Friends arrived.  T&J.  We’ve been friends for almost 40 years.  It is great to see them.  They had a hard-ish slog covering the 130 miles from Vancouver to Read by sailboat – against the wind.  But, as any sailboater knows: the wind is ‘on your nose’ 90% of the time.  Doesn’t matter which way you are going either.  It’s like a maritime version of Murphy’s law.  It’s why they invented power boats.

Trev is quite a guy.  Like many of my friends who are ‘quite-a-guys’, he wants to help me do something.  Do some work.  Get a little dirty, cut yourself on something sharp and get a chore done.  Aaargh, aargh, argh!  I love those guys.  I am not one of them but I love them.  I much prefer to write about them, supervise them or fetch them a beer.  The hurting-myself, cutting myself, getting dirty and sweaty got old for me a long time ago.  Back when I was 16, actually.  Haven’t been keen on that kind of fun since then.   I like the beer part.  But, after that, some of us guys have different interests.

Of course, living out here means I have no choice, really.  I have to do that stuff (well, the stuff I can’t palm off on Sal, anyway).  So I have my share of scars and I have to clean the dirt from under my nails all the time.  I get sweaty.  I am a cream-puff but the chores still have to get done.   It helps when friends come all keen and all. 

“So, what can we do?  We love to get things done.  What chores would you be doing if we weren’t here and let’s get at ém!” I am thinking that I really should exploit this kind of lunacy while I have the chance but it is hard to take advantage of people you love.

I hesitate for only a minute.

“Well, there’s that old snag that is threatening to fall on my highline and I’d like to get that down.  But it’s dangerous.  All twisted and hollow.  This is the ‘tree of death’ and I am not keen”.  “Wahoo!  Let’s get on ér!”

It is nice to have ‘quite-a-guy’ support.  So, I get out the ropes (I am gonna lash this puppy to another tree so that it doesn’t kill me half way through).  “Nah”, says Trev.  “Just a cut here and one there and we’ll jump out of the way.  No problem.”  Sheesh.  I forgot about the macho part.  Working alone, I can be frightened on my own time but working with ‘quite-a-guy’ means ‘getting at ‘er’ and doing so NOW! 

So we forgo the safety lashings and I am cutting into the ‘widow-maker’ with Trev off to one side encouraging me.  “Looking good.  It’s gonna work.  I am sure.”  At one point I am stretched over the gully divide and using my chainsaw on this pillar of treachery with one hand (holding myself from falling in the gully with the other) and thinking, “how did I get myself into this?”

“You’re doing great.  Just be a bit careful now……………….. ”  “Fine time to get all safety conscious on me, Trev!”  “Let’s tie a rope on her now and ‘give ér.  We should be able to pull it now!”  So, I stop and we lasso the puppy.  And pull.  The tree breaks off and topples…………kinda.  It’s hung up in the other trees.  So I am about to deal with that when Sal shrieks and beckons forcefully. 

“Look!” she says with her hands clutched together up by her collar bone in a similar pose to the one struck by Judy.  They are both staring down.  I look on the deck and there is a mouse in the final throes of death-by-poisoning.  They are transfixed.  “Cute little guy” says Judy.  “Do something!” says Sally.  I pick up the splitting mawl (it is handy) and drive it deeply…………..into the earth just away from the deck making a spontaneous mouse grave.  With a ‘flick of the wrist’ the mouse is in the hole.  The girls shriek.  I split the mouse in two with the mawl saving it from being buried alive and any more suffering.  Then I leave them.  They are shocked. 

It is a brutal world.  Karma is king.  And I am about to wrestle the hung tree from the skies and see how this karma thing is working for me today.  I kinda wish the mouse had waited until later. 

We push and pull and the tree comes down perfectly.  Trev is ecstatic.  So am I.  But I am now kinda wondering about the ‘quite a guy’ credentials.  I got a lot of support.  Verbally.  I won’t be so easily ‘charmed’ the next time.  So, we head of to the next chore – steel cutting.  Lots of sparks.  Lots of hot metal bits flying around.  To cut through this, you have to be quite a guy.  I hand the cutter to Trev and leave.

Half an hour later, he is done.  Happy.  “What else you got?” He’s quite a guy.  I get us some tea.  We didn’t work long enough for a beer.   

It is Friday and Sal’s working at the Surge Narrows post office.  She is scheduled in on Monday, too.  We barely have time to squeeze in a nap and a glass of wine these days.  Still, the hub of the islands must spin and that requires the post office to be open.

Sally is first alternate at the post office.  Renate is the main person but, as there is only room in the office for one, she normally works alone and Sally fills in when Renate goes on holiday.  They are looking for a second alternate so Sal can slip ‘down the list’ to work the one or two times a year she had originally hoped.  It is now five or six times and counting.  Way too hectic.

Alternates are chosen carefully.  You have to be able to open the safe.  It is an old, heavy and eccentric thing and requires a deft touch.  And a calm temperament.  Some people panic.  More than one aspiring applicant for the ‘alternate’ position has been disappointed and frustrated by not being able to open the safe due to the pressure and the watching eyes of the postmistress.  Jobs are hard to come by up here.  But qualifications are qualifications and some people have ém and some don’t.  Sal’s got ém. She can open the safe.  That’s why she is first alternate.  We are pretty proud.    Mind you, she leaves early to be at work ahead of the ‘rush’, such as it is (maybe a dozen stamps sold in the day) just in case she needs a few extra attempts at the combination.  She may be good but she’s not cocky about it.   

The Surge post office was recently rebuilt.  It sits in an office positioned on floats down at the foot of the ramp at the government wharf.  There is no electricity.  No water.  No bathroom.  The actual square footage dedicated to the Queen’s business is about 8 x10.  Until the rebuild, there was no heat and no windows.  The former employee manned the office for years even when it was minus ten outside and the only light was a kerosene lamp.  She was doing this up until 2009.

Surge Narrows gets mail by way of Corel Air, the local float plane service.  They come, weather permitting Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – sometime after lunch and before 4:00 pm.  The pilot drops out of the sky, lands amongst the debris strewn waters and taxis to the dock where he ties the plane for the fifteen minutes that he and the postal worker need to exchange bags, freight and share a bit of chit chat.  In the summer, he brings tourists.  There are seats for 3 extras and people from all over the world ride the service’s postal circuit and hop from one place to the next up and around the Discovery Islands.

We have market day at Surge on Wednesdays and sometimes the tourists drop in on an impromptu ‘hamburger’ joint that is operated ad hoc out of the freight shed side of the same building as the post office.  This ‘floating cafe’ is popular with the locals and so the tourist sees 20 to twenty five locals all eating burgers and such sitting on a small dock in the middle of nowhere.  I’ve been there when that happens.

“Wow”, he drawled with a deep Texas accent, “What is the occasion?” “Your arrival, of course.  Great silver bird gives us sky people on Wednesday!” “Hah!, you guys are pretty funny.”
“It is all part of the marketing plan.  We act ‘local’ and, in return, you buy burgers. Corel Air gets a piece of the action.” You sell burgers here?  Real burgers?  “Yep.  Deer and Elk burgers, sometimes a bit of moose.  Once we had bear burgers!”  “Wow! Really?!  “Nah.  Shawnie or somebody makes a Costco run every week but, if they had deer and Elk, we’d get it.” 

By this point the Texan is getting a bit confused and his wife, not keen on getting out of the plane in the first place, is gently tugging him backwards.  Roger says,  “Hey!  Why not buy some property here?  You can move here.  Live amongst us.  Your wife is attractive, heh, heh, heh.”  Roger is not perverted or mad but he likes his own jokes more than anyone and that last one sent him into a semi-audible giggle fit.  It was enough to scare the bejesus out of the wife and I must say, I had to dig deep to remember his humour, myself.  But I don’t think I helped matters when I added, “Never mind him.  He’s just a bit strange.  Not that your wife isn’t attractive but that is not what we are really about.” I have no idea why I threw in the word ‘really’ since all it did was add to original perversity implied by Roger.  They were the first ones back in the plane and we lost the burger sale.

But Roger and I had a good time. 

Renate is the post mistress.  She is married to Merlin and they have a lovely daughter, Anna, who is twelve or thirteen.  Renate wanted a holiday and asked Sally to work one Monday.  When the plane arrived, the tourists getting off the plane were Merlin, Renate and Anna.  Sally was stunned, “I thought you were on holiday?”  “We are.  Always wanted to see where the plane goes so we took the tourist flight!” So, Renate and family flew in to Surge and saw their house and the post office.  This disturbs me in some unfathomable but profound way but somehow it fits perfectly with the Read Island character.  I’m still adjusting.

Yesterday we hauled lumber up from the lagoon.  Doug had delivered the 16 long boards I ordered and we first stacked them on the beach and then went to rigging the highline to haul them up.  `Up` is 125 feet from the beach at a 45 degree incline.  The slope is irregular, of course, and covered in trees, stumps and rock outcroppings.  We have a few lengths of rope tied strategically to help pull or let our selves move about the slope but neither Sally nor I need them.  We can climb the slope pretty well but I have taken to using the ropes as an assist more and more. 

Eight boards are stacked and wrapped in slings.  Then the block and tackle (b&t) is lowered down the high-line on the pull-line from the winch.  Sally hooks up the b&t, pulls the load into the air as far as she can (to clear the obstacles) and, on her signal, I run the winch until the load is at the top.  Then I disengage it and the rig and send it back down to Sal for the next load.  In the meantime, I move the lifted wood out of the way.  It is basically the same process we use to bring logs up from the beach for firewood but lumber is usually 12 feet or 16 feet long and I usually cut the logs into more manageable lengths.  Logs are easier to lift than lumber which tends to want to slip out of the slings. 

This high-line augments the funicular on the other side.  We live on the highest point on a narrow peninsula about 300 or so yards long and 50 or 60 yards wide.  We are at the 80/90 foot elevation mark and so you can visualize the slope of our back and front yard.  Actually the back yard is longer and higher because the house is on one side of the peninsula.  It is lovely but a schlepp getting things up to the house/work/garden area.  Thus the two mechanical assists – the funicular and the high-line.

It is strange to me but no one else has these things.  A few funiculars have been mentioned on the coast but, in our neighbourhood, most people rely on docks, ramps and, if they are then located further inland, additionally ATVs and old pic-up trucks.  And the only high-line I have ever seen was at an old abandoned logging camp.  Since I am still in the process of building my funicular, I will suspend judgment until it is done and working well but clearly I think I prefer the high-line/funicular way.  We’ll see.   

China may have just set a record.  A traffic jam stretching over 65 miles lasted 11 days.  No movement.  Two lanes of heavy trucks, mostly packed with illegal coal, sat in the stifling daytime heat and freezing nights going nowhere.  Road improvements and break downs were blamed.  The real culprit, of course, is unchecked growth and too many people. 

I remember thinking that very thing over the years when waiting in line at the Massey Tunnel or trying to enter the ‘single’ lane on the Lion’s Gate bridge.  Too many people, too many cars.  Cities are like that.  Beijing, Vancouver, LA, London.  It’s just a matter of degree and worse, it may be just a matter of time for Vancouver as well.

Sally, Anne and I encountered our first traffic jam ‘in the country’ just outside of Surge Narrows today.  We were on our way to Yoga.  The ‘intersection’ at Beasley Pass and Whiterock Passage was choked.  Couldn’t move.  I just put the boat motor in idle and we waited while the unusually heavy traffic dispersed.  I figured well over one hundred Pacific White-sided dolphins were in our way frolicking and jumping and generally just taking up all the room.  Dolphins to the right of us, dolphins to the left and even more just in front of us!  It took them 15 minutes to pass.  Quite a difference from the coal road in China.  It was magical.

These dolphins veered left and went ahead.  Then they turned and spun to the right.  They were simply being road hogs.  But we didn’t mind.  Funny, really.  I used to get impatient with the same erratic driving style when living in Richmond but it is so much easier to handle out here.  I must have mellowed, eh?  ‘Course it helps to see them leap out of the water, spin and dive out of sight.  If the Richmond drivers could have done anything like that, I may have been more tolerant. 

These mammals (the dolphins, not the residents of Richmond) are about 75 to 100 pounds each.  The have a beautiful dorsal fin, sleek body and pointy-blunt snout.  And they just fly through the water.  They are officially black but these ones seemed to have a purplish hue.  They were gorgeous.  Some of them followed us closely but the main pack seemed to be covering the immediate area in much the same manner as a school of fish does.  We think they were feeding and our accompaniment was ‘security’.  But who really knows? 

This yoga thing is tough.  I am 62, heavy set and stiff.  I am as flexible as a bowling ball and cut much the same silhouette.  Worse, I tend to roll while trying to get into one of those pretzel positions.  It is embarrassing.  Everyone is sitting on their mat in the gym with one foot in the air and balancing on their buttocks.  I do the same kind of thing and roll over.  Then we get into another contortion and I roll over.  The only time I seem fixed in place is when the instructor tells us to ‘roll over’.  Then I have trouble!

The guy next to me fell asleep.  Everyone is older (few exceptions) and having a bit of difficulty but I am clearly the worst.  Sleepy is second worst.  Sally is about 2nd or third best.  There are a dozen yoga ‘students’.  The most wretched part is that our instructor, Rico, is about 68.  The guy walks like a teenager.  He is slim and trim and can bend himself in to the same shape as a knotted tea towel.  It is amazing.   And I’ll never get there. 

We left and got home a few hours later.  While we were putting on the kettle, Anne called on the walkie-talkie, “They are back!  The Dolphins are heading down channel.  Look outside!” From our elevated position we could see them all and several of them came over to our immediate shore.  All in all, I would say that we had a dolphin show of over 40 minutes today.

Surge Narrows!  This place is getting busy and the traffic is unusually heavy!  Who would’ve guessed? 

The title is from lyrics by Sly and the family Stone, oom chakka chakka, oom, chaka chakka. 

What started out as an impressive pile of steel rubble on the ground has slowly risen to new and dizzying heights.  40 feet!  Yesterday, Sally scaled the then-existing 30 foot structure and attached another ten feet to our wind generator tower.  It was not easy.

The first 30 feet were relatively easy by comparison mostly because the tower was stayed by cables to the 20 foot mark only leaving the top ten feet swaying and that sway was minimal.  Well, it was minimal until the gin pole was moved to the top again and another section of tower was being pulled up.  Of course, Sally had to be at the top of the swaying thirty feet to be able to guide the next section in to place.  Her previous intermittent knee knocking spread until she was suggesting that the vibrations were going to loosen the bolts already in place.  So, she came down a few times to ‘compose herself’ and only ascended when it felt right.  It rarely did and she was up and down like a yo-yo.  I can’t say it was easy from my side, either, but it was a helluva lot less scary.  Sally has cajones (figuratively speaking, of course).

Lifting a 70 pound section of tower on a straight pull is not hard for me.  In fact, I can pull twice that and only my hands feel strained.  But, for some reason, this was getting harder and harder the higher I pulled.  It was frustrating until it dawned on me – I was also pulling up about 50 pounds of pre-attached 5/16 steel cable that was dragging and catching on the ground around me.  Attaching stays when the unit is up and in place is crazy dangerous so you attach them first on the ground and then pull the whole schamozzle up at once.  So much easier.  But that extra heavy pull strains the gin pole and our nerves.  Everything vibrated including me.  I was just as relieved for the chance to compose myself as Sally was.

To raise a section of tower, one fastens the hoisting rope at just above the halfway mark on the section to be lifted.  That means, on a ten foot length, the attachment is at the 5’6″ point leaving 4’6″ as the ‘top’ and 5’6″as the ‘bottom’.  This allows the section to be raised vertically and oriented in the fashion needed to fix it in place at the top.  But the damn stays/cables weighed so much that the top of the section kept flipping down and the piece was going up up-side down!  We attached pulling lines and attachment hooks and all sorts of devices that would have helped keep it oriented had we had an extra arm or triple the strength.  But they partially worked.   We finally just raised it ‘upside-down’ and then flipped it at the last minute after having pulled the cables up just prior to the flip to take the weight off.  It worked.

Sal took forever putting the bolts in place but I knew why.  Her hands were shaking. We now had 40 feet of tower up with Sally at the 30 foot level and everything above 20 feet was unstayed.  That was 140 pounds of tower, 120 pounds of Sally and at least 50 pounds of cable all gently swaying a bit as she fastened the 12 bolts where the sections met.

Usually whenever Sally is doing something along construction lines that she is not happy about, I crack jokes to help her out.  They are rarely funny.  They are not really intended to be.  They are annoying and she gets mad and yells expletives at me.  I laugh and she gets to vent her frustration and it helps her to relax.  It is construction site therapy.  She participates well as a rule.  I have heard some dandies. 

Not this time.  This time wasn’t merely just frustrating or difficult.  It was past unpleasant and awkward.  This time it was dangerous and scary.  For both of us.  I kept my stupid jokes to a minimum – one.  The response I got from it told me that this was not the time for any more stupid jokes.  So I shut up.  We worked in silence until it was done and then made tea.

Strangely the fifty foot section will be easier.  If we choose to do it.  The reason is simple: with the new stays supporting the tower at the forty foot level, the structure will be rock solid.  There will no longer be the fear that swaying induces.  But, of course, there are the ten extra feet one has to go up.  So we’ll decide on that later.  Right now, the ground never looked so good.    

Our second-closest neighbours, John and MC left yesterday for Ontario and the ongoing obligations that are part of having a business and primary residence to care for.  They have gone back to the ‘normal’ work they have rather than the Herculean efforts they undertake here to finish the cabin they started two years ago.  Cabin construction is vacation time for them.  And I marvel.  These guys are older than us and even less skilled but they are keen as hell to be here and, seemingly, getting keener with each visit.  That part I understand.  It is the ‘going back’ part that mystifies me.

Neither Sally nor I can even imagine going back to anywhere but here and going back to ‘conventional’ work is so far out of the picture, we just laugh at the thought.  ‘Course, we could use the money but, really, is it worth it?  We have concluded that it isn’t.  Is it even possible?  Helping us in this country-life delusion is the obvious: we are also clearly unemployable.  Aside from age, rusty skills and frequent short term memory loss, there is a deep, deep sense of rejection for all that normal work assumes as normal. I am pretty sure we can’t do it anymore.

Would I do as I was told? I don’t think so.  I was never very good at that at the best of times.  Would Sally?  Absolutely not!  Would we spend time doing the stupid wastes-of-time that all jobs require?  Not a chance.  Would we be in on time?  Nope.  Might not even show up.  Would we care in any way?  Not bloody likely.  Would ‘walking the dogs’ come first?  For Sally, for sure (for me, not so much.  I might go to work).  And our daily rate schedule would blow company budgets.  I don’t think I would get out of bed for less than $500 a day and, even at that, I might return now and then for a quick nap.  This is not a good work ethic even by Mexican standards.  I think our careers are over.

Don’t get me wrong…….we work.  Hard, sometimes.  And we want to work.  It is just that we want to work at our pace and at our interests.  We want to do ‘good work’ rather than ‘pay-the-bills’ work and it has to be interesting and include learning and personal growth and being Green and – well, just a helluva lot of qualifiers that make a normal job impossible to consider.  I’d travel and do speaking engagements (kinda need a best selling book first, tho, don’t you think?).  I’d travel and write about fancy all-inclusive resorts.  I’d deliver a nice RV to some place South (preferably leaving in early January?).  Hosting Chinese students is fascinating.  So is raising a wind turbine.  And, believe it or not, so is growing a garden.  But, as you can see, it is all personal, individual and unconventional work that has no direct appeal to anyone other than us that appeals to us the most.

We are staggeringly fortunate just to be able to think this way, let alone do it this way.   

This blog is a good example.  I am interested in sharing our lives and the reward will be – if I keep it up – a body of work that describes what we have been doing in more detail than I could do if I waited to write it a year from now in one go.   But who wants that, anyway?  A few, maybe?  Sal?  Of course, it may suck.  Just a daily journal of non-events in an old man’s life (I really should pick up the tempo some, don’t you think?) but, on the other hand, it is personal and descriptive of that same old man’s life.  And Sally’s.  So there may be something there.  Eventually.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, today is the day we put up the highest tower section.  Today is also the day, John and MC return to the fast-paced rat race and rejoin the excited throngs of millions chasing their tails.  But, for us, today is just same ol’ same ol’ –  another day in paradise.

Things come to a shuddering halt when Sal goes to bookclub.  The centre of the universe shifts every month and I am left in the existential equivalent of a black hole.  Just me, rocks, dogs and chores undone. 

You might think that statement a bit melodramatic and, of course, it is.  But bookclub also falls on a Sunday and, in the summertime, we have usually been working hard for the days prior.  So it feels a smidge dramatic when she goes.  Bookclub Sunday feels like the wheels fell off my cart.  Or maybe better put: I ran out of gas pushing it.  Either way, nothing gets done when Sal goes to bookclub.  It is a day of involuntary rest.

Well, I do the dishes and then make sure not to dirty any more before she comes home.  That’s about it.

Today, I read up on the wiring for the wind turbine as part of my doing nothing.  Reading how to do things is an important way to use down time.  Otherwise I might die.  I have huge holes in my skill sets.  In fact, I am missing whole sets.  I positively dread the welding learning curve that I have planned for sometime this Fall. 

There are dire warnings every page or so in the turbine installation instruction manual:  Warning! Failure to fasten tab A to slot B may cause irreparable damage to the turbine or severe personal injury!! Danger! Inadequate hangers may cause tower failure!  Attention!  Follow instructions precisely or your warranty may be void and your bowels torn from your throat!

And on and on until it feels like you are trying to make home-made IEDs.

It’s a lousy 48 volts!

“Yes, well, 48 volts across the heart and you are a dead turbine owner”, warns my friend, Bill.

So, I read. And I examine the parts and I get confused.  So, I have some tea.  And read some more.  If Sally was here, she’d express even more confusion than me (no stupid ego to get in her way) and so I’d lay on the manly bravado and say, “Hey! How hard can it be?  We’ll just be careful with tab A and get on with it, my little sugarplum.”  She’d look relieved and I’d have to step up and do what I said I would do.  Being macho is like daring yourself by proxy. 

Pretending that I know what I am doing keeps us moving forward.  Macho may be stupid (and it is) but it helps lead the way.  I just don’t quite know where we are going.  Thankfully, nether does Sally.  If we went with caution or even reading the instructions, we’d never have gotten here.

But I read the instructions on things electrical.  I have to.  And I hate it.  It’s like reading Chinese.  Hieroglyphics are easier.  But electrical-speak is completely unintelligible.  First, you have to be a Native Geek-speaker!  Secondly, you have to think this stuff is ‘really neat!’ And thirdly, you have to get comfortable electrocuting yourself.  I have a long ways to go.  I am just partly into the ‘geek’ phase.  It’s called ‘Dorkism’.

So, I go to the panel box and examine it.  I do this with very little knowledge but I do it all the time.  I really have no idea.  It is like: been here before, don’t understand it.  But here I am again.   

“This wire goes here………..and that one goes there…………….and so what the %#!%$ does that mean?”   What makes it worse is that I addressed this very scenario last year.  In fact, with Bill’s help, I wired it.  Well, most of it.  But there are gaps.  Gaps that can spark.  I may have once known how to fill those gaps but I don’t know now.  So I just look at it.

You know what I see?  I see a jumble of wires all different colours.  Then I look at the diagram and you know what I see?  I see straight black lines neatly going from one weird electrical symbol to another weird symbol.  And each black line is on white paper.  To my way of thinking, the two are not even remotely similar.

Never mind.  I hear Sally’s outboard.  She’ll be home soon.  Tomorrow I’ll say, “Hey, sweetie, what do you say we wire up that ol’ turbine, eh?”  She’ll say, “Well, if you think so…………”  And the next step will be taken.

Some years ago, when I was deep in the cul-de-sac and bored senseless, I went looking for inspiration.  Like most people, I looked ‘ínside the box’ before daring to peek outside.  Amongst my inner-box litter was a faint recollection of The Whole Earth Catalogue (WEC) and things somewhat hippy.  So, in a desperate attempt at finding the answer to the cancer that was my everyday life, I started to roam about the ‘net’ looking up WEC and came across the current edition of Mother Earth News (MEN).  I remember laughing, “Sheesh, after all these years MEN is still selling the dream of living ‘off the land’.” And so I went to have a look.

MEN supported a MEN forum for people wishing to discuss seeds and fertilizer, chickens and tractors, building and even old time skills like quilting and making your own brooms or pickling eggs or getting rid of sheep and chicken diseases.  It was pretty out there and not really what I wanted to pursue. I really wasn’t thinking of going ‘country’ at that time.

I distinctly recall reading a sibling periodical on country farming that had an article on what to do “If Your Toads Have Gone Soft.” This had Sally and me in hysterics.  There were articles on how to suck the phlegm from the noses and throats of newborn lambs (seems they can asphyxiate on there own mucous and the ‘husband’ is obliged to suck it out of them by going mouth-to-mouth).  Clearly, I was too far outside the box.

But MEN also had a forum for general discussion and people on that forum were discussing current events, politics, morality, family and other issues that I had some comfort (but no knowledge) with.  I jumped in.  And, OHMYGAWD! the resources, the characters, the stories and the wealth of community that was offered was unbelievable.  And unbelievable is a fair word.  I was making friends-online who were reclusive religious sects, old hippies, ranchers, witches, single moms, grandparents, ex-military and the list went on and on and on.  They were (and are) fascinating people and they all had something to contribute.

Even to me.  It was obvious that I was now a bit outside the box but their community helped make me more comfortable with the desire to get out of the box in the first place.  Many of them were escapees of the city or wannabees or long-in-the-tooth experts already.  Many were skilled tradespeople who were as trapped as I was but willing to advise others in their field if it meant a step towards freedom.  I got help from all walks of life.  It was wonderful.  And I took it as a hand-hold as I climbed out of the box and headed to the forest.

I can’t honestly say that my MEN forum was the reason we came to live remote but I can say that I would not have done it without them.  With them I went from being a weirdo wondering why I wanted out of the conventional lifestyle so bad to knowing that I was not only not alone but that there many who had already made the leap.  I am forever indebted to all of them and there are a special group of about a dozen who were truly inspirational and helpful.

I just discovered today that a few are reading this blog.  It is an honour.

This summer I added four solar panels to the existing four and it has made a big difference.  We have not had to run the genset for at least two months.  We have, of course, run it a few times to power the washing machine but everyday lights and computers are now all solar powered.  I think, in retrospect, if the washing was just ours instead of that of all the guests as well, we may have been able to run ‘pure Green’ for the first time.  This is a good thing.

But we can’t count on record setting stretches of sunshine every year.  This is BC, after all.  And this year has been exceptional.  About 45 straight days of clear blue skies.  Regardless, we have to supplement solar with wind and we have the technology to do it.  I have a 400 watt Air-X wind turbine which, according to the instructions, is raised on a schedule #40 pipe forty feet in the air and wired into my inverter/battery charger system.  Yeah, right.

Turns out schedule #40 doesn’t work.  Too flimsy.  I know this because I tried it.  The tower was raised to  the 45 degree angle when it folded in the middle smashing the expensive turbine to the ground and putting a dent in my pride and wallet at the same time.  I was not happy.  So NOT happy, in fact, I procrastinated for a year before trying again and buying another turbine.  This time, we are using an old HAM radio tower.  It is a triangular 9″x9″x9″ that comes in 10 foot lengths.  I connected two lengths together and, after mounting them on a giant hinged plate, pulled up twenty feet of tower and fastened it as you’d expect to the surrounding rock by wire cable.  But twenty feet is not enough.  I have to go the whole 50.

It turns out HAMs raise their towers in sections and I had three more sections to pull up and attach.  Each section weighs about 70 pounds and is awkward as hell.  The ‘rigger’ has to be atop the standing tower and the rigger’s assistant hoists the next section up using a gin pole which is a temporary extension of the tower used to get the proper section into place.  The gin pole moves up with each section.

Even tho I am large enough to be accused of being in two places at once, it is not true.  I can only be in one place albeit spread out generously.  Sal had to be the one on top of the tower.  I was grounded and obliged to pull the next section up into the air and in to place.  She had to wrestle that section so that the connecting bolts lined up and then she had to insert the bolts and tighten them up.

This ain’t easy.

There are already cables strewn around holding up the first twenty feet and they get in the way.  The foot hold on a 9″ tower is a foot-breaking steel bar of about 6″ wide and 1/2″ thick.  To assist her in this task, I had fashioned a hook-on mini platform that attached to the standing tower so that she could distribute her weight on both feet and be more comfortable.  But wrestling 70 pound tower sections while standing atop a twenty foot tower is not comfortable in any sense.  “My knees are shaking!”, she said somewhat weakly.

“It is good to get that fear out of the way now.  At twenty feet.  By the time you are at the top of the fifty foot tower, you’ll be relaxed enough to pose on one foot like you do in yoga!  Anyway, after 30 feet the fall will kill you so from then on, it doesn’t matter. The 40 and 50 foot sections should be a piece of cake.”  Her response is unprintable.  Seems she is somewhat reluctant to explore her inner Sherpa.

We’ll do it.  It will get done.  I can do much of the up-the-tower preparation for each stage but the actual ‘hoist and connect’ step has to be done with me on the ground and Sal tempting fate.  Seems fair, don’t you think?  It takes two to get it up, after all.      

We planted a garden this spring.  Well, we tried to but didn’t really know much at the time.  Still don’t.  ‘Course, no one expects you to know much about gardening out here until you have been here for a few years but we were coming up to the end of our probation period and we knew that we would be judged somewhat by the 2010 garden crop.  The pressure was on to produce produce.

Thing is, having a garden is difficult when you build on granite.  We don’t have much dirt.  Well, none, really.  So, I built a garden box of about 80 square feet and then proceeded to scrape and scrabble dirt from wherever I could find some.  Well, Sally and our Woofer-for-that-week, Aline did most of that.  I built the box three feet high so that I wouldn’t have to bend over too much picking the avocados and strawberries……..maybe a few cherry tomatoes.  But, when you think about it, that (20x4x3) is a helluva volume.  We scrabbled until we got bored and then added some purchased steer manure and peat moss.  That still wasn’t enough volume so we added seaweed, compost and a few dead log ends.  Honestly, we had no idea what we were doing, we just wanted the box full.

Then Sal went to the market day and bought some local plants from some of the local ‘greenhouse’ people.  Bruce provides good plants and so he was our biggest source.  He provided the Godzilla tomatoes.  Sally planted a ‘salad’ garden and that includes a few lettuces and onions, beans and peas, squash and tomatoes and, for reasons unfathomable, Marigolds.  We got Marigolds up the wazoo.

Actually, we got it all up the wazoo!  Lettuce is pouring over the sides.  We have the squash plant from Hell trying to take over the whole box and then some.  We have Broccoli that rivals Cathedral Grove and the tomatoes are the stuff from which ladders could be made.  We have tomatoes like Rambo has bullets.  The cauliflower was too big for the kitchen sink!  OHMYGAWD!  

Part of it is because of the record setting sunshine and Sal’s religious devotion to watering the farm daily.  Hard not to thrive under those conditions.  But, really……………our 80 square feet is producing the same as Abbotsford.  We could fill a Safeway produce section and, in a few days, do it again.

‘Course half of it would be #%$!* Marigolds but Sal claims they are edible so I shouldn’t complain.  I just don’t see myself with a mouthful of orange flowers, I guess.  I don’t see myself eating the Squash from the little shop of Horrors either.  I don’t want to make enemies of that kind.  It’s creepy in every sense of the word. 

When it comes right down to it, I am a little ticked that I don’t have the much anticipated strawberries and avocados but, it seems they require a special touch of some kind.  Like Costa Rica.  We keep saying, “Well, this was just a learning experience and so we now know not to plant so many Marigolds and beans.” ‘Course, I am thinking, “I already knew that!  It was YOU who planted an acre of Marigolds and bought the squash plant from the ‘modern progress lab’ at Monsanto!”

But I don’t dare say that kind of thing because Sal would simply arch an eyebrow and say, “Fine.  You do it then.” Then we’d be back to a compost bin, a bunch of flies and a box full of dirt.  It is counter-intuitive, I know, but I also know enough that to keep my mouth full, I have to keep it shut! 

Bought my new electric motor the other day.  220 volts, three phase with a 110 brake.  I have to wire in the 13 small 24 gauge wires from the receiver I bought last month and then wire that to the Siemens motor controller, inverter and the 220v transformer that provides the power from the inverter.  All this so that the hand-held remote controls will work the winch that the new motor powers.

The circuitry for this is simple, really.  A bunch of wires in, a bunch of wires out and relays and switches thrown about willy-nilly to make sure it all happens in sequence.  I understand that it is a piece of cake.  For someone.  Not me.

I was very fortunate – the seller explained it all to me in a few short minutes while I was putting the motor in the car.  Of course it sounded like Swahili to me but he seemed to know what he was talking about.  “So, do you know what you just said?”, I asked.  “Um, yeah?  I do.”  “Good.  Leave me your phone number and e-mail.  I’ll send questions with diagrams.  Please say all that you did again when I do that but say it in writing, slowly and not in a foreign language!” “I was speaking English!” “No you weren’t.  The devil is having his way with you.  You were speaking in tongues!”

And that is the way it is out here.  You conceive of something basically simple in concept, anyway.  A marine ways.  What could be simpler?  They have had marine ways since they have had boats.  Shouldn’t be too hard to build.  Right?  ‘Course, we modern guys don’t have 100 slaves to heave and pull the lines so we have to make do with mini-computers, electric motors and remote control devices.  I think slaves are better.

And they don’t make the machinery easy to install.  The remote control devices – industrial quality, don’t you know, didn’t come with instructions!  There are 13 wires coming from the receiver.  Dangling.  NO instructions.  So, where do they go?  I contacted the supplier.  “Yeah, geez. Isn’t that a crazy thing?  They don’t have instructions.  I’ve been through this before.  You can call Kang in Langley.  It is his company that makes them.  Problem is he doesn’t speak English too well and just gets mad when we ask him questions.”

“I’ll call him.  I really need to know where these wires go.” “Good luck.  The mill guys just bought 17.  They already have a dozen or so.  So they do work and the guys like ém, but I have no idea how to wire them in.”  “I’ll try Kang.  If that fails, will the mill guys show me?” “I’ll ask them but they are going on strike pretty soon.”

“Mr. Kang?  I bought a pair of your 760Xls.  They seem great.  But I am not an electrician.  Do you have a wiring diagram?” OOOhhhhh Sebun sisty Eserrrs…………you must buy from surprier.  No direct sales!  Rank you.” “No….No………Hold on………..I already HAVE them.  I am just confused over the wiring.  Can you help?” “So sorry.  No direct sales.  You call surprier.  I have phone number.”

Mr Kang was already getting agitated.  I could hear his thoughts……..“What is wrong with these people.  I don’t speak English.  They should talk to the guy I sell through.  That is why I have a distributor.  If I could speak English I could sell direct!” So, due to my gift of clairvoyance, I sympathized with Kang and was, in any event, not getting anywhere and just making him mad.  I could determine the wiring diagram of a Korean’s cerebral cortex in Langley easier than I could of the product he sells and so I bid him adieu.  In French, of course.  Why not?  He was already ticked.  “Au revoir, Mr Kang.  Bon Chance en Canada, eh? Ecrivez Instruciones (‘instruciones’ is Spanish but it was all I had at the time) síl vous plait.  Bon pour economics, sais vous?” “No direct sales!” he said in salutation.  I think we understood each other.  We parted amicably.

Sadly, it is little obstacles like this one that hold up my progress.  If I was just better educated, skilled, equipped and multi-lingual, I could get on with things.  Physical energy would also help but we have to be realistic.  This chore is going to require teaching myself to weld, figuring out the wiring of a remote control device and it’s attendant attachments and applying all this to galvanized tracks weighing 225 pounds each that have to be installed on a barnacle and seaweed covered irregular rocky beach when the tide is out.  You will understand if it takes a while.  I’ve been snacking on high energy Chia seeds to help with the energy part.  And I’ve taken out a few books on welding for Sally.  We’ll see how that goes.

Earl and Alva left today.  I think they had a good time.  It is hard to camp at our age.  Don’t forget, they have the same irregular ground for camping as I do for the marine ways.  It is not easy.  Still, the weather was accommodating and they fared pretty well.  When they are here, that is 5 of the six partners on the property. We’ve now been partners for over 35 years.  The really interesting part is that each of the partners is quite smitten with the place.  Everyone thinks it is wonderful here.  And that is interesting because most of us ignored the property until we were in our 50’s.  Purchased in our 20’s and not fully utilized until 30 years later, this property has become a later-in-life focus.

Roger and Anne used the property the whole time but they were also school teachers so their enjoyment was limited to summer stints.  Everyone else visited once in awhile but it wasn’t until John R built his cabin that the focus turned to building rather than just camping.  I am still somewhat surprised at myself.  I used to think: “Rocks and Christmas trees.  Who needs it!”  Now I describe it as paradise.  Go figure.