Too wet for the tower so we decided to mess about in boats.  Makes sense when you think about it. 

The idea was to get my boat to the ‘grid’.  We wanted to get it ‘on the grid’ (never satisfied, eh? On?  Off? There’s no pleasing these two!).  This marine grid, however, is in the lagoon and about two feet higher than the drying beach.  ‘Getting it on the hard’ is the proper expression but political correctness has diminished that term’s common usage.  So, now we are just trying to ‘get it on’, utilizing an old hippy phrase that has legs.  So to speak.

If you put the boat ‘over’ the grid and you do it early, you just have to sit there waiting for the tide.  But this man waits for no tide.  So, I planned it perfectly: wait till the tide is just a smidge higher than what the boat needs to float, position it just over the grid and then wait for a mere three or four minutes while it settles on the retreating waters.  Efficient, what?

Like so many of my lazy-bone plans, I missed the right level by a minute or two.  Timing is everything if you are lazy.  But I had missed the tide by just enough that I thought I could make it still.  So I revved up the motor and, with the bow lifting under the thrust, I tried to straddle the prone and horizontal legs of the barely submerged grid.  Got stuck half way.  Bow in the air, transom sinking and me not knowing what to do next (feelings: all too familiar), I watched in horror as my precious liquid (seawater) drained away.  Sal, of course, was nice and dry in her boat giving me advice and admonishment for being a doofus.  Timing is everything.  A safe distance doesn’t hurt, either.

She is always there at times like these.  It’s uncanny.   If she didn’t forewarn me and have ‘I told you so’ at her disposal, she is there at the time of the calamity and has, “What a doofus!” to use instead.  It’s comforting, in a way.  You know, someone there to witness your humiliation and to console you? Make you feel better.  Ya know?   

So, I did what any man would do – admitted my error and jumped in the water.  With my weight out of the boat and a few well placed shoulder-heaves (nudge, nudge), it slipped back to it’s floating position and, I sensed, it was not just a little amused at our reversal of roles.  We were both wet from the plimsoll line down, but it was a feeling I had tried to avoid.

“Never mind,” I said to my grinning nautical critic in the boat nearby filled to the brim with dogs, “I’ll do it tomorrow.  Should be a peace of cake then.  This was just a practice run, really.”

“Practicing wading, are we?” she said.  She is not that good at consoling.   

Eddy and Tensing were faster climbing Everest than we are getting the turbine up.  But up it is going.  One small step at a time.  I am giving odds on any bets.  Mind you, for the sake of disclosure I have to add that Sal said, “We’ll have to bring the whole thing down to put the turbine on.  I am NOT going up any further!” 

Of course we have already decided on the forty foot height versus the 5-section 50-foot height.  I compromised, if you know what I mean?  So, from my point of view (staring up into the sun listening to Sally swear) it is already a bit short.  But, hey!  It’s not the size that counts.  It’s how it……………never mind.

The garden passed muster.  A few comments here and there but the basic evaluation was, ‘we done good!’  Everyone is in agreement that the squash has to go (it is either it or us) but, otherwise, it was an encouraging inspection.   And we learned some things.  Seems planting peas is good for the garden.  Who knew?  And we can cut back the tomato foliage earlier to accelerate the ripening process somewhat.  Wahoo!  Does it get any better?  “Don’t underestimate the value of good compost!” 

Duly noted.

But, by then my attention was on Aayla (3) and Ruby Mae (1), the two little cuties from the homestead just south.  Aayla wanted to play so Sal got out some toys we keep around for visiting children and husbands waiting for their wives at bookclub.  Poker chips are always well-received by both groups and Aayla took to them like Maverick in a Tombstone saloon. 

After we had played with them…….. (two white chips in the eye sockets make Aayla look exactly like Little Orphan Annie.  Seems I look like a hairy freak so I stopped doing it but she kept it up making some kind of fashion statement.  Effectively, I might add.  She looked good.)………anyway, afterwards Aayla got to putting the chips away.  “We have to clean these up.  C’mon.  Let’s do it!”    Ruby Mae remained unimpressed but I got to it.  After a bit, I slowed down.  “Hey!  C’mon.  These have to be put away!”

“You are three!” I said.  “You  are not the boss of me!” She just looked at me the way Sally (and, it seems, all women do.  You know…….?  That look!? ) and said, “Just do it!”

So, I cleaned them up.  Quickly.

What the hell is that?  How do those ‘the look’ genes get passed on?

No climb today.  Things have changed.  We got guests.  Garden guests.  Sally mentioned at Yoga her need for more gardening advice and two of the best gardeners in the area are on their way over to cluck, pluck and scratch at the garden. 

But three actual people will arrive because little Ayla, Kelly’s daughter, is also coming.  She’s 3.  And she likes me.  Thinks I am Santa Claus or grandfather, depending on her mood.  Pretty cute.  Unruly rolls of strawberry blond hair topping a cherubic, smile-prone face radiating innocence and beauty like an angel.  Whatta doll.  Did I mention she likes me?

Not everyone does, you know.  I know, I know, “How can that be?  What’s not to like?  Dave, you are as sweet as little Ayla.  Fer sure!”  Not so.  I am not as cute.  Really.  But it is OK.  Not to worry.  It is only natural.  Normal, really.  Animosity is a natural consequence of people getting to know me.  Usually those who have never met me are neutral but not always (I once had a perfect stranger ask if I knew David Cox, the bastard getting rich off the liveaboard community.  She wasn’t even embarrassed to learn she was talking to me and that all her facts were wrong.  I think she was even angrier when we parted). 

Once they get to know me, some go screaming to the left, some go dashing and scrambling to the right but a few are left still walking with me.  Ayla is currently one of them.  We are buds.  She likes me.  She really likes me.  It’s mutual. 

But back to those who don’t.  One of the ways I alienate people is by talking.  I suppose my relentless commitment to breathing for these past 62 years has bugged a few of the more extremely disapproving people, too.  But, for the most part it is by expressing myself that I have gotten into the most trouble.  And, of course, expressing one’s self in public is guaranteed to divide.  And I do that.  I write letters to the editor mostly.  The occasional article.  That can tick off quite a few in one fell swoop.  Sometimes I speak up at a meeting and that is virtually guaranteed to irritate.  Though I am sure it is the delivery style more than the content.  Who listens?   Hell, sometimes I can just stand there and somebody gets all riled up. 

It’s a gift.

Our latest example is over the parking lot and the road attached.  The one we (as a community) re-surfaced last year.  Seems people are using it and some of those people aren’t ‘our’ people.  Strangers.  Outsiders.  Some have even used the road for (gasp) commercial purposes.  That is against the law.  Egads! 

I have to confess to empathizing with the complainers somewhat.  It feels like our road.  The parking spots feel like our parking spots.  And the dock at the end of the road feels like it belongs to us as well.  The problem is: it isn’t ours.  It is some kind of public access and whether we feel it is ours or not, it isn’t.  So, people can use it and they do.  We have to be grown up about this.  That is what I said.  Yikes!  

Of course, someone using our road is not really the problem.  The problem is when we see them using our road and seeing them churn it up or hog the parking spaces.  We all get a bit territorial.  You know that feeling when you can’t find a parking space at the mall or on your own street!?  Well, it’s like that, only much worse because we are so far out, we need to park more desperately than does a mall shopper and because we are the ones who made the spaces and the road in the first place.

But that doesn’t make them ours.  The land is the government’s.  They own it.

So, we are all a bit ‘concerned’ (what a loaded word that one is, eh?) about the topic and the natives get a bit restless in the process.  Lines get drawn.  Voices get a bit shrill.  And, because I was at the centre of the repair process last year, I am sucked in like the Starship Enterprise is to a black hole.  Resistance is futile.  Irritating others is my destiny.

Lucky I am good at it. 

Wednesday Sal went to Yoga and a community meeting.  I went back to messing with the tower fitting.  It was a strategic division of interests and it worked.  We both seem to be collaborating nicely on planning today’s ascent of the tower and what is going to go where.  Mind you, we are still both in the house and breakfast is still standing in the way of any action but I am optimistic.  This turbine-thing may happen.

Relationships are funny things.  Clearly Sally and I are not alike (and thank God for that!) and that includes all sorts of things like attitude, thinking, interests and, of course, the big ones: gender and power imbalance. So the relationship is, for all intents and purposes, a study in compromise.  Find the place where the differences don’t matter and the similarities can prevail.  “Seek harmony in all things, little butterfly”.  In other words: do it her way.  So, I spent yesterday making sure everything fit and the assembly of the turbine will be easy and simple.

And then I did the dishes.  Can’t hurt?  Right? 

Actually, making a relationship work is more than just capitulation.  It is more than surrender.  It is more than acquiescence.  It is also about learning.  It is about learning what more there is other than surrender.  That’s what makes it so challenging.  I am still learning.  I have no idea what else it is yet but I will be sure to pass it on if Sal let’s me.  She edits this, you know. 

It is easy to get along if you remain prone in the door-mat position.  I learned that at Yoga.  It was at a special males-only class. 

Oh, I am only kidding.  You know that.  I am allowed to sit up.  Hell, I even have my own chair.  At first I thought it conveyed some kind of special status having my  ‘favourite’ chair and all until I saw the same principle at work with the dogs.  “Here you go, Fiddich.  Your own special house, sweetie.  Your own special little dog-house.  Just for you.  And here’s your own special bone.  Just for you.”  So now I know that the chair is where I am supposed to be and it is a subtle limitation rather than a perk.  Still, the chair is nice and Sal throws me the odd figurative bone now and then.  The part I really hate is that she insists we go for a walk all the time.  Says it’s ‘good for the pack’.  Mind you, me and the dogs are bonding more these days………….

Trying to fit the damn wind turbine.  Been at it for a few days (not too hard at it, tho).  I am faced with the curse of the measuring tape in the hands of an idiot.  Me.  I measured the lower end of the tower section and got 9.5 inches.  And then had the fitting made up for that.  Got the fitting and it was perfect – just a tad over 9.5 inches.  Just big enough to fit snugly over the top of the tower.  Or, so I thought.

You see, the tower sections are tapered a smidgen (so that each one fits inside the section below it.  I should have known that.) and I hadn’t measured the proper end.  Shoulda measured the top end.  The fitting is 9.65 inches and so is the top of the section where it is supposed to go!  Damn. 

So, I bashed for awhile (‘persuaded’ the fitting in the local vernacular) and it remained resolute.  So, then I tried to bend the top of the tower but it, too, stayed firm.  So, I finally decided to ‘fab’ an adapter piece. 

First step: ‘rip’ steel strips using mini grinder on scraps of steel angle laying about for just such purposes.  Then drill out fastening holes, fasten and mark ‘bolt-on’ holes.  Drill ‘bolt-on’ holes.  Then (the worst part) explain mods to Sal. 

“Now you see, sweetie, this fitting didn’t quite fit so……..” “DOESN’T FIT!!  DIDN’T YOU MEASURE IT???  I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO FIT SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T FIT ON TOP OF THAT…………:” 

“Now, Sweetie-pie, I have an answer for this problem.  All you have to do is……..” “ME!  ALL I HAVE TO DO!!  FORTY FEET IN THE AIR AND I HAVE TO WHAT!!??  ARE YOU MAD!!??

” I am sensing a bad attitude, here, Sal.  It is just………”  “BAD ATTITUDE!!!  YOU SAY I HAVE A BAD ATTITUDE AND YOU EXPECT ME TO CLIMB………..”

So, that is where we left it.  I’ll have another go tomorrow.  Try a different approach.  Use different words.  Or else go get a new fitting.  Might be easier.  More on that…………….later.

Did I mention that I live in heaven with an angel……………………?

We certainly know how to entertain.  Jan and Pat joined us for dinner and we had an unexpected arrival at the same time, the propane barge.  It is quite a sight.  150 feet of diesel, gas and propane charging up the dusk enveloped channel and heading for our beachfront with a bone in it’s teeth (frothy bow wave to all you landlubbers).  Captain Tom and crew were coming and were ready to pump!  It was time for our semi annual fill and top-up.  With his usual deft touch, Tom droped the thirty foot wide steel ramp and ran it up the inclined rocks to within a foot of our deck stairs and then left the helm to the GPS and stepped out to greet us while Lorne and Bob dragged the heavy hoses to our waiting tanks. 

Jan and Pat arrived yesterday.  Great to see them again even tho they are our counter-culturalists nemesis – the urban, on-the-gridder who lives more feral than their neighbourhood raccoons.

Both Jan and Pat work for the government and have done so for years (Pat just retired).  Prima facie, they are urbanites.  They have a house not far off a bus route, a school at the end of their road and all the modern convenience of being ON the grid only a few miles from a Home Depot.  Mod con bliss, eh?

‘Cept for one thing: they live off their considerable piece of land!  And I mean like Dan’l Boone lived off the land.  They grow stuff, raise stuff and hunt and forage for stuff.  All the live long day!  These guys could live well for two years – entertaining others as they go – without ever having to go to the grocery store!  They have venison, crabmeat, prawns, salmon, chickens, oysters, clams, berries and that is just the frozen stuff.  They can and preserve as well.  And, of course, they grow everything – some of it from their greenhouse, others from their outdoor garden.  These guys are good – real good.  And, should they need a fancy bakery for some once-in-a-hundred-year freak event, they are a five minute commute away.

It is hard to crow about one’s rural lifestyle compared to them.  And it is even harder to put down the cul-de-sac.  They are doing both well and are experts at it all.  When Jan or Pat talks, we listen.

On another matter: a couple of years ago, a few trees blew down and fell on the local parking lot skewering and squishing a few cars in the process.  Ours was one of them.  Since replaced.  But the experience has left a mental car scar.  I now look at trees near parking lots and try to predict where they might fall.  And then park elsewhere.  It’s an odd mini phobia but I can’t deny it.

And there is one threatening at the parking lot again.  To be fair, it was there two years ago but it has only loomed into my consciousness lately.  It has to come down.  The local community is heating up their satellite connections discussing the matter and we are just a few e-mails away from striking a committee.  Then, after a few meetings where liability will be discussed ad nauseam (without the faintest idea of what the liability really is) we’ll ‘move’ to contact the various ‘authorities’ asking them to do the right thing but will lose patience waiting for a reply.  They never reply except to say No, anyway.  Eventually, some poor sap will take his chain saw and do it in the rain in December.  No official will ever know.  Or care.  It’s how we do things out here.  Ironically, it is a pretty efficient process.  We rarely wait longer than six months and, as we all know, six months is a blink in time when committees and government are involved.  Ours is a can-and-will-do community.

Guests coming tomorrow.  Where would we be without ém, eh?  But, like all who came before, they are a treat and a gift.  We are lucky to have such friends.  Now, if only we could spread them out a little…………….

We have a habit of checking in with others when we go to town.  And they do likewise.  It is the neighbourly thing to do.  “Sal and I will be in CR tomorrow.  Need anything?” If the neighbour has any sense, they say, “Oh yes, we need a liter of milk, please.” And all is fine.  Sometimes a neighbour is tempted to say, “Yes, ten bags of reddi mix, four ten-foot 6″x6″s and would it be convenient to pick up my outboard at Boatland?”

These neighbours have been weeded out over the years.  We are good neighbours but we have weight limits.  Interestingly, we also have money limits.  A litre of milk is under $5.00 and to wait in the rain for it while the current is pulling you and you are tired and freezing from a long day away seems silly.  No one carries money with them in the forest so the obliging neighbour has to trek back to their cabin and ferret about looking for, what amounts to, loose change.  So, under $5.00 is free.  We just drop the litre of milk and go.  It will all work out over time.  Logical, don’t you think?

‘Course, nothing is actually $5.00 so you ‘stretch’ that sum to as much as $10 depending on the weather and how late it is.  “It is pouring, just drop the meat and potatoes and let’s go!” Mostly any amount that seems significant is settled later whenever we neighbours encounter one another again.  Or, sometimes it is forgotten altogether.  I’m the worst.  I forget to collect and I forget to pay.  My only saving grace is twice a year I ask everyone, “Do I owe you anything?  Or, do you owe me anything?”  I think the sum has to reach about $50.00 to become unforgettable.  What a weird world.  These arbitrary ‘set points’.  Oh well, it works out just fine.

For those of you wanting an update on the mice……………….we have prevailed.  Mouse-no-more.  Bait levels untouched.  No tell-tale droppings.  Rodent free.  Tís a bitter-sweet victory but a victory, nevertheless.  They aren’t so bad, really.  Kinda cute in a disgustingly non hygienic way.  They stay in the outer buildings and never show up in the house.  I suppose we should live and let live but you know how it is, ‘give them an inch and they’ll take over your house’.  So, I kill them.  Guests and mice, eh?  A fine line.

The week was typical; Tuesday in town, Wednesday at Market day and yoga ending with a visit to a friend’s re-birth party.  Thursday was virtually nothing – just downtime.

Our friend and neighbour was stricken last year with a real ‘broken heart’ as the main aortic line split longitudinally and he was ‘bleeding out’ rapidly while out in the sticks alone.  A number of lucky events came together and he miraculously survived all of them – the good, the bad and the magical – and came back to us.  Wednesday marked a full year on the mend.  Miraculous, really.  99% of those afflicted die.  And they are in the city!  This guy is now hiking about, keeping homestead together and starting to build a new boat!  He probably travels more than Hilary Clinton and yet complains of “…not being fully 100%”.  They breed ém tough out here.

Mind you, no tougher than his wife!  She hikes, keeps more of the homestead together and does even more. These people are more physical in a week than we were in a year when we lived in the city.  And, way too soon after a near death experience, they have exceeded us again! And they are older!  I have no idea if rural life is somehow the elixir of youth but there is no doubt that it makes you stronger.  

So, we had a little celebration.  30 people or so from all over the world.  Including Tasmania!  And, of course, everyone there reflected on their own mortality. I know I did.

One of the visitors came up in his big steel ketch and hit a rock at the pass going about 15 knots.  Started taking water.  His pumps were holding but he was in shock.  Literally.

Life is a continuous adventure out here and, like all adventures, they are not all good. Holing a steel hull is the result of quite a smack into an unexpected hard place.  They’ll be fine but such an accident is life altering.  It probably shouldn’t be but it really is.  A large sailboat has all your ‘stuff’ and it is also your means of transportation as well as your protection while in new and unfamiliar areas.  It is the carrier of people who trust you, the captain.  If you built it yourself (as he did) over a decade or so, it even takes on a personality of it’s own.  He can feel the boat emotionally.  There is a huge transference of one’s self into the boat and then to have it wounded is horribly heart wrenching.  He feels 100% responsible for everything, the boat, the people on board, the circumstance -everything.  Trust me, it is a much bigger burden than most.  Despite being inanimate, it feels like a cross between a parent and a child and oddly, as if they were from another family that only you know well.  Weird, eh?

I am now officially behind in my chores.  Summer is only partly to blame.  It’s mostly me.  When I get on to something, get all the materials and all the tools out, I am pretty good.  But once I have stopped, I am stopped.  And getting me going again is not easy.  Think Ayers Rock.  And, so, I haven’t gotten going again and I really must.  Gotta get some stuff done by winter.

Altho, daydreaming has some appeal right now, too………………… 

Sally goes postal today, 10-4.  Tomorrow is travel-to-town-day, re-filling the larder and getting parts-for-projects.  We go every two weeks now.  Trying for three.  Hoping for eight.  Town is so hectic, know what I mean?  ‘Course, the longer the times between visits the more hectic it is so it is a vicious circle this ‘going to town’ thing.    

Wednesday is yoga, market day and a giant social engagement later at a neighbours.  Last night we had guests for Happy hour.  The beat goes on.

One of Trev and Judy’s comments before leaving yesterday was, “It was lovely visiting you guys but, perhaps, a bit too isolated for us.” I laughed.  We feel about as isolated as a downtown Starbuck’s barrista.

To be fair, it is hard to get a sense of the overall ‘social activity’ simply visiting for a day or two.  And there are no buildings to see, buses going by or sirens in the background.  I remember that initial  feeling of isolation.  I felt that years ago when we first landed on the beach surrounded by rocks.  And more beach.  But company comes.  And, after awhile, you realize that you have company in one form or another a great deal of the time.  We do have space.  We also have a degree of remoteness/distance (but that is diminishing somehow).  But isolation is a myth. We have more guests, visitors and social engagements now than when we lived in Tsawwassen.

I also read a great deal and I check up on the news.  But most of it is all lies, I am sure.  So, you may wish to disregard the pathetically ignorant opinion that follows as the rantings of a loon, the opinion of an outlander, the musings of a madman.  I may be all of those things (it has been said).  But I see the economy as one that is again headed for yet another tumble.  The state of the US economy has and will continue to hurt us as they have hurt everyone else and it seems unlikely that we in Canada will somehow replace our largest trading partner with the EEU or China in time to avoid the continuing repercussions.  Globalization isn’t working so well, it seems, and I think we are going into a protracted period of stagflation if not deflation.  If Ciudad Juarez (CJ) is any kind of harbinger, we may face much worse than that.   

I say this only to share my thoughts, not to make argument or give advice.  With few exceptions, I am usually wrong about most things.  I don’t know squat.

The strange thing from my perspective is the economic activity up here!  Houses are being built.  This is a community of 60 people and the few who actually work in construction, are busy.  Real busy.  We probably have at least five ‘house projects’ being built and, in a group of 60 mostly retirees, that is a lot.  Adding to that are the local resorts and outfitters.  They were fully booked this year, too.  Even though the sports fishermen are an endangered species (gas prices), the water taxis have been going and the Senora Lodge helicopters have been buzzing.  This has been a medium-to-good tourist year.  I have no idea what that means.

One of our friends runs a kayaking adventure tour from the comfort of a beautiful 60 foot, old style cruiser which is used as a Mother-ship and relocates the kayaks to different settings during the ten-day adventure.  They don’t market much.  Don’t have to.  100% booked.  And every day we see gaggles of kayakers from other outfitters.  I can’t say it is a hive of activity but there are mores signs of life out here than you’d expect.  This year there was even more pleasure boat traffic than the last few (much higher percentage of sail boats, tho).  So, I don’t know.

The appeal of here and the fear of there has curbed my desire for travel somewhat.  I used to consider Mexico safe.  I don’t anymore.  Last year 3000 people were murdered in Juarez and that was more than Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia.  And CJ is just one of several ‘murder centros’ in Mexico.  Maybe the increase in summer traffic and activity here is a result of more people staying home.  Again…………I don’t know.  Just something to think about.

Which brings me to the last paragraph.  Thinking.  One of the delights of living up here is that I have time to think.  The results of that may not ever be apparent but it is definitely a delight for me.  I never realized before how I had to ‘think on my feet’ so much.  I would react rather than plan and pro-act.  But here, I can close my eyes, lie in bed an extra half hour and just quietly run through the thoughts that come up.  Mostly these are project plans or project dreams that occupy my time but sometimes it is planning getaways, vacations, things China……….that sort of thing.  Just as much time as I want to think things through.  I had no idea what a luxury that was.  It is truly a gift.

Now I ask you………who would have thought having ‘thinking time’ would be such a treat?