The Amish Are Hip

Posted on February 7, 2011 by jdavidcox

It’s a funny thing, this planning to go rural, to spend more time at the cottage. On the one hand, it is marked by the desire for the simple things, back-to-nature and an enhanced appreciation for the beauty of life. On the other, there are so many neat things to buy. I sometimes wonder if I am motivated by a different attitude or just a different ad agency.

I mean; I used to like cars and stereos. Now, it’s wood stoves and hand-tools. Am I really appreciating nature or am I just bored with the old catalogs? My wife mentioned casually the other day, “I was in Home Depot looking at pneumatic nailers and compressors. They seem to have a good package there!” What is going on here?

I guess it doesn’t matter in the long run. You do what you do. But, on the face of it, this desire to ‘go country’ feels right so I thought I’d better dress the part, too. Suits are out. I wear jeans now. Even in the city. And plaid. Boots are next. Something in a heavy ‘scuff’ with cleats and a steel toe, I think. Ideally, each boot will weigh so much that I will look like I am working in the country simply by walking in the damn things. Seems a pair of Wellington’s are the rainy season rubber boot of choice, so they are on the list, too. ‘Wellies’, it seems, are coastal chic.

I recognize the need for headgear, too, and I concede that the popular trend is to those ‘bill-caps’ with a tractor logo on them or, if you’re under 40, a Nike swoosh. But I just can’t do it. I am already ugly enough and, while I don’t mind dressing down, I just can’t bring myself to dressing stupid. There is a culture out there that likes demolition derbies, heavy make-up and gravy on their fries. For fun, they pull up each others underwear and shout ‘Atomic wedgie!’ These people buy baseball caps and some of them even wear them backwards. It’s OK, I guess, but it’s just not me. To be more to the point: baseball caps belong on baseball players – nowhere else.

So. I’ll just pass on the hat. I’ll make a statement with my socks, instead. Country socks say more about you than city socks, anyway. They have to. They are huge. There is a lot of sock there. More sock than you really need, if you ask me. Country socks are made from reject blankets, I think. I normally wear a size nine shoe but, with country socks, I can just squeeze into a size 12 boot. Country socks are also all-season. You can see country socks hanging on a clothesline in August. The owner, of course, is inside suffering from heat prostration but you know he or she will be sportin’ those beauties come dusk.

It is my observation that country socks are more prevalent than plaid shirts these days. Now, I don’t want to rile any local folks but, lately the occurrence of plaid shirts has diminished. You know it’s true. There is no sense in denying it. The plaid shirt has given way to the nylon windbreaker and the t-shirt or sweatshirt with some company logo emblazoned on it. Let’s hope it is a fad and that we soon return to our senses.

I’ll have to ‘drive’ the part, too. That’s why I am selling my car. I need a truck. I need a truck because ‘guys in the country’ drive trucks and I am going to be a guy in the country. Not one of those ‘Nancy’ trucks, either. My truck will have roll-up windows and doors you have to lock with a key not a beeper. And I’ll have two spare tires. Two spares, it seems, is de rigeur. A forty-gallon fuel drum in the back with a hand pump attached is also a nice touch.

I am not so sure if there is any free will involved in any of these decisions. Even my wife is saying, “We better get a truck.” When I innocently asked her for her reasons, she looked at me as if my gender had just experienced a crisis of identity. Naturally, I dropped my voice an octave and confirmed my desire for a truck. Twice. I may be ignorant of the purpose of the truck but I am not stupid. The scary part is that she’s now talking about guns. I guess we’ll be wanting one of those bad boys, soon.

There are coats to buy, too. Lots. And wet gear. Lots of different kinds of wet gear. Seems we need wet gear that breathes, wet gear that is heavy and doesn’t breathe, light wet gear for social events and a variety of coloured safety wet gear for when we are lost at sea. Wet gear that lights up and makes noise is good, too. But matching wet gear is not so good.

Apparently there is nothing worse than a husband and wife wearing matching wet gear. If you are both over the side in the black pitch of night in the middle of Johnstone Straight, one of you gets the floating reflective wet gear and the other gets the one that lights up and makes noise. Do not be rescued as a matching couple. It is the worst of fashion faux pas. They’ll throw you back.

We need long johns and heavy flannel underwear too. I have no idea why. I suspect that it is because anything lighter than heavy flannel underwear questions your sexual preference. I mean: only the very secure and very heterosexual wear flannel boxers and, just in case you are ever caught with your pants down on the ferry, you’ll want to create the right impression.

We are going to get canning jars, pumps, pulleys, rope, candles, old tools, new tools, hand-powered kitchen appliances, alternative energy stuff and assorted country-looking things that we need and probably an additional assortment of the preceding just for the hell of it. We are going to swap our local shopping center mall for mail order catalogs and will be starting with Lehman’s, ‘the supplier to the Amish’. We may not be able to do anything with it all but we’ll be hip.

Imagine that – the ‘Amish’ as ‘hip’. What have we come to?

THE CRANE AS A METAPHOR

Posted on February 7, 2011 by jdavidcox

It dawned on me, after a heavy bout of lumber lifting, that a small crane would be a good implement to employ in the building of my cabin. So, I got one. Had it made to my own design. Sucker weighs a ton. I need a crane to lift it.

And so it goes. Every new challenge is met with an answer that is, in itself, another new challenge. Like the funicular I intend to build.

I need a small rail system to get heavy things from the crane at the dock to the top of the hill. A funicular will do that very well. A funicular is a mini-railway that is sort of like an outdoor dumbwaiter. A role I am currently filling as I am so obviously well suited. It will carry materials where knees and backs will not. Challenge: the bloody funicular needs a funicular to get it up the hill.

There is more to these challenges than just designs and machinery for weight bearing and carrying. If only it were just weight. I have already mastered the technique of carrying around excess weight. Weight, I am good at. No, it’s more than that. It’s also winches and pulleys and cables and, the hardest of all, communicating with those who know nothing about them. When I go into a hardware store and say to the MBA degree-holding store clerk, “I am building a crane to put on my deck to help me lift items from the boat……”. I am met with a, “huh?” and a blank face.

“Crane”, I say, repeating myself while slowly assuming a Karate Kid-like position to help illustrate the concept. “Crane. Like you see on docks. You know, to lift things?” His expression remains flat, maybe a bit confused, “Uh, we don’t sell cranes. You maybe wanna try Canadian Tire………”

“No, I say. I don’t ‘maybe wanna’ buy a crane, I ‘maybe wanna’ buy some parts for a crane. I have already built the crane, you see, and it needs a few parts to finish it.”

“Uh, we don’t sell crane parts…….maybe a plumbing shop can help?” He tries to leave. I clutch at his sleeve, “Do you sell cable? Do you sell pulleys? Do you sell winches?”

He looks at me even more blankly. I am witness to a world record being set in blankness. Granite has more understanding. I realize then that I was assuming too much. The store is the size of a football stadium and claims to have everything for home renovation, building, construction and astrophysics but all I see are barbecues, light bulbs, lawn chairs and a special on drinking glasses. They have a lot of chandeliers, too, and a big sale on Dolomite and lawn elves. But cables and winches are simply beyond his conceptual grasp and the chief buyer is a marketing expert living in Manhattan.

Whoa! A light flickers dimly, Mr. Homer Depo briefly comes to life: “Yes, we have cables in the laundry department, pulleys in the drapes and window covering department and winches in a bin on special outside near the potted plants.” I am not encouraged.

As we are pursuing this, a small angry woman interrupts and demands to know where the popcorn is. “Flavoured or plain?” he asks, looking confident and splendid as he stands up straight in his uniform. Homer is back in the familiar. The snack food department is about to make another sale.

I leave. Hardware stores aren’t what they used to be. They are more like Drugstores now and Drugstores, of course, haven’t been like what they used to be for decades. Soon, I suppose, I’ll be able to buy a Cuisineart and ‘tub-o-nuts’ from the 800,000 square foot Super Muffler Store or lawn furniture and a pallet load of batteries from World of Diapers, the biggest indoor store in the Galaxy. Coming soon.

But then again, I am not the same as I used to be either. I figured to be able to erect the crane with two other guys simply by lifting it up into place. And so, we tried that. It was halfway up when one partner observed that there was more weight above our head than below it. If we were 7’ tall we may have been able to reach the half-way balance point. But we’re short. And it’s tall. He ventured that the top may continue moving past the perpendicular and our efforts would be insufficient to keep this monster on the deck. So, we gently put it back down. It lay there impotent, unable to perform. I hate it when such metaphors present themselves.

There’s a huge mystery at work here……as I travel by a variety of cabins and houses on my way to my building site, I see fully completed chalets and such with simple fieldstone steps and pretty landscaping. How the hell did that happen? Where is the crane? Where is the mini-railway system? Where are the gravesites of the slaves? How did they get those beams up there? Does everybody buy a completed house from Sears and have it flown in by helicopter? Is this the reason the beautiful BC coast is still relatively uninhabited?

But back to the crane….I got it up. I just needed more help. God I hate metaphors.

Making adjustments

Posted on February 7, 2011 by jdavidcox

Most of the adjustments we made were gradual. Over time. But some adjustments – especially in the early days – hit me a like fish in the face. I had these romantic ideas about things off-the-grid and then I found out that much of them were myths. I was, it seems, embarking on a path of fantasy in many ways. Going rural was not all sweetness and light. Neither was going green. And even if it was, it was expensive sweetness and fossil-fuel-generated light. This was the expression of that realization:

Minimalism and living off-grid is all the latest rage in lifestyle chic. It’s practically ‘de rigeur’ if you live rural or subscribe to Mother Earth News, home of the DIY $10.00 gymnasium. Mission style furniture, the VW Beetle, bottled water, hiking, even Martha Stewart’s ‘simple creations’ made from soap scraps; it’s all about appreciating the simple things in life. Minimalism – in theory, anyway – is about stopping to smell the flowers. But simple isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. For one thing, it’s complicated. And, for another, it’s pretty damn expensive.

Minimalism and living off-the-grid is also a dichotomy if not a cognitive dissonance. Less, they are trying to say, is more. But it is also more equipment. Minimalism, as it is currently promoted, emphasizes simple over complicated but also expensive over cheap. Think mountain bikes, Starbucks and Gore-Tex. Think PV panels, inverters, batteries and generators. Think property prices, timberframes and boats – lots of boats. Only the well-off can afford to do with less and they need all that stuff to do it, right? Sort of like being thin by paying for gym membership, personal trainers and buying local organic at Meinhardts. To be a thoroughly modern minimalist one should walk, but walk in Rockports, ride, but ride in Ballard fuel celled cars and generally try to make life appear simple through exclusive and expensive means. That’s not easy. And when simple isn’t easy, something is wrong, I say.

I aspire to simple but I can’t cut it. Too stupid and cheap, I suppose. Ugly, too, if you must know. I look like a giant athletic bag in Gore-Tex. And I have a lot of trouble buying more expensive walking shoes (is there another kind?) as opposed to the normal shoes I usually find myself walking in. I am beginning to think minimalism refers to the amount of satisfaction one gets, rather than to the lifestyle. It may also refer to your eventual bank account or, possibly, lifespan. But it does not refer to the amount of effort or money expended. Trust me. Minimalism is not for the lazy or the budget conscious.

Being a minimalist is a major commitment, not a fickle lifestyle whim like bean-bag furniture or Pilates. Once you go simple, there is no turning back. Go minimal or go home (which you can‘t do if you sold it) I always say.

Minimalism also requires study. For one thing, it seems to require an unnatural commitment to learning about product content and business practices. One has to buy from fair wage countries that don’t pollute or pray too much. All employees involved have to be content with life and be happily married, preferably non-smokers and their kids must be breast-fed. How can anyone know this? And, do we really want to ask the questions?

Minimalists, it seems, eschew larger companies for smaller ones and always prefer to buy hand-made. And, conflictingly to me anyway, hand-made stainless steel items seem to be the best (how do they do that?). Minimalism requires a heavy investment in hand-cranking devices and non-power tools, too. One needs lots of such tools to be a simple minimalist.

Where a phone and a phone book once sufficed to effect repairs, the minimalist man now needs a 40-foot container of tools and a happily breast-fed, non-exploited assistant to feed and manage the draft horse. Forest Gump wouldn’t be allowed to join a group of minimalists, ya know. Neither would Mahatma Ghandi.

You also have to boycott the ‘grid’. Being ‘plugged in’, it seems, is bad. Sitting in the dark, ergo, must be good in some kind of alternative culture way. And you should stay only as clean as you must to gain admittance to a theatre. Don’t overdo water consumption despite the fact that a gallon or ten falls on your head every day you live in BC where I live. Use less, even if there is plenty. In this way, we help the fish. I think.

Did I mention pooping? Don’t try to move your bowels without a considerable investment in bio-technology and composting, and the willingness to maintain a politically correct system of transport and storage for your poop – something you were simply trying to get rid of. It’s no longer bowel moving, it’s now bowel moving and storage.

And don’t try to read a book without first rediscovering the principles of generating light from scratch. And, for God’s sake, don’t eat anything without determining if it’s organic and the farmers love, pet and name their chickens. There also has to be a plan to replace it, recycle the containers and replenish the fuels required to cook it. It would also help if you could do all this without washing the dishes, wasting any water or using any refrigerant or fossil fuels. Nothing comes easy in a simple life.

I was initially attracted to minimalism. I liked the idea of simple. City living was getting me down and, quite frankly, I was understanding less and less of what was going on. I aspire to little, want for nothing and desire even less. Minimalism sounded like my cup of tea. But I have reluctantly concluded I don’t have the money or the brains required to be simple. I guess that I am destined to remain a complicated man. It’s cheaper and easier.

On the toilet

Posted on February 6, 2011 by jdavidcox

My wife and I lived on sailboats for ten years. It was great. Loved it. And there were not just a few idiosyncrasies with the lifestyle. But I won’t bore you with the list….I only mention it because there is a similar list of lifestyle quirks developing around living in a cabin. Let me explain…………

Some similarities: there’s the recycling-to-the-max syndrome, of course. The regular integration of left-overs into my diet where few, if any left-overs had ever ventured before. There is the unprecedented reverence and appreciation for the ‘right size!’ washer or bolt that provokes bizarre exclamations of joy and confirms the existence of God in more tangible ways than I had ever experienced before.

And, for me, anyway, there is the relatively quick degradation of personal hygiene. It used to be that clean hands and two showers a day was the minimum. When living on boats, showering is by the grace of the marina, public gymnasiums or ever-patient friends. Here, it is even more restricted. We now share a solar bag of about five gallons augmented by a nano-second-dip in the sea. We don’t yet have running water. Now, if my hands are clean twice a day, I am lucky. There’s nothing like dirt to welcome you back to the country, I always say.

I mentioned the boat experience for another reason, too. Seems a toilet (termed the head on a vessel) and the behaviours associated therewith were a fascination for all our friends and visitors while we were liveaboards. And, it would appear that the same interest is being displayed in our planned cabin plumbing. There is the not-so-subtle implication that somehow, we will have to ‘do it differently’.

I guess to some extent that was true while we were on the boat. We did ‘do it’ differently. Firstly, we tried to ‘do it’ while at work. Given that you are bored to tears and being paid for it, you may as well move a bowel or two on someone else’s time and porcelain, eh? The rationale for using such subsidized ‘down time’ was that marine heads are usually a pretty snug fit and ventilation and sound insulation are often at a minimum.

Many is the guest who enjoyed a meal on our boat complete with wine and other beverages for several hours or longer only to depart the vessel slightly bent over and mumbling something about having to get home to feed the dog. We would watch them half run up the wharf knock-kneed and clutching their lower mid-section, heading for the public washroom at the marina building. It was an amusing but convenient ritual. Guests should not stay longer than three or so hours and this was the perfect way to wrap up the evening. A strong cup of coffee could always prompt the large-of-bladder.

But cabin bathrooms are a bit different. One can be sewered, of course, but that means that you are more likely to be living in a condominium on a golf course than in a real cabin. You can do the septic tank thing, I suppose, but they are costly, prone to trouble and septic time bombs environmentally speaking. It would appear that from a cost perspective, both financial and environmental, composting is the way to go.

So ‘dried poop’ and it’s corollaries are now the current conversational topics of choice around our dinner table. It gets weird. We all seem to fixate on which brand of toilet paper decomposes best, and how anyone can debate this, boggles the mind…..who unwraps the used toilet paper scraps and determines whether it was “Charmin’ or ‘Royale’? Only university students doing a thesis, I bet….. “Oh yeah! This is a Charmin, alright……..and is it ever decomposed! Mark that down, Charlie. This is great! We’re going to get published!

We are now in the process of determining how much water we use and how much waste we produce. We sometimes even feel compelled to check on the use or production claims of others. That can be a bit touchy. We even watch what we eat (and share the reasoning with anyone who will listen!). I know what leachate is (it’s urine for the most part and don’t ask what the other part is). I know about microbes (there are ten trillion in a thimble full of ‘what-hits-the-fan’). I know about heat and ventilation rates to maximize composting and I know how to make grey water a garden delight.

I am going to write to Martha Stewart. I should think this is right up her alley. “Ten Delightful Ways to Present Compost This Holiday Season.” “Potpourri and Poop – the Perfect Combination!” “Our Most Popular Annuals and Perennials of the Microbial Type”. I dunno. Everything gets on TV, right?

But, getting back to where the Sun don’t shine…..to do this right in a green and politically correct way, it seems, I have to first take pride in my toilet, an interest I thought I put behind me (pardon the pun) when I was about three. Apparently I am also obliged to explain to people in their 30’s and 40’s how to ‘use the bathroom’. My wife took away the dirty pictures I was intending to rely on before she convinced me the verbal introduction method could be more fun.

I can see it now: leering and smiling, I lean over way to close to a new female guest in the house and say with a lilting and pleasant tone to my voice, “Soooooo, Carrie……..? Feeling a little bloated, huh? No? Well, just in case, let me introduce you to our very special privy. No, please come. Right this way. Take a seat. You never know when nature will call and we wouldn’t want to have to shout instructions through the door, now would we? This is our especially quick bio-degradable toilet paper………..so don’t linger too long in the process….hah, hah, hah.” I think composting toilet owners must have a hard time making new friends.

Sometimes you just have to sit and wonder…(that was ‘s-i-t’!)….just how far have we come? While it is true that we can clone sheep (although, they did a pretty good job of looking exactly like one another on their own) and we can genetically alter fruits and vegetables (long overdue, I say! They are so awkward to pack, don’t you think? It’s about time we had straight bananas and surely we can develop easier-to-open Avocadoes, eh?), we still marvel and fixate on basic bodily functions. I do anyway.

And I am not alone. It seems that pooping and the treatment thereof is the basis on which civilizations are judged. We think we are pretty damn superior to those who used to poop in the woods. Right? We’re told that we’re very advanced on this score. But, I must admit that I am beginning to wonder about that claim if the only difference is storing the whole shhhhhh-bang in a composter for few weeks before setting it free in the woods.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Posted on February 6, 2011 by jdavidcox

I hope this alright. I have been culling a few pieces from the past as ‘filler’ so to speak. The idea is to bring a bit of history and context to the daily journal – whenever that resumes. Here is a another from the earlier days during construction.

I know why women live longer than men. It’s because men think they can build cabins all by themselves. They can’t. They need help. Lots of help. Or else they die.

I figure building is a bit like sex………….you need at least one other person to get anything done properly and, generally speaking, the more the merrier. Doing it all by yourself makes a mess and does nothing for your reputation. And there is the very real possibility of going blind.

You need two people for a number of things when building but, at the very least, to lift the beam off of your leg when the structure collapses or to turn off the chain saw when the serious bleeding begins (the sexual analogy ended at the previous paragraph for all but the very strange).

Building cabins alone can and will, I expect, kill you if not, at the very least, scar you and mar you beyond recognition. I should know. I have narrowly escaped death and/or permanent mutilation on numerous occasions. And, for the most part, I am still at the planning stage. I have actually hurt myself at the hardware store!

I know that eventually we all die. I can live with that, so to speak. It’s just that I never suspected I would be done in by a circular saw. I never expected to die of self-inflicted wounds. I had no idea that a half-inch drill could beat the crap out of me before I let go of it or that I could strangle myself in an extension cord. And am I the only person who can’t seem to work in protective clothing?

You know what they mean by protective clothing don’t you? They mean the bloody stuff is so cumbersome that you remove it when doing anything difficult and thus saving the gear, not you, from any harm. I have pristine protective clothing covering multiple lacerations in the healing stages. I have heavy gloves that aggravate the splinters in my hand. I have protective eye-wear I can’t see through which does not bode well for further mishap. And, of course, I have steel toed boots I limp in because the cap cuts into my foot. Fully clothed, I look great. Naked, I look like the poster boy for Workers Compensation.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very safety conscious. It’s just that I don’t always remain conscious. I have literally knocked myself out.

The other day I was carrying a heavy beam on a wet, moss covered slope when I began to slip. I immediately dropped the beam and moved a bit faster downhill to catch up with my own momentum. But there was more slip there than grip and I began to do an unrehearsed downhill two-step on ‘tippy-toes’. At a certain point in this Issac Newton-inspired Pas de deux, I had to choose between plummeting into the sea like a Lemming (OK, Walrus!) or slamming myself into a rock out-cropping head first. I chose concussion over submersion and only faintly recall the whole incident as a result. I rely on my wife’s account of events from about mid pirouette on. She seems to think I chose the better of the two options as it is easier to heal a head wound than dry clothes while building in the rain.

My wife claims that I tend to dwell too much on the danger. She keeps encouraging me to get ‘past it’. She said, “Hey! Just suck it up, Nancy-boy!” to me one time while I was lying in the emergency E-vac helicopter basket just before being hoisted up.

She’s impatient to get the cabin built, I guess.

“Go for it!” she yells whenever I turn on a saw. “Let ‘er rip!” I know she loves me but, then again, I am also heavily insured. What is not to love? “No guts, no glory!” It may not be that women naturally live longer, now that I think about it. Maybe manslaughter is simply more acceptable to them. “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!” Who knows what the hell that means on a construction site but that stuff just keeps coming: “No pain no gain, Mr. Pussy!”

Doesn’t matter. We all gotta go sometime. It’s just that I was hoping not to be the cause of my own demise. But I think it is inevitable. I have an unregistered skill saw and, God knows, saws don’t kill people – people kill people. So, I am doomed.

In my case, the list of usual accomplices can include, hammers (I have brutalized myself with hammers), staplers (don’t ask – suffice to say that I do not advise using a stapler to fix a broken zipper unless you take off your pants first!). I have even been assaulted by a wheel-barrow making a break for freedom!

But, far and away, the most dangerous two tools in the box are the mini-grinder and the half-inch drill. I swear to God that my half-inch drill can bring Claude van Damme to his knees. My drill, should it ever turn on you, (which, when you think about it, is all that it is supposed to do) will twist you up like a kleenex in your nose. It does it instantly, too. One minute you are wondering how steel cuts through steel and the next, you are wondering how your elbow got stuck in your ear. Half-inch drills rule. And they rule with fear.

The mini-grinder is not as lethal but it is definitely more mean. Mini-grinders are the weasels of the tool world. Sneaky, quick and sharp. Especially one equipped with a ‘cutting disk’ – as if there was any other kind?! Ever seen a mini-grinder disk intended for a soothing massage or applying sunscreen?

Such a tool will take five minutes to cut through a piece of wire but will slice and dice your thigh in a nanosecond. If North America is ever threatened by a foreign country, I say we ship our adversaries a bunch of half-inch drills and mini-grinders first. Three weeks later, victory is ours. Not a bullet fired.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not afraid. Death by cabin is my destiny. I know that. The building supplies guys know that. There’s a kind-of-romance to it all. A bitter-sweet respect for the majesty of nature and the process of natural selection. The supply guys treat me as if I was a tragic hero, a martyr as yet unmade.

If you live by the pen, you will die by the half-inch drill. It’s only fair.

Local Appearance

Posted on February 5, 2011 by jdavidcox

When we first came up here (6/7 years ago) I wrote about my impressions at the time. The following piece is another ‘early’ observation and, tho still accurate to my recollection, is not how I would describe local culture today. I have changed. I see things differently.

Especially appearances – local garb now seems logical and practical and even, at times, attractive. Not so city garb. Both Sally and I remember distinctly how odd a recent city dweller appeared at the ferry parking lot with a clean sedan and wearing a business suit. “Wow! Look at that weirdo. Think he just went through detailing or what?”

Today, I am much more just like ‘them’ than I was when I wrote this. In fact, I am them. Interesting, don’t you think?

Appearances – Wilderness Style

Living in a cabin is not limited to the simple (hah!) erection of wood and other related stuff, it also includes the development of new relationships and participation in local community. The two go hand in hand. You can’t avoid it but knowing exactly where you fit in is not so easy either. Initially, it has something to do with appearances – the vehicle you drive and the size of your cabin. But after a time you are re-categorized by your global issue.

Everyone has an ‘issue’ it seems. It’s de rigeur.

All the locals know the woman in the old blue Chev convertible. She saves Vancouver Island Marmots, lives alone except for Novembers when her sister from Alberta visits. She dyes her hair with Clairol Brunette #2, prefers English Breakfast to Earl Grey and dresses as Bobo the clown for the annual May Day parade. She calls herself Claire but all her letters are addressed to Roberta and everyone calls her Louise or Thelma because of the car anyway. I don’t know of anyone who has ever actually spoken with her.

No one knows the SUV drivers at the government dock unless one of them sports a Liberal/NDP/Green Party bumper sticker, a Canucks flag or a forestry company parking permit. Then they are instantly, if not necessarily accurately, very well-known, categorized, pigeon-holed and graded accordingly! It takes years to correct the impression gleaned from borrowing the wrong vehicle.

I, provocatively, have used a different car for the last six visits up here and so the locals are justifiably confused and, naturally, becoming suspicious. I don’t blame them. Changing vehicles more than once in a calendar year is simply not done. It’s considered sneaky.

“Who is that guy?”

On an interim basis they are relying on my continually fresh scars and bandages to recognize me. Seeing the blood stained clothing, they instantly recall that I am the one building a deck just up the coast.

I’ve also noted that the ‘people-newly-met’ relationship to ‘cabin-square-footage’ ratio is in reverse proportion to the size of said cabin. Few people know the guy with the 5000 square foot chalet on the bluff but everyone knows the squatter living in the abandoned camper at the base of it. We are all rich in a different currency, I guess.

My new ‘locals’, neighbours and friends-in-the-making seem almost normal on the surface if you don’t dwell on their dress, mannerisms, odd deformity and/or obvious-from-a-distance skin disorder. Focus on their car, dog or their cabin and ignore the blatant and personal. That’s the rule out here. Which, by the way, serves me well as I am inclined to the repulsive myself and the increasing number of scabs and scars I am displaying would normally prompt a visit from the Centre for Disease Control if I were in the city.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not alone in needing some overdue tinkering and body-work. The locals are, if not certifiably shocking at times, record–setting eccentrics in their appearances anyway. There are more than a few that could use a few extra teeth, for instance – just to name one glaring omission from the ordinary. We could use a barber, too. But they are proud of themselves and they look like they are having fun! And that looks good.

For my part, I love eccentrics. I am partial to the slightly bonkers. I aspire to it myself. I have diligently worked hard at being sane for decades and the only obvious result is a ‘ticky-tacky house’ in a cul-de-sac and an AIR Care pass for my car. I have paperwork, pasty skin, taxes, more debt than a third world country and the personal allure of a shy Buddhist monk with bad breath. So eccentricity has some appeal or me. It is a change, anyway and it looks like fun.

And the rural setting is prettier at the very least. If you are going to ‘go nuts’, do so in the beautiful outdoors where there’s room to run around nude and dance under the stars. Going mad in a rest-home or a corner office has been done.

The foregoing is not to imply that all the locals are nuts. I am sure some are sane. But this much is definitely true: there is no consensus on who is sane, mad, good, bad, honest or crooked. There is no consensus on who does an honest days’ work, who cares about the environment or who votes which way. Everyone is under some degree of ‘gossipy-style’ suspicion. There is some consensus on who sleeps with whom but that changes seasonally for obvious reasons.

Virtually all the locals have character, however, and much of that character has blossomed into full-blown eccentricity. They do not function like the rest of us (soon-to-be-ex) city-types. They listen to the CBC. They grow herbs. They name their chickens and they eat and drink a shocking variety of strange things. They have local interests, habits, values and mostly local perspectives. But most of them also carry the extraordinary burden of a global concern or two.

Saving Marmots is big right now. Salmon, too, of course. Everyone is organic and eating local. But other times it’s the eroding agricultural economy of the Mayan Indians, fair trade cocoa, the declining bee population or taking inventory of every weed, flower and bush on the East Coast of the Island. Who knows?!

One local woman organizes to save herbs! Well, to be fair – ‘heritage herbs’…….whatever that means? Local people ‘round these parts’ pick causes like urban sophisticates choose gourmet cheeses – the more exotic and unfamiliar, the better.

So, basically, it boils down to this: we worry globally, fret federally, angst provincially, mourn environmentally, engage locally and act out colourfully. We dress funny, talk crazy and live eccentrically. We eat local, organic, eccentric or whatever happens to be available at the potluck. And we get to know each other’s pets and vehicles before we get know each other.

I think I am going to like it here.

Seeking treatment

Posted on February 5, 2011 by jdavidcox

I am throwing this one up 150 blogs late. It was amongst the first of the ‘mental steps’ I was going through at the time.

From the archives: #1

Gail Sheehan wrote a book called ‘Passages’. It is about the phases we go through as we age. And, predictably it seems, I have just entered a new one. I am becoming of Cabin age. I need simple. I need small. I need nature. But, most of all, I need out of the damn urban cul-de-sac!

There is a new, more virulent form of cabin fever stalking the land. It is a money-resistant deviant form of Suburbanitis. It is Split-level Fever. And the only known cure is a cabin.

Status won’t help. Expensive restaurants won’t help. Even filthy lucre has not proven long-term effective although symptoms are somewhat alleviated in the short term by massive infusions on a regular basis. Tragically, the victim eventually becomes lucre dependent and eventually still needs the transplant. The patient really needs fresh air and space. And lots of it. Simplicity is the prescription followed by the advice: don’t call anyone in the morning!

That’s what I need, anyway. A great deal more of less. Preferably on the water, ten or twenty miles from some inadequately stocked hardware store, I believe there is a place for me.

It will leak. It will smell musty when we meet and it will likely be adorned in an eclectic mix of malfunctioning systems, cast-off furniture and dilapidated appliances. Sprinkled liberally about will be numerous tasteless bric-a-brac left over from the previous owner. The pattern of the curtains, counter tops and kitchen linoleum will somehow be related but not in any aesthetically pleasing way. Small, dried out rodent carcasses will lie where they can only be reached by someone who cared. And no one did. Some local but still indistinguishable debris from the beach or the forest will have been hauled in and placed in positions of pride or will adorn shelves and window sills for reasons that escape the casual visitor and, perhaps everyone except a psychiatrist. The cabin décor will be a colourful, three-dimensional Rorschach test. And I will see Nirvana in the vision.

I need one. I can no longer worship at the altar of Consumerism. I have seen the light and it is readily harnessed by Photo Voltaic cells. I have converted to wind-power, to composting and to Direct Current. I will walk again! I have become cul-de-sacriligious and I will not falter.

Forgive me if this sounds ever-so-slightly dramatic. Such is the response of most victims who have been dragged from the precipice of death-by-subdivision and, once again, feel alive and passionate about getting back to nature. I urge everyone to experience it. Flirt with a cabin, any cabin. Sleep with one.

It’s easy to get to this state – I think it comes with age – but it helps to have suffered a suburban-based chronic pre-condition to fully appreciate the primal calling. The ideally prepped patient has spent 25 plus years working in government or some other stultifying, coma-inducing environment raising two or more children in a house conveniently located inconvenient to everything.

The patient likely has two or more TVs and that does not count the one stored in the garage for no fathomable reason. Two cars will grace the driveway and, in advanced cases, a sparkling clean 4-wheel drive Behemoth XT will be one of them. Maybe an unused boat and unused RV. Closets will overflow, computers will be everywhere including the two being stored in the garage for no fathomable reason and none of the inhabitants will say a great deal to each other during the course of any given day.

The meaning of it all will be a question that looms large like the proverbial 800 pound Gorilla in the background but never gets addressed because of the heavy demands of the inhabitant’s schedules maintaining the equilibrium of the above described status quo.

Some people are terminal. Too far gone. Pray for them. They are too close to ‘their pension’ to actually change so freedom to live and love in a cabin is just another marketing phrase, an empty dream. But many can be saved….

Still, to hell with ‘em. This is about me. I gotta get out. And my last quasi-neighbourly thought is to suggest a mass exodus of the neighbourhood. Get out! Get out NOW!! Get a cabin. There is more to life than this cul-de-sac!

David Cox is a desperate 50-something who counts the minutes until his kids leave and his wife quits her job. Unemployable today, this previous member of the successful male ruling class cannot get arrested, let alone employed and so has turned, like many thousands of males before him to dreams of hermitage. The president and CEO of OH GOD (Organization of Hermits Gathering out ‘Der), David seeks to retain a semblance of connection to society through the writing of articles chronicling his slow decline into isolation and mental health.

Getting here: Why Builders Draw on Napkins

Posted on February 4, 2011 by jdavidcox

Basically, Sally and I built our own place. But not 100%. More like 80%. But even that is hard to figure out because building the cabin is only 50% of ‘putting the place together’. Constructing the actual cabin is only half the job of making a home. If.

But there is another variable as well. No one can do everything. We had orders of materials made up, design discussions with architects, deliveries, some basic framing done on the gen-shed, boat shed and the big house and, thank God, a lead-hand in the dry-walling. Local guys Merl and H. put the steel roof on – we simply didn’t know how. We still wax poetic about Big Bill Noseworthy, the dry-waller with a special place reserved in heaven (for big, goofy guys who work like mules and do it with humour and skill while sleeping on site).

We also enjoyed the occasional but always freakily-well-timed visit of someone who actually knew how to do the job we were just embarking on. Sally’s bro-in-law (another) Doug, my friend Steve H and my other friend, Gene-O have gobs of knowledge and experience and a healthy appetite for Sally’s food. They were a real blessing as were the odd (in every sense of the word) visit from neighbours who had ‘been there and done that’ to get where they are.

Of course, we would have ground to a halt and died on the site if it were not for the continual support of the best neighbours on the planet, John and Jorge.

The point: even if you are an introspective, psychotic hermit building remote up the desolate midcoast in the winter, people show up in your life one way or another. It is all weird. It is all learning. It is all good. And it is another variable in the mysterious process that is cabin building. This article following was written in the beginning with a bit of that in mind……..well, certainly the learning part, anyway.

The challenge of getting your cabin built on a remote site is often confused with the limited difficulties of actual construction. That is a mistake. They are not the same. Wilderness cabin construction is not complicated, difficult nor does it require exceptional skills beyond that of a normal brain surgeon or nuclear physicist.

But ‘getting’ a cabin built is an extraordinarily difficult undertaking requiring patience, cash, basic drawing skills, research, negotiations and, most important of all, the ability to communicate creatively and speak in numerous dialects of ‘bastardized’ English. There simply is no training for this, no education, no way to prepare. When you are at this point, buddy, you are completely on our own and it is at this stage the outcome of your project is largely determined.

The actual ‘drive-the-nail-into-the-wood’ construction part of the process only constitutes about 20% of the undertaking and the primary characteristic required of the do-it-yourself hammer-wielder is simply the ability to persevere under the typical constraints of inadequate tools, insufficient skills and domestic-grade materials while suffering from intermittent physical trauma, sporadic blood loss and constant dehydration. Admittedly, constructing off-the-beaten path is a major challenge but, in the larger context of ‘putting it all together’, it is mere child’s play. Let me explain……

Firstly, there are the foreign languages to master. Or, more accurately put, the patois English of the professional and construction trades. Every architect, contractor, supplier, salesman or tradesman has their own vocabulary and verbal abbreviations – usually just a series of half-sentences filled with strings of letters, abbreviations, non-words and sometimes a number is thrown in for colour. Example:

“You want to use ‘T-Y’s on a two over twelve pitch done dink-style or standard… whichever makes the most sense. Just don’t use that FTE crap. Better to use FTX with an overlay, I think. Or you could spray, I suppose.”

These instructions are delivered in the “I-assume-you-know-the-language-manner” that is primarily utilized to minimize questioning and promote confusion. By speaking this way, their fees are rationalized (by them). Take some solace in knowing that the construction trades are encountering the computer-geeks these days and that God and His revenge works in wondrous ways.

A neophyte cabin builder wandering unguided in the building community feels much like a Southern debutante lost in darkest Africa having to ‘rely on the kindness of strangers’ and a smattering of Swahili. The dependencies are humiliating. “Of course I am using a tied-off sona tube with pygmy fittings! I got the X9’s and the spray. But thanks for asking.”

Speaking more rapidly than they work, building consultants and suppliers explain in a mumbled slur of monotone incoherence what they are about to do using words derived from a minimum of two official languages not necessarily official on this planet. Sometimes it sounds like a mix of British slang and ‘Canajun-eh’. Other times it is just a slurry of macho mishmash punctuated with swear words, monosyllabic grunts and facial tics. But mostly it is a combination of all of the above mixed liberally with verbal short-cuts, industry specific techno-garble and sentences which only end when their cell phone rings or your credit card has been processed.

The communication styles also change with the seasons and the times. And, even more perplexing, they change with the different stores, neighbourhoods and even the time of day. After four in the afternoon, you can sometimes factor in a little beer to the conversation and depending on how much you have consumed relative to what they have consumed, the conversation either gets much better or much worse. I found that sprinkling every sentence with analogies to sports, women’s anatomy or engines facilitates most construction related conversations.

Plus my napkin drawings are starting to have some extra appeal.

Speaking construction gibberish, however, is not enough. One also has to learn to interpret. “We’ll do the full nine ‘f-ing’ yards, man, of siding like the ‘f-ing’ tanlines on a centrefold this week because my ‘f-ing’ guys are going like a hemi ‘f-er’on nitro”. Translation: we’ll cut the Cedar planks this week. Maybe.

In addition to the weird dialects used there is the absurd industry vocabulary itself. Nothing is as named or measured. A 2×4 hasn’t been a 2×4 for decades but did you know that a 3-foot by 5-foot window commonly referred to as a ‘3×5’` is not really a 3×5? It’s an inch and a half smaller in every direction. Did you know that sona tubes aren’t used for listening? Three-quarters inch siding is actually 5/8’s? Wire mesh is often plastic? Angle iron is not made of iron?

Did you know that the tenth bag of cement actually weighs twice as much as the first one? Or all of the PVC fittings in one store won’t fit the pipe they sell but they will fit the pipe the store across town has? And, of course, that store doesn’t sell the fittings.

But, I digress…..

Not all of those in the industry speak funny. There is a significant portion who manage by not speaking at all. They don’t answer the phone, don’t answer their e-mails and, when actually sighted and cornered, communicate primarily with shrugs and grunts. Only the psychopaths in the business will actually look you in the eye. Think about that. When that happens, look away, shrug and mumble a few words of incoherence. No wonder communication is bad, eh?

Ironically, these more elusive participants in the industry are often the most sought after. Playing hard to get is coquettish and fetching in romance and it seems to be the marketing strategy of the construction trades as well. One thing is always made clear, however, and that is that nothing is clear. The napkin drawings are always destroyed on the spot. No promises are made. Anything can change. And, should the unexpected happen, you are supposed to get informed telepathically as these guys are always too remote or too busy to phone.

Another given: whichever day is chosen, whatever time is selected, those are the times that will never happen. It is actually easier to predict the next sequence of numbers on the Lotto 649 than it is to confirm a date and time for anything in the building trades. To some extent, I think we all know this. That is not really news. But the discrepancies experienced in the more remote cabin building areas are exceptional.

When asked why a delivery was not made in the week it was expected, it is just as likely the reply could be: “Oh, yeah…right. The wife and I were in Mexico. Needed a break, you know. Ever been to Los Banyos?”

When they miss you in the construction business, they miss you big time. By weeks, usually. Sometimes months.

Hello?

“Hi, Dave? Jack. Got my crew here. Ready to start. But I think you should come down here. There’s a house in the way. Want us to demolish it?”

Jack? Jack, the foundation guy? Jack! I thought you were dead! Your wife remarried, your kids have graduated and no one has seen you for years!

“Yeah, well, you know…..things got a little busy there for awhile and well, we are ready to start pouring.”

Jack, that house you are wondering about is the house I was planning to build. The foundations were poured a year ago. I am living in it. You are a bit late.

“Damn, man! You mean you hired somebody else? You know, I am laying out good money for my crew here…….”

Building a remote cabin is more than logistics. It is cultural. And it is mystical. You gotta learn the languages, you need to know the signs, you need to alter your sense of time and space. Keep a handy supply of napkins together with a few felt tip pens at all times and make your peace with God.

And remember how this article started…..I said, “Firstly, there are the foreign languages to master”. Then there is ‘Secondly‘…………….

Learn from history, my friend

Posted on February 4, 2011 by jdavidcox

One of my twelve readers was inquiring about land, ostensibly for planning purposes. He is thinking of building a retirement cabin and was beginning the dream phase. To assist him in this, I have attached an article written near the beginning of the actual ‘doing it’ phase.

How to Build a Cabin With No Money, Skill, Materials or Friends.

I just spent a week mangling my hands and feet in an amateur’s attempt at building the concrete pilings for a shore-side pier. We planned on building 12 such pilings. We built five. We did not have time to frame the spontaneously re-designed pier nor deck it but it didn’t matter, on the last day neither my wife nor I could stand up or walk anyway.

Another half ton of Ibuprofen and a few extra days in massage therapy and I’m sure we’ll be fine.

The marriage counselor thinks so, anyway.

We undertook this task with little hesitation, no fears and few, if any,
real concerns. What the hell?! It was only concrete. I see it every day. I
even walk all over the stuff. How can one go wrong?

We also had no idea of the evil forces involved in this exercise nor were we burdened by any awareness of the material’s inherently cruel character. Concrete is the original ‘dead weight’ from which all other dead weights are measured. Dry or wet, concrete lays heavy and lifeless but somehow lurking and dangerous nevertheless.

I am now suspicious of concrete. Surprisingly, it has the audacity to be temperamental. Do it wrong and you have literally built a monument to your ineptitude. Be forewarned; it is sneaky stuff! It will turn on you. Concrete is the builder’s version of the watched kettle, it never hardens when you are ready or want it to. But turn your back and you have a just made a perfect wheelbarrow-shaped boulder.

Mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow isn’t half the experience, by the way, unless you do it perched on moss-covered rocks at a 35 degree angle. See for yourself the magic of gravity, the phenomena of slow motion, the pointlessness of crying over spilt cement. Once again appreciate the isolation and distance from the building supply store. Yippee.

Conclusion: all cabins, regardless of appearance or construction integrity are worth ever increasing amounts of money the further they are located from the building supply store. Once you are more than twenty miles by water from the store, the most humble cabin is worth more than any suburban mansion. I consider my half-built pier priceless.

I am not unrealistic in this – my evaluation is based on labour costs with an additional percentage for danger pay. We packed our many dusty and Marquis de Sade-packed cement bags on a twelve-foot inflatable boat and then ferried the tonnage across the water. Then we clambered up the slime-covered rocks like Michael Jackson moon-walking on LSD and fell down in a sweat and cement covered heap. It’s a good thing cement doesn’t harden in salty perspiration or else Sally and I would have accidentally self-interred ourselves.

And someone better explain to me the logic of putting cement in paper bags! Those marketing geniuses also managed to design in mid-bag vulnerability and supine-bag invincibility. The bag can easily split on your round pudgy shoulder but can resist repeated blows with a sharp shovel once it is in the confines of the wheelbarrow. How do they do that? Does Al-Queda have this technology?

Still, we managed. The pilings aren’t straight. No piling is equidistant from another. The whole schmozzle looks like a Greek ruin, actually, but it stands and it stands solidly. Like an old-time sailor on a worn wooden leg, the structure leans but looks like it will remain on the planet for a longer period of time than I will. This is especially likely if I continue to hurt myself in the style to which I have rapidly become accustomed.

Tragically, self-mutilation may be the inadvertent answer to my getting the cabin finished. Another few mashed appendages, a crushed vertebrae or two or another few hormonally based encounters with my increasingly muscular wife and I may qualify for a disability pension or a handicap grant. I can’t believe there isn’t a group out there somewhere called Cabin Vets or Construction Amps or something. In that government subsidized way, I may be able to finish the cabin and, despite the pain, enjoy myself. Maybe even participate in a rehabilitative therapy group already in progress?

Has anyone else noticed that most cabins are enjoyed and more fondly remembered by the second generation rather than the ones who built them?

Getting here part 3

Posted on February 3, 2011 by jdavidcox

After reading about our leaving Tsawwassen, it may seem like the whole process was all about satisfying me. Me, me, me. And, to a large extent, that impression would be accurate. But a small part was entirely for Sally’s benefit. Even though she was committed to the middle management fast track and more than ‘groomed-to-zoom’ up the institutional ladder, it was killing her. She, too, needed to get out.

OK, it was killing me but it wasn’t doing her any good, either.

Sally handled her first designated management position at the WCB with aplomb. After all, if she could manage the three of us, our home, the PTA and her previous executive assistant positions plus oversee a complex social schedule for all of us, managing a single department within the massive bureaucracy that is the WCB was a piece of cake. She shone like a diamond amongst turds. Hard not to see………….even amongst the brain dead that were her supervisors.

So, what did they do? They gave her a second department in addition to the first, of course. You know the old bureaucrat’s motto, Keep piling on the straw to the camel’s back until it breaks!

But she’s tougher than that and handled the double load like a colossus. ‘Course, by this time, I was doing a bit o’ cookin’ so that helped. Kinda. OK, not so much but at least I wasn’t causing problems. OK, maybe a few………….never mind!

Anyway, they then gave her a third department. And then some ‘special projects’. It was clear to me, anyway, that nobody but Sally was doing anything at the WCB.

Hell, one day some nutbar came into the main foyer yelling for someone’s head and who do you think goes out to quell the riot? Sal, of course. Bottom line: they were burning her candle from both ends.

I was pretty supportive (in my own way) and started to nag, whine and complain about her coming home late (I needed her to save the dinner) and so she started to come home on time, at least. Took me about a week to notice that she was doing this by getting up two hours earlier and going to work by 6:00 am.

The bastards were wearing the sheen off the diamond. Unbelievable. The most beautiful smile in the world began to dim. Her rosy cheeks disappeared. She was beginning to (gasp) lack energy! It was time to get her the hell out of that cesspool and so I suggested that she consider……maybe……kinda……….sorta…….like……..retire…..ing?

She’d have none of it. So, I pulled out the big inducement: “You know, if you quit and we leave and go somewhere and do something healthy and have some fun, I will, I promise, get you any dog you want. That’s right – ANY dog you want. ANY!”

I almost had her. I could see her wavering. She shook her head slowly ‘NO’ but it was not heartfelt. The heart wanted the dog. ‘D-O-G’, I whispered. I subtly hung out my tongue a bit and breathed heavily……………‘d-o-g’……………..a little whimper slipped out…………I tried to wag………………….‘a puppy, Sal. A little p-u-p-p-y……………….’

“Right”, she said, “a dog it is. A Portuguese Water Dog. I want a PWD. That’s it! I’m quitting this rotten rat race and taking my dog and……….(well, you too, I suppose)………….and blowing this chicken coop! Wahoo!”

So, you see. It wasn’t all about me.