpen it’s claws on my brain.

Yes.  I turn her off.  And then I drink wine.  I blame her.

I now get the Tyee. I read the Discovery Islander and the elite and off-the-radar Snot Rag.  I also get the Common Sense Canadian.  I listen to the BBC.  I listen to NPR now and again.  I read Asian papers (translated).  I read Britlish papers.  I pick up headlines from CNN.  And, of course, I let Google send me a selected collection of articles on various subjects, the sources of which change all the time.

And one of my best friends is a librarian with a pair of scissors and lots of envelopes.  Sally and I both love her.

But it is not enough.  I need more.  I don’t know why.  I just do.

So, I read books.  I read voraciously.  All but the rare exception are non-fiction.  The last book was Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken.  Very interesting.  Basic premise: we are, as a species, evolving faster than ever before and all that change is coming from the bottom up.  It is ‘network’ based and ‘organic’ in the sense that movements are happening in every country and on every subject and in all walks of life but they are somehow linked in a manner that is good.  He explains the amorphous nature of the OCCUPY movement, leaderless, formless and seemingly unfocussed.  And he wrote about it all in 2005/6.  BEFORE the movement even manifested.

Mind you, it had manifested.   It was just not reported enough in mainstream media so the general hoi poloi didn’t see it until it morphed into the OCCUPY movement.  According to Hawken the momentum for change is so well founded now, the name or even durability of any one group is not important. Change is underway.

And ‘news’ is part of this evolution. Hawken points out that the old sources are not working fast enough nor are they working for the common good anymore.  They work for their corporate bosses to make a profit.  The old fourth estate no longer has integrity.  In effect, what good there was is growing into the fifth estate – social movements.  And that is because much of social networking is working for the people.  It is revealing the truth.  It has the integrity of an innocent child and no sophistication or even informed knowledge but it is maturing.  Much of the local, small town media is even better – especially on local issues.  Hawken is saying: ‘small is so beautiful, it is beginning to grow large!’

I am somewhat encouraged by his summary of what passes for evolution in this matter.  I hope he is right.  I certainly think we have to find our news differently.  We have to seek out new sources.  We have to start with local and go international.

Think globally, act locally?  About news?  Absolutely!  And with an emphasis on thinking.  We no longer have any Walter Cronkites or Edward R. Murrows we can trust.  We gotta find out for ourselves from now on.  Forget Murdoch, forget Conrad Black, forget the Vancouver Sun, Global TV and the CBC.  That is just news as bad entertainment.  Go bigger.  Go smaller.  But don’t stay on the same channel.  Now is the time to ‘touch that dial’. 

Back to being normal……….kinda.

It was Monday, December 5th, 2011.  J, G and I headed up to the bunkhouse to install the new entry doors and finish some outside sheathing.  It’s your classic island crew.  ‘J’ is hard of hearing (deaf as a long-dead duck) and G mumbles semi-coherent half-jokes mixed in with requests and instructions as he thinks aloud.  He often keeps his glasses in his teeth as he speaks.  If he is wearing his glasses, he has a pencil in his mouth instead.

“Nowunderthecomooty………………………lostfaithinye, yuol’git! Passámmeréh? Angityr handsoutothebluddyway, eh! Got it?  We gonnatakit uprighéhereandyoolot blanceit, ferasec. Anyonegottasmoke?”

Exact translation of the above is: “No wonder the community has lost faith in you, Dave, you old git.  Pass the hammer, eh?  And get your hands out of the bloody way, eh?  Got it?  We are going to tack it up right here and you lot balance it for a seond.  Anyone got a smoke?”

Real translation: “Let’s get started.  Pass the hammer.  You two hold the doors in place while I put a nail in”.

He knows we don’t smoke.

And so it goes all day as we slowly get better at the interpretation of the monotonal, polysylabic, carpenter’s pidgin that passes for G’s communication style.

J is pretty smart.  He does it all by reading G’s or my body language and anticipating the next step.  Not easy.  If I make a move to hold the doors, J grabs his side of the frame. If I move past the doors for the plywood on the floor, he misses scarcely a beat and picks up his side of that.  We are like an ugly Russian ballet.  And we are mute.

He can’t hear a thing.  Especially if there is any background noise and this is a construction site complete with a generator.  He doesn’t have a chance.  And I don’t repeat G’s semi-gibberish because I am trying to translate it, interpret it and process it.  So he just waits for a movement from me or G and jumps to it.  I have to learn gibberish-with-pencil-in-mouth and J has to learn two body languages.  We get better at it as the day goes along.

G knows his stuff.  He’s been a carpenter all his life.  He has the ability to build ‘outside the formula’ and still make it work.  I am trying to anticipate his moves but I can’t.  “Sheesh, man.  I’m glad you’re doing this.  I would’ve thought we’d have built tilt-up walls and then added a stud or two and then done something else and, like, I never would have built it like this.  No criticism.  None.  I just wouldn’t have done it thís way.” 

“Seeanystuds, dýa? Iswadyado if yadon’got anybloodywood, eh? Anitsbetter, anyway. Like. Bloodyél we gotnomaterials, dowe?”

Translation: “Dave, we don’t have the wood or materials for that.  And the normal way is stupid, anyway.  This is better.  Stronger.  Different.  Don’t worry about the rules.  They were made for people who don’t understand physics.  Once you have the principle of the concept handled, you can be more creative and we have to be because we don’t have the wood!”

I don’t think J spoke a word all day.  He just worked and ‘jumped to it’.  I occasionally tried for clarification or asked a question of G who was our leader, none of which elicited a comprehensible response, what with the glasses and the pencils and all.  So we just worked in a state of guesswork and anxiety trying not to misinterpret a gesture, a mumble or a twitch.  J and I were constantly doing double-takes as we searched for signs or hints. Or danger.  We moved like squirrels.  It can get stressful.

J cracked early.  He had to go home, anyway, but I know that the stress and tension of trying to guess your way through a creative construction process was getting to him.  He bid us adieu around 1:00.

“NizeguyJay, eh!” (My interpretation: “Nice guy.  I like him.  Good to work with.  I’d work with him again.”)

At the time I thought he’d said, ‘noskajakay’ and was wondering what the hell that meant and so I just looked at him like I was an idiot.  And G looked at me like I was an idiot, too.  We were at an impasse.

After a few seconds of that, he just shook his head, mumbled something to himself and we moved on.

We got most of it done by 4:00.  And so I was packing up my tools.  “IfyadonneedémleaveémanI’llfinishmyselflader.”

Translation: “You were only useful for bringing your tools.  Leave them with me and I’ll finish up here on my own. Maybe tomorrow.  Let’s go home.  I’ll fix you a cup of tea.”

It’s a wonder out here.  It really is.  A real wonder.

Another battle, it seems.  This time: oil pipelines and the inevitable leaks they suffer.

Well, they don’t suffer, really. They, the companies, are insured against leaks and the resulting financial problems.  They don’t really care about the damage to the environment (they have environmental damage insurance, too) so it will be the inevitable leaks that we and the environs suffer.

Geez, what else is new?

I am not going to write about why laying pipelines across wilderness is a bad idea.  I am not going to write about oil-laden tankers plying our coastal waters delivering their poison cargo south.  And I am not going to write about why it bothers me so much.  You can readily imagine my take on that story.  You can likely even feel my distress.  Writing it out in detail is just more words.  I’ll spare you.

Plus this blog wanders a bit……..

What I am partly writing about today is – just because it is current – the First nations.  Seems 500 or so First Nations representatives met a few days ago and pledged their mutual and unified defiance of the plans by our Federal Govt. and Enbridge to build a pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat and then ship the sludge the remaining distance to Vancouver and points south by tanker.  The First Nations stood up, got counted and defied the government and the corporation.  Unanimously.  “We will protect our heritage!”

There were over 130 signatories to what is called the Fraser Covenant.  Something like 61 ‘nations’ unified.  It was magic.  It was inspiring.

The next day Enbridge announced that one of the nations had signed an agreement with them and that the deal paid $7M.  Chief Elmer Derrick of the GitXsan people made the announcement with Enbridge.  The next day, another press release – this time from another group of GitXsan refuting Derricks statements.

So, there is no unity.

It would seem that that there is a majority, tho.  That’s still good.  Majorities are good.  But it is not unity.  Money divided them.  Derrick wanted the money.  And he took it.  Money divided the unity, the brotherhood, the nobleness and the courage.  It divided the family.  It weakened their statement.  And money is effectively divisive all of the time now, it seems.  More ‘heritage defenders’ may follow.

An aside: The U.S. State Department has effectively delayed the Keystone XL (oil pipeline from the TAR SANDS) until early 2013 — after the next presidential election — by ordering TransCanada to come up with a new route through Nebraska to avoid an important source of water. 

The US is worried about Nebraska.  Our two levels of government are ‘selling out’ our entire coastline.

And that is why I am really writing today.  It is not about the latest environmental disaster-in-waiting.  It is not even the weakness of the corrupt to sell out.  It is certainly not about the First Nations.

The point today is that everything we have seems to have been reduced to one common denominator.  Money.  If you want to bribe someone, you offer money.  If you want to motivate someone, you offer money.  If you accidentally (or even purposefully) harm them you can ‘pay’ them money in compensation.  Money, it seems, is the universal solution to what ails ya.

People who lose loved ones sue others they deem responsible.  They don’t get back the loved one, but they may get some money!?  That is madness!

Doesn’t it really feel like money is more the cause of what ails ya?

Somehow?

‘Course, it isn’t.  Not logically.  How can it be?  Money is merely a medium of exchange.  Neither good nor bad.  That’s the theory, anyway.  But doesn’t it feel like an accomplice to evil?  Doesn’t it seem like money is an integral part of all that is wrong with what is going on?  And so much of what is going on is not so good…………and therefore………..?

I accept the argument that money is a neutral, benign, soulless and without-character symbol-of-a-promise.  It is currency.  It is a medium of exchange and only that.  It is no more evil than a bead or a string of chicken bones each once used just like money.  But it doesn’t feel that way.  Not anymore.  Not at the scale or pervasiveness that I am seeing.  It feels like it is somehow an entity in itself.  Am I crazy?

Is it just me?

It may be even simpler than that.  Money really may be innocent.  Maybe it is simply just us, and maybe it is just the all-too-common Elmer Derricks of this world.  Maybe it is a system that makes us think that everything can be reduced to bucks.  Maybe, as the Master Card ad says, ‘some things are priceless!’  And we seem to have forgotten that.

Maybe the promise has been broken?

The point?  Not only are some things priceless, most things are.  All of the really great things in life are absolutely priceless.  Health, relationships, the earth.  Everything really great is priceless.  And yet we seem to have put a price on everything including, tragically, health, relationships and the earth.   How stupid is that?

I am so keen on living off-the-grid that I confess to proselytizing and preaching now and then.  One could even assert that this blog is trying to start the new back-to-the-land movement or at least cheering from the haywagon, as it were.  I write to attract readers and I attract readers to come live this way.  I am kind of like ‘wooing’ in a way.

It’s true.  I know it, anyway.  You probably haven’t noticed but now and again, if not a whole bunch too often,  I wax rhapsodic about rural living, the forest, the sea, blah, blah, blah.  Ravens.  Clams.  Whatever.  It can get a bit sickening, I am sure, so I try to keep the boosterism to a dull roar when I become aware of the tendency.  But I know that I mostly fail to keep it very subtle and I must occasionally come across like a beginning realtor in a cheap suburb.

I am sorry about that………………a bit.  Not too sorry.  Well, not very sorry at all, really.

There are several reasons I promote this way of life, the most prominent of which is that I am sincere and I believe it and I want to share with others.  I am a sweetheart, I am NOT a realtor.  But there are also a few other reasons and I thought I should expose all my agendas, you know, so as to be pure-of-heart as well as sweet.

A second reason for recommending a cottage to visit (putting a delicate spin on it…I could say a place to ‘hunker down’ or ‘hole up’) is that I have and have had a sense that the system is breaking down and that being in the city will cause my friends and readers extreme hardship in the coming years.  In other words, I think you are all pretty much doomed.  Mind you, in the words of a journalist from the Georgia Straight writing about recent problems,  I am clearly not alone in that.

“Am I the only one that sees all this as a great opportunity to move to the woods and live the Little House on the Prairie lifestyle? Maybe I’m deluded, but I’ve kind of been waiting for this my whole life.  It takes one hell of a lot of brain activity and luck to make modern urbanism work, spiritually. Let the hemorrhage begin!”  Pietra Woolley

I also simply expected more of an exodus.  A naturally occurring one.  I really did.  Frankly, I still expect it and I think you are all just procrastinating.

One reason for that is that, historically, older people seem to gravitate to cottages.  It’s a natural-aging kinda thing.  Like golf and gardening.  Ya, know?  So, like, don’t you guys think you are getting old? Are you in denial about this?  Is that it?  Is it the yoga, the plastic surgeon and the viagra that is holding things up (in more ways than one)?  Where are the typical ‘going-to-the-cottage’ types?

Another reason – and I know this sounds a bit egocentric – but what has, in the past interested me, seems to have also interested a majority or a significant number of others.  Much to my horror, I have come to accept that I am not unique in the least and that, in fact, I could be the poster boy for Stats Can’s average man.  Advertisers could save a helluva lot of effort simply by following me around.  What I do is manifest mainstream living.  I am average.  I am the average Canadian.  I am Canada.  Well, I am baby-boomer Canada, anyway.

So, if I like it, shouldn’t everyone be doing it?  I mean, really?  If I am only half as average as I think, doesn’t that still translate into a rural-living boom?  Shouldn’t solar panels be flying off the shelf at the very least?  Are we the only ones with walkie-talkies that actually get used?  Doesn’t everyone compost nowadays?

‘Cmon!  We had four TVs when we lived in Tsawwassen.  Now: none.  We took several newspapers.  Now: none.  Three cars: now one.  We ate processed cheese, for God’s sake!  Now: well, I don’t know from cheese but you get my drift.  We not only moved but we moved on. The world is changing and we went green and rural and I thought others would, too.  Seems the vast majority are going ‘condo’ instead.

I am shocked.

My friend Bill moved.  He’s on a southern Gulf Island.  That’s one who saw the light.  And a whole lotta people were out here already (the earlier cutting edge).  So, I know that it is an attractive alternative lifestyle.  But I hafta admit that there are only a few escaping the city and most often as just a means to get a summer cottage to supplement their several other homes in London, Paris and Vancouver.  The homesteader of limited means is nowhere to be seen.  Hell, the lower-middle income worker getting economically killed in the burbs isn’t showing up either.  And the youth?  Most of them are flipping burgers and playing X-box.  In town!  Those who seem to be ‘getting it’ are gazillionaires and/or are really just wealthy retirees getting a part-time retreat.  The advent of the exodus-of-the-aware-and-scared just isn’t happening.

Mind you, David Suzuki lives out here.  I am pretty sure that he knows something………..

I guess, in the end, it doesn’t matter.  Home is where the heart is.  And, if most people feel at home in the city, that’s just fine.  It’s a nice place to visit and an even nicer place for us to have friends to stay with.

So, anybody buying bullets?

Hard to believe, but we did a bit o’loggin’ again a couple of days ago.  And it’s December!  Sal had wrangled the odd log to the beach over the previous week of very high tides and so we had a few to cut up, anyway.  But, really, that’s just an ‘everyday’ kind of thing even tho it is late in the year.  Livin’ remote on the west coast, whenever you see a good log floating by, you take it. That’s just life out here.

To help you grasp the concept of this ‘everyday’ pickin’-up, salvage/gatherer mentality, you city-folks, it’s like you stooping down to pick up a twenty dollar bill you find on the street.  It doesn’t happen everyday but everyday it happens, you’d stop to get it.  Most of us would even stop our car and get out in the rain to pick up a $20.  Right?  Well, a high-floater at least 30 feet long is the equivalent of finding a $20. Well, Douglas Fir, anyway.  Hemlock maybe $12 or $15.

The other day we saw a big ‘butt-end’ Cedar on the beach.  At least six feet around at the thickest part and maybe 15 feet long.   This puppy represented the motherlode of kindling to us.  Maybe even a shake or two.  We could be set for fire-starter for a few years with this piece!  To use the same analagous measuring stick, this Cedar was a $50 bill.  We picked it up.

“Wow, Dave!  You think in terms of money when you log salvage?”

“No.  Not really.  I draw such a parallel for those of you who don’t find, chop and burn wood every year.  But, I must admit, having next years logs already drying does, in fact, feel like money in the bank”.

When I think about it, I actually feel that way about the clams and the oysters awaiting their fate as my future paella or clam chowder, too.  I don’t really value them in terms of money, per sé, but they do feel like ‘money-in-the-bank’.  Maybe food-in-the-larder is a better description.  It is different – kind of a security thing.  Weird, really.

But, back to wood.  Fir is the recognized ‘best’ wood for heating your house out here.  Provided it is dry, of course.  If you read the wood charts that give the BTU or caloric rating, Fir is at the top of the west coast woods.  And most people seek, find, chop and burn that, if they can.

Dry Alder is also good.  But, for some reason, we don’t seem to gather that so much.  I guess it is because less of it is already cut, trimmed and floating by for our convenience.  Logging companies just ‘trash and slash’ Alder.  It doesn’t grow to sawmill thickness.  Fir and Hemlock are the industrial grade woods and so they are the ones that sometimes escape the booms and become hazards to navigation and potential stove-wood for the local oportunists such as ourselves.

Hemlock is not bad at all.  In fact, by the caloric ratings it is 75-80% of what Fir is and, because it is more plentiful, it really is a good comparable.  You need a bit more of it but there is a lot more of it floating by.  The trouble with Hemlock is that it seems to retain the water longer.  So it has the added negative of requiring more drying time.  Since we have a lot of Hemlock, we are obliged to ‘get in our wood’ at least one year ahead and this year we got in enough to be two years ahead.  By doing that, we have managed to make the Hemlock work for us.  And we are feeling a bit smug about it.  Thus this blog entry.

But here’s a surprise (although I know it is not one to those experienced folks out here), Pine is maybe the best of all.  Generally speaking Pine doesn’t rate that high on charts.  And who am I to argue with the caloric tables?  So, we never sought Pine.  But sometimes Pine seeks and finds you.  Over the years, a few old Pines have fallen and, of course, I clear them up, buckiing them to length and throwing them in the woodshed.

That last tree I wrote about that fell against the other tree during the storm and threatened my solar panels was/is an old Pine.

But our coastal pines are like hardwood.  They are usually only 6 inches in diameter when they are 100 years old!  To have a thick 8″/9″ diameter Pine log is to be looking at a 150 year-old tree!  Maybe older.  The rings on that tree are so close together they are hard to distinguish.  And the wood is heavy.  Heavy and dense.  And full of resin, I think.

Anyway, I burned a few Pine pieces over the last few days.  Ones that had been dried and in the pile.  And it was good.  I am not so sure that I am right about this but I am pretty sure that a piece of Pine will burn at least twice as long and even hotter than a similar sized piece of Fir.  I am sure of that if I just use my own experience.

Now there may be some downsides like too much resin (creosote) or whatever but damn!  Once you get that puppy burning, it goes like mad and does so for a good long time.

I’ll be salvaging a lot more Pine deadfall this coming year.  And to think I have just been turning my nose up at it until lately.