Yep. We went a-loggin’ again yesterday.

As you may have noted from past blogs, we gather rosebuds and fire wood logs when we can. We had gathered a nice little cache in the lagoon and they needed to get hauled out of the water (logs not rosebuds).

Yesterday we lifted 13 logs up to the drying bench (a place half way up the hill that allows for the wood to dry without being underfoot). Today we’ll do five more (plus some sundry heavy equipment later). When they are all processed we will be ‘good’ for at least two years and likely three.

I had a selection of pulling winches for this task from which to choose but, remembering the old maxim; ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’, I went with the old slow winch to ensure the job got done. It was slow. But it got done.

Sometimes you just have to hold off on the fun part of a job and so I’ll select and place the right winch when I can maximize the fun quotient sometime later. Cement, heavy lifting, greasy cables…….Oooh, I can hardly wait.

Weather has finally gotten beautiful. Things are as they should be. All is right in our world. But the summer is well underway (according to the calendar but not the weather) and we are a bit behind in our chores (Sal is slowing down a bit, you understand). So we are going to have to pick up the pace a bit or else exploit the scheduled guests. I prefer the latter.

You see, we are seasonally oriented nowadays. And this is the season to get things done. The year is no longer just one long ‘same ol’, same ol’ workday’ at the office. We have to do some things in the spring and fall and way more things in the summer and way fewer things in the winter. And the tasks themselves are seasonally oriented. Gardening, logging, building. They all have their start-dates and finish-by dates. Work is different out here.

And we are appreciating a little help more and more.

I love the enthusiasm with which a newly arrived guest will attack a pile of wood needing splitting. There is a lumberjack inside everyone, it seems. They pick up the maul and start a’ whacking. Wood flies in all directions. For a few minutes, anyway. Then they slow down. After a bit, they stop, get some water and look around for a face-saving way out.

Of course, I usually try to make it easier for them to quit, “Hey, man! Lookin’ a bit bagged, ain’t ya? Y’all might want to rest up for later when you may be called on to lift a few beer cans and your knife and fork! Ya big pussy! Damn! My little Chinese girls – all 80 pounds of them – would have had that pile chopped and stacked by now. You seein’ a doctor regular like?”

That works on the guys.

The women are different. “Wow! You are good. Most women can’t get that maul over their shoulders, let alone swing it anywhere near the target. You are at least hittin’ the choppin’ block and that’s a good start. The little Chinese girls couldn’t hit the ’round’ either. Usually took ém at least ten or so whacks before they started gettin’ the range. Hooeeeee! Then the wood started flyin’!”

Then I leave. Come back when it is done…………(he heh heehe)

Here’s a bit of information for you: at a certain point in the year – sometime in late April – we are supposed to tilt our solar panels to catch the maximum rays from the sun’s ascending arc in the sky. We usually forget until about mid May. This year we didn’t ‘adjust’ until June 1. By June the sun is high in the sky and every year we are stunned by the jump in the solar panel output. Not so much this year as it has been so cloudy but, even at that, we can now go a whole week without running the genset. It is truly magic.

In the dead of winter, we run the genset for two hours every day or three every other day. And, even at that, we run the BIG genset once a week for four or five hours so our gensets are a-hummin’. In the summer, we may put on an average of two hours a week. Sometimes nothing.

My wind gen is good. But not great. It is only a 400 watt wind turbine but it just doesn’t produce enough to warrant having it. I suppose it earns it’s keep in the winter. It will certainly keep the batteries ‘topped’ when we are away – which is a damn good thing. But it cannot make enough juice to ‘use’ unless the wind is howling. I may gamble someday and get a bigger one but the key determinant is low wind speed generation and few, if any, produce much below 15 mph.

Well, I see ol’ Sal strapping on the boots and getting the chokes ready. Seems we are off to do a bit more log haulin’………….

A friend of mine and his wife have had a tough couple of years. I won’t bore you with their not-at-all-boring story (the medical part actually deserves a book) but last week, their self-built and locally familiar 30-foot-plus sailboat caught an errant spark and burned to the waterline. I sincerely hope it is the final chapter in their current litany of tribulations.

None of us are insured out here so this loss was felt not only in the hearts and minds of those who know them and knew the boat but it also made a pretty big dent in their equally as battered wallet.

You wouldn’t know it to look at him, tho. He’s handling it all remarkably well. Much better than I would.

Sad, really, that it takes adversity to bring out the best in people. (Ironically, hardship doesn’t work that way with me. Adversity just brings surrender, tears and a lot of crying and moaning. Usually a lot of sniveling, gnashing of teeth and blaming others,too, if I can squeeze it in. I like to think of those as my coping mechanisms).

Mind you, that suggests that he was not ‘the best’ before and that is wrong. R is a fine fellow. But mettle is forged, it seems, in battle and he has had his share of late. And yet his mettle is still shining. I think my tarnished suit would get even darker if it had all happened to me. I really need things to be easier, not harder. I would fold like a towel in Sally’s arms if things got really hard. Hell, I do that whenever I can as it is. I prefer the idyllic and not the horrific. Heaven is better than hell, ya know?

Which reminds me: it has been no walk in the park for his wife, either. She has had an issue or two as well, to say the least. For all the resilience he has shown in recovering, she has shown the same as well as strength, courage and grace – the load still got carried. Troubles don’t discriminate. The family has had a lot to deal with and she has been equally as tested and found capable if not more so.

Yesterday morning we went with a few other neighbours to help them rid the provincial park beach from the remains of the vessel. The burnt hulk was on the shore and the authorities thought it unsightly. We chopped and hammered and unfastened, we chainsawed, dragged and pried, and we basically just tore it to pieces. I had a brief sense of what being part of a savaging wolf pack and pulling apart an unfortunate deer might be like. It was brutal.

I called him last night to tell him what I was thinking…..

“So, like you mean, I get maybe a 6 out of ten or something on the manly scale?” he said.

“Geez, man, if you’re gonna call a guy with this kind of message you’d think I’d be due at least a 7 out of ten!”

He has a point. With a sense of humour like that, we can stretch to a 7 out of ten for him, don’t you think?

It is July the first. Canada Day. It was wet and chilly all day and it just loomed so bleak, I lit a fire in the wood-stove. What climate change?

Today was a no-work day after all. I spent much of it horizontal. Not enough, tho. I may try to add some more to the R&R ledger tomorrow.

The comment (you may have read on a previous blog) in the ‘comment section’ describing me as English is from a friend of mine living in a somewhat cloistered society of Dutch descent. Old Dutch. They refer to all those ‘outside’ their community as the ‘English’. I guess I sounded kinda typical of the English-cum-‘westerner’ in that entry. Thus the comment.

It is hard to believe I sounded normal in that blog but I guess normal is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Which prompts this thought: if I hung out with ugly people would I be considered more handsome? Am I considered ugly now because my wife is so beautiful? Am I just living in the wrong aesthetics context?

Hard to know, really…………..

I once bumped into a whole Mayan family (5) while moseying the market place in Chichicastenango. I was so much taller than they were that I didn’t see them. The father barely reached my navel. So, in some parts of Guatemala, I am tall.

I’ve been to a lot of places where I was regarded as rich, too.

I wonder where I have to go appear smart?

This weird blog is the result of a day spent not being busy.

It has been a whirlwind of activity this last week or two. We are exhausted. Today may – just may – be a day ‘without work’. We’ll see. Sal will set the pace. As usual. If something needs doin’, it is hard for Sal not to do it. And so it will get done.

I confess that it is easier for me to ignore a chore and not lose a second of downtime to worrying about it. Not Sal. I also confess to actually enjoying watching her do it sometimes but that can be fraught with danger so I try to at least ‘hide’ when that energy-cum-guilt discrepancy is manifest.

And, of course, there are still things needin’ doin’ by me like getting the newly found logs up, getting the winches off the dock and completing the tracks for the funicular extension. Not to mention Sal having the garden, the clean-up after the guests, re-stocking the larder and all the weird paperwork that seems to be attached.

And that is only the half of it. Things like checking the water levels of the batteries, the cistern, refueling, gardening, gutter-cleaning and those jobs more accurately described as regular, routine and mundane are just as pressing when they have been ‘put aside’ for a few weeks of guests.

I have to swap over a few batteries, too………..

Then there is the world around us. A friend bought a huge 85-foot luxury-commercial fishing boat and wants to plan business strategies. Another had an accidental spark burn his boat to the waterline. He needs help in the clean-up. There is a mediation a-brewing in Vancouver. The teachers we are sending to Hong Kong are needing information and administrative support. We have seasonal chores, guests arriving next week and I still have a few days left on the Bunkhouse project.

I guess our list of to-do chores is of no real interest to anyone but, don’t forget, this blog is a blog of the mundane – the daily doings of two living off the grid. We never promised you a rose garden but, now that I mention it, the salad garden is going gangbusters.

I guess, like many people, I tend to muse out loud about what I am doing, going to do, should be doing and have done recently as a way of connecting with people. You know, like sharing common experiences in life? We all have things to do and it is like ‘bonding’, I guess.

Feeling closer, are ya?

It’s Thursday and the girls have left. Jim took ’em. Jim was one of our volunteer teachers and he, like us, fell in love with the school, the teachers and the kids when he was there. And it stuck. He was keen to take over from us and take them home to Victoria where he and his wife will continue the ‘experience’ of BC. It is a good thing.

It is also a bit of a ‘moving’ thing. Lots of tears from the girls and, I admit, a bit of a misty eye from me, too. The teacher was a sobbing mess!

It is not as if I am prone to teary sentimentality when saying goodbye, being the macho, crusty type that I am. I am disinclined to sad, prolonged, gooey goodbyes as a rule. I am a romantic, to be sure, but basically a realist. People come and people go. It is the way of things.

Once, I even cracked a joke with a friend who was in the process of dying.

It is not that I am callous, it is just that goodbyes don’t mean that much to me. I always intend to see the person again – in my friend’s case, in the ‘next life’, I suppose – but, for most goodbyes, what I really mean is: ‘I’ll see you again soon’.

But this time was different. These are little girls at a crucial point in their lives – they are ‘stepping out’ for the first time. And neither I nor anyone else will see them as children ever again. These kids are on the brink of adulthood and they have entrusted some of that ‘initiation’ process to us. In that sense, we are one of the last stations on their route to growing up.

Does anyone really know how that is done?

We, of course, gave them a gift-to-mark-their-visit. They, of course, gave us one. Each gift is cherished by the recipient not because of the actual item given but rather because of the sentiment expressed in the giving and receiving. In the beginning it is ‘respect’. If you are lucky, it moves beyond that.

They gave us a typical ‘guest-who-does-not-yet-know-the-host’ gift of something Chinese but then, later (when they knew us), a gift of their own personal thoughts in a journal-diary-like summary of their time here. It was funny. It was touching. It was great!

We gave them something from the area – local Native-carved silver pendants – but I added a personal story (after I knew them). And that – the story – was what meant the most to them.

I told them the myth of Raven releasing the humans from the clamshell into the world but drew a parallel with their own release from childhood into adulthood. It was personal. They got it.

The pendants are now more than just a souvenir.

And now we are more than just ‘guest teachers and students’. Now we are real friends.

And that, dear readers, is why we do this.

White westerners are referred to as gweilos in Chinese society. It is not always a benign term but, for the most part, it is simply just a descriptive designation. It means ‘foreigner’ or ‘westerner’. Of course, depending on the context, it can take on a heavier or lighter weight in the describing of something or someone. The word also means – kinda – western ways or western behaviours, styles or habits.

Just as we tend to think of the word Chinese as a collective term, they tend to use the word gweilo. It is natural. And, equally as naturally, it is so collective as to be almost meaningless when applied to any single person, behaviour or habit.

So who knows what it really means………eh?

My friend Dennis had some idea. He wanted me to share my ‘gweilo thoughts’ with the kids. Basically he was saying, “You know how you are kinda weird and all…..? Well, share some of that weirdness with them would you? I think a little ‘weird’ is good for them. I don’t agree with any of your crazy gweilo ways but I do think the kids benefit from hearing viewpoints different from the Chinese way of seeing things. Can you do that?”

“Yeah. Sure. Any topic in particular?”

“Well, I do kind of think that the gweilo way of being a bit independent of society is good. Not as far as you go or as far as, you know, crazy guys and all that, but I’d like them to hear about independent thinking rather than ‘harmonious‘ thinking (‘groupthink’ in Orwellian terms).

“You think I am independent-thinking?”

“OK, that settles it. I am sending their teacher, Ms Wong, with them. Just to be on the safe side!”

When the Chinese kids first come, it is always a bit awkward. They are nice. We are nice. And everyone is ‘nice‘. It is probably the way of all people and it is nice but it is also not quite so real. It takes a few days for people to let their hair down and then it seems to be better. And that little bit of magic happened today.

It is hard to describe, measure, predict or even address purposefully but you know what I mean. ‘Breaking the ice but at a deeper level’, I guess. All of a sudden a look of understanding, a sense of familiarity, a quick laugh at someone’s faux pas. Those small signs that indicate our common humanity are what I like so much. It makes it all so much more fun.

But such signs between strangers that were relatively easy to read and achieve in the city (the context was more familiar to both sides) is a bit harder to achieve in the country. SO MUCH is SO foreign to them and, in some ways still for us. But they are bug-eyed (metaphorically speaking, of course) and that sense of wonder and awe keeps them quiet and a bit reticent for awhile.

Not today.

Today we went aboard the prawn boat to watch a set come up and then be re-baited and sent down. The fishermen were great and explained a lot about how the traps worked, what their jobs were and, of course, what the catch and by-catch was all about. Today they caught and released four octopi but not before we had a chance to look and touch. Squeals erupted. Grins radiated. Eyes sparkled. An octopus in a bucket is a marvelous sight!

Afterwards the kids went kayaking. That was good. And they had fun. I asked them if we should leave the kayaks out in case they wanted to give it another try…..? “Yes! We love to kayak!”

And as I sat down to write the day up, I glanced out the window as two of the girls approached the splitting maul, the chopping block and the dozen or so small rounds I left out on purpose. Whack! Whack! Whack! Thunk!
(much giggling) Whack! Thunk! (more giggling) and then VICTORY!!! ……a piece of wood split.

You had to be there, I guess.

For a bit of relaxation,, there is nothing like whacking a chunk of wood………..well, watching the girls whacking a chunk of wood is pretty good, too. I feel great!

D&L are WOOFERS (volunteers who work for room and board). They are from Chicago. They were our guest workers for a week last month and have been wandering the neighbourhood staying at different places since then. They are smart, young, personable and, interestingly for me, very English-language oriented. They do crosswords, play scrabble and read voraciously. It is not often a pair of young people have such extensive vocabularies and our conversations are often sprinkled with some great but little-used words. I thought they’d be good ESL teachers in Hong Kong and so I offered them a position at our favourite school there and they accepted! This is good.

The girls and Begonia (from our favourite school) have been here for a few days and so we thought it would be good to get the teachers-who-start-in-September introduced to the students-who-are-conveniently-visiting. D&L were at the time on the next island over and I fetched them for a sleep-over yesterday afternoon. Last night was a big Chinese/Gweilo dinner meeting.

It was like a house on fire! They talked and talked comparing notes and cultures, lives and politics, food, living accommodations, George Bush and Mao and on and on and on. I didn’t have to say a thing. I took the opportunity to go to bed at 9:00 to read but I spent a bit of time listening through the walls at the gabfest. It was great.

I like to think I am good company (I am not but I like to think it) and so we have kids come from China visit us every year. But, the truth is, we are old and they are not. This group of girls are over 40 years our junior and there is an age gap, a cultural gap, a gender gap (for me) and a language gap. Sometimes the gap seems large. But the gap is always narrower when the people are closer in age and D & L’s visit was proof of that.

As I get older I may be losing my previous standing (legendary in my own mind and based entirely on Sally’s cooking) as the host with the most. Looks like I am going to have to delegate that function. But this is going to work out just fine.

With the postal strike, my reading material is severely restricted. We normally get books-by-mail (and then by float-plane). A great service. But now I am limited to what I have in our own little library and, of course, most of it I have already read.

I picked up Scott Peck’s In Search of Stones. I chose it because the first time I read it, I found it boring. To a large extent it was a travel book but, at the same time, it was a story of his aging process (and his wife’s). Such a topic didn’t interest me when I was 50. But now I am 63. Now we have more in common.

Age is an issue out here. Not a big one. Not yet. But it is an issue and slowly, inexorably, it is looming larger. Getting older limits our activities to an increasing extent every year.

Oddly, I am just as strong if not, in fact, a bit stronger in some ways (I.e. I have great hair and it is finding new places in which to proliferate!). But I now get tired in half the time. It is more than just a bit irritating, it’s also a scheduling problem. I sometimes don’t undertake a task or project because I know I won’t be able to finish what I start in time for the next thing scheduled.

Sal’s a bit better (surprised?). She seems to have more energy but hers, too, is less than what it was just a few years ago. And her hands are stiffening up a bit. Like my back.

Of course, our eyes are all shot to hell as well. Sal can’t see up close. I can’t see far away and our middle vision both sucks.

But I mention all this not because I am complaining (well, not anymore than is written above, anyway). I am mentioning this because our health is still pretty good! I know that sounds odd but, at 63, I go up and down the lagoon hill pretty nimbly carrying a chainsaw and a peavey. Sal zips up and down so easily, it is like a walk in the park for her. We are outside every day and we are doing things that keep us in shape (I like hers better than mine but, face it, a firm potato-shape is still a shape!). This lifestyle is good for us. It doesn’t halt aging but it slows it down.

We figure to be able to keep this lifestyle going for a considerable time. One of our neighbours is in his early 80’s and he can outwork me by twice!

Yesterday, I popped in to see the prawn fisherman for a bit. I pulled alongside his boat while he was slowly proceeding along his trap-line and, handing him the rope, I scrambled aboard. No big deal. A short awkward climb up the side of a large boat and over the rail. We visited and I then went to leave. The crew had taken my boat to the other side and my way was blocked by equipment and a tarp. Paul offered to send a crew member to get it for me.

“No need. I can do this.“

And so I slipped between the equipment, scrambled past the work lines and flung myself over the side catching my feet on the rubstrake of his vessel and making the still-moving step onto my boat 5 or so feet below.

Paul smiled and said, “Glad you have a stable boat! See ya!” And off I went.

Again……..no big deal. But I am seeing more and more that a typical 63 year old urban male would likely have had trouble with that. It was a good feeling to know that I could have handled that same maneuver in heavier weather and in the dark.

You gotta find your victories where you can.

Sally had just finished serving breakfast (lox, bagels, scrambled eggs and fresh fruit salad) and the kids and Begonia were ‘gearing up’ for what they wanted to do. But I had an agenda……

We had picked up a few logs over the past few days and they were in the lagoon floating all nice and pretty-like, eh?

This won’t do! Not in the long run, anyway. In the long run, a log salvager might see them and, if they are in the tidal zone, they are his for the taking. I hate it when that happens (rare, but it has happened). The only solution to this form of legal theft (there are so many more types that I can’t deal with) is to cut ’em to length (about ten to twelve feet) and then we are safe. No one wants logs so short but us.

“Sal, before you guys plan too much, I’m going to go down to the lagoon to protect our forestry interests.”

She decided to join me (she almost always comes when I have the chainsaw running because she thinks she should be there to scream if I ever cut myself enough to warrant such hysterics. I’ve come close but so far only gasps and sighs with occasional accompanying shakes of the head. I am sure her day will come).

So, off we went leaving our guests to fend for themselves. The chainsaw screamed (and Sally didn’t) and pieces fell. It was all going well. But one log was high and dry on a big rock in the middle of the lagoon. I under-cut it so that it would fall right. As I did, it unexpectedly fell a tiny bit down and pinched my saw. I was stalled and stuck.

This would not be a problem most of the time. But this time, the tide was coming in and I had decided to do that one mid-lagoon log just as the water was touching my boots. I quickly threw as large a rock as I could to stand on and yelled to Sal to pass me a thick branch or two-by so that we could lever it up and I could remove the saw. Sal, thankfully was wearing water shoes.

She levered and I removed the saw and finished the cut. The log fell down in the right place and made a big splash.

Now I was standing on a little rock in the middle of the lagoon with about a foot of water under me and the tide coming in.

“Sal! Come get me! Carry me to land!”

“Yeah. I’ll get right on that. Just give me a few years to bulk up!”

It’s not a BIG story. It’s a very small one. But that and wet feet is all there is to report today.