I am referring in the above title to the previous blog where I opined that the Trump victory smelled bad to me……

….and, it seems, I was not alone.

Reportedly, the CIA is investigating Russia’s recently discovered ‘hacking’ interference in the US electoral process more intensely and extensively than before. The part they are not hesitant to state is kinda what we already knew: Russians hacked Clinton’s (and party’s) emails in an effort to somehow assist Trump. But the real news is that the CIA and Obama have ‘stepped up’ the investigation to pursue other avenues and no one is saying even what those avenues are.

And therein lies the news – hidden, obfuscated and NOT clearly stated.  BUT (and it is a big BUT) – they are saying that it is taking priority for them.  This is job #1 in the US right now.  THAT’S the news!  You can tell that by reading between the lines that are not even being published.

I have no idea if they can catch anything, anyone or even have any real hard evidence.  And how would they decide, prosecute or reverse, reveal or even release the outcome or even the TRUTH?  If the truth was that Russia interfered enough to influence the election, how do they prove that before January 20th when the Donald takes over?  If they can’t prove it but they KNOW it, how can they let a Russian flunky take the Oval office?

If they can’t prove it, can’t act legally nor can they reveal what they know, how the hell can they do anything?

And, if they do anything less than decisive and fact-based does it not then look like (and may be just sour grapes and suspicion?).

It seems the CIA is also briefing the house and the senate – all controlled by the Republicans.  So, how does briefing the Congress, itself full of foxes, about the shenanigans of their top fox work?  Isn’t that like telling the mob that Michael Corleone might have cheated?  What good do they expect to come from that?

And do you think for one minute, Obama can refuse to accede the office?  Do you think that an investigation that reveals proof of the lying, cheating, interfering and manipulation could be revealed to the public in such a short time?

And, if so, to what end?

Face it, politics is all about lying and cheating and manipulation. Is there not an immense, vast wasteland of lies and plots to wade through almost everywhere? And how could the CIA possibly find enough NEW and DIFFERENT to do ANYTHING decisive with it in such a short time?

They can’t.  Obama can’t.  They may just have to watch it happen…………….

And us?  The proletariat?  The slaves, muppets and minions?  The dupes, fools, fodder and the grist for their money-loving corporations…what of us?  Will we ever know the truth?

Nope.  Those most paranoid or in-the-know (hard to tell the difference) will make outrageous statements and claims but we, the hoi polloi, will never know the truth so clearly that everyone will know it to be true.  And, with the proliferation of Liar News 24/7/365 how will any kind of truth ever will out?

Urbanites often ask, “But what will you do if you need medical assistance way out there?”

I, like many who live off the grid, answer somewhat dismissively and definitely fatalistically, “Well, we do what everyone does, of course, we get ourselves to the emergency ward and simply expect that it will take a bit longer to get there. We deal with a few more situations at home than do city dwellers but, when the situation is dire and emergent in the extreme, we seek professional help.” 

I am changing my mind a bit on that……….

The last blog illustrated the problem well.  We had an emergent and dire situation and we called for help.  It came.  It took too long but it happened.  All in all, the situation was handled just like the first two paragraphs above suggested.

But it was NOT ideal.  Of course, no emergency situation will ever be ideal but our response might have been better.  We were definitely willing.

So, I have been re-thinking it.  FOR ME.

Maybe it is just me…maybe I am NOT as experienced as some others.  But, regardless, rather than acting decisively, we all deferred to the ‘professionals’ and that is the part I am re-thinking for myself.

When I burnt my leg badly a few years ago, I just treated it at home.  A nurse-friend visiting the day after the burn was horrified and sent pictures to her burn-specialist sister who advised immediate medical attention with a suggested skin graft.  I opted to ignore her, treated it myself and the decision worked out.  I do not even have a scar.  Had it been even worse than it was, I might have followed her suggestion.  I doubt it.  I know what they do for burns and I can do it as well as they can.

And therein lies the issue.  We can often deal with our own problems.  People have been doing so for eons.  But, more and more, we defer to ‘experts’.  I am not so sure that is as necessary as we all think.  I could be wrong.  But I think we can do more for ourselves than we have been conditioned to think we can.

Admittedly, when one is hurt, thinking that independently is NOT the first instinct. Our first instinct is to ask for assistance and I understand that completely.  I have been hurt badly enough times to know what goes through the victim’s head. “Yikes! Help!”

Having said that, when I cut my little toe off when I was involved in a large crash while racing motorcycles decades ago, I drove myself home from the race course because it was taking too long for the ambulance to get there and, of course, no one was going to take care of my bike and equipment.  I went home and asked my father to drive me to the hospital.  It was about 11:00 am when I got home, my boot was filled with blood and I was covered in mud.  So, I cut off the boot and I had a shower with the toe hanging off my foot by a ligament.  Seemed like a good idea at the time and it was.

When my father drove me to Vancouver General, I realized that I was also very hungry and that we were not likely to get seen right away so I suggested we stop at the White Spot for take-out.  We did.  I got into VGH at about 1:00 pm.  My toe was on the ice-bag we brought from home.

The surgeon sewed my right foot little toe back on at 11:00 pm.  More than twelve hours after the event!  He erred a bit and it now sits a bit sideways.  It did not work for a few years but it is now a fine specimen of a right little toe only a bit less efficient because of it’s sideways orientation.

Could I have sewed on my own toe?  No.  I could not.  Sally, maybe (hadn’t met her yet)….but I could get cleaned up.  I could get some food in me.  And I could get all my stuff home and have someone who cared take me to the hospital.  In other words, I first did what I could for myself.

And – transferring that silly story to living out here – I think we first have to do what we can for ourselves.  Most everyone does already.  Sal takes out any stitches I may have acquired – it’s a simple task (made simpler by repetition).  And do not forget the woman who broke her leg last year and then drove herself to the hospital.

She had it right.  Basically, I think we have to rely even less on the professionals and become a bit more skilled in treating ourselves.  I think all of us can.

Our little community is already starting to talk about that.

I think my answer to the city-dweller as written above will eventually change.  “Well, we first take the time to assess the situation.  Then we factor in the delay of waiting for help and the inevitable slowness of the pace of the professionals involved.  So we MAY just call one of our own first aid trained OTG’ers first and allow them to make decisions.  It is very likely that in all circumstances, we will eventually seek professional help but we are going to have to learn to act as ‘first responders’ ourselves.  In fact, we may undertake to provide our own transport instead of waiting for people in uniform.

It is NOT an equipment or logistical thing, it is an attitudinal shift that is required.

I am NOT being critical of the police when I say this: they could do nothing to help us. They even eventually retreated to the warmth of their own vehicle at one point.

When they first arrived, they took note of the victims, took notes from the witnesses but, after those first two to three minutes of being official observers, they inspected the inside of the overturned vehicle checking for booze or drugs (my assumption but I cannot conceive of anything else) and they were looking at the vehicle longer than they were looking at the worst hurt of the accident victims.

Am I really critical and just pretending NOT to be…?  NO.  They made sure the car was going to be eligible for an ICBC clam and they had the vehicle towed off the hill by early the next day and that was a huge assist to the community.

But – as first responders – they were not helpful to the victims.

If it makes sense for us to live more independently, that has to include emergency situations.  We do it already but we may have to do it a bit better.  I am thinking we may have to elevate that ability in our own community.”  

We had been to town and had made it to the end of the road in good time to make it home.  A busy day was seemingly coming to an early and civilized end.

But that was not to be.

As readers know, we have a very steep hill leading to the beach at the end of the road.  When we arrived, there was a truck unloading at the bottom so we parked in a small lay-by half way down to allow them to finish.  I took the opportunity to haul out two bags of road salt I had impulsively purchased in town to leave at that part of the hill.  I figured the hill would get even slipperier than it was when we had departed earlier and the forecast for the next few days suggested preparation.

When the first truck departed the unloading area, we went down.  The last few feet was getting icy but it was OK.  We unloaded.  As we were doing so another vehicle came to the same previous half-way lay-by and, doing as we had done, waited and did a bit of preparation for their unloading.  Their preparation included donning some heavier gear for their longer trip home.

It was then that things went awry.  I wrote a mutual friend last night to fill her in.  The following is what I wrote with some extra fill-in:

L, the wife, was driving.  We were at the bottom of the hill.  They stopped at the half way point parking lot and got out to put on their heavier winter gear.  But I guess L did not put the car in park.  Maybe it was half-in and popped out.  So, as they got out, it jumped forward and started to roll down the hill.  I heard them yelling and watched as their car rolled a 1/4 of the way down and hit the stump on the slope on the east side.  

I didn’t see her do it but L had leapt back half into the car and tried to save the day. The car still hit the stump on the east-side ditch.  But, while getting in she either yanked the wheel or the stump caused the trajectory of the still moving vehicle to change.  The car then caromed over the road to the west side and hit a boulder or something.  By the second impact it was doing 20 km or near and was more than half way down the 100 foot slope.  

Then it flipped. 

And landed on the roof.  L was flung out of the car from the still open driver’s side door onto the concrete ribbon strip with the door pinning her ankle and her face slammed into the pavement.  She hit it like a sledge hammer.  A lot of blood instantly started flowing onto the road.

The car miraculously stopped fifteen feet from our car and where we had been standing.  At the second impact and just before it flipped, Sal and I leapt for the relative safety of the off-from-the-roadway pathway.  

They had paused at that mid way point because we were already at the bottom unloading.  We looked up when we heard the yelling, stood there for a second and saw the car careening down to towards us and so we leapt up the ramp leading to the path to the dock to get out of the way.  When their car rolled, I was sure it would just somersault down and hit our car.  THEN I saw L get virtually flung out and smashed with the car looming ready to roll over her.  The open door had acted like a block and stopped the car from crushing her.  Her ankle looked smushed.  Her other leg was bent at an awkward angle.  We ran over, rolled her over and decided that getting her out of there was the best move and drag-carried her over to the ramp. 

I then called the Coast Guard on channel 16 with our always-present hand held VHF radio. There is no cell service in that area for miles around.  VHF is the only way to ‘get out’.  

The Coast Guard called the ambulance.

S and K showed up a few minutes later also ready to unload from a town day.  C L and his brother N (they were in the first truck we had waited for) were already at the dock and they came back to help.  P and N were headed up channel in their boat, heard my 16 call  and they came over to the end of the road, too.  As did D G who was already home but nearby and was called by another VHF listener. Within minutes we had the ambulance dispatched and L was on the ground wrapped up in everyone’s clothes.

With everyone, there must have been at least ten people on scene within fifteen minutes.  Sal and I were first.  L came dramatically to the scene a few minutes later.  

And, from then on in, everyone pitched in to do what they could.

Then we all waited for two hours until the ambulance came.  The police took 45 minutes but the ambulance seemed to take forever.  

Their car is basically a write off.  

We have their stuff (boots and crap).  C took their food to his house  Their boat is still at the dock.  They are currently at the hospital.  R (husband) wanted someone to go to the house*** (see epilogue) and turn on the lights….none of us thought that made any sense so we didn’t do it. 

Anything you can do…..?

I don’t think so.  Not tonight.  They will likely be home tomorrow, next day for sure.  L may need a bit of surgery ….we don’t know the exact extent of her injuries but her mouth took a helluva smack.  And her forehead.  She was FLUNG hard.  But, after a few minutes, she was remarkably coherent and logical.   But she WAS smacked onto frozen concrete as hard as anyone can be and still be alive.  Had the car rolled one more turn she would have been crushed.  And that is a 20+ degree slope.  I really thought it was coming all the way down.  The open door saved her.  

The take-away for most of us was yet another reminder of how easily an accident can happen and, of course, the incredible response of the community when it does. In retrospect, we might have simply taken the chance, moved her into my car and taken her ourselves to the hospital but, like most people, we have been conditioned to leave it to the professionals and, of course, there may have been some other injury that our moving her would have exacerbated.

But – and it is a BIG BUT – this is not the city.  It took too long for the ambulance. Our neighbour was starting to suffer MORE simply because of the cold.  We managed to ‘do the right thing’ by the book but maybe NOT by the standards of common sense.

This is NOT a criticism of the ‘authorities’, the ‘professionals’ the ‘highly trained’ but, in truth, they are not as well trained in the circumstances we faced as the group of us were. The end of the road is a foreign element to the ‘professionals’.  The ambulance driver was not as able as any of us to drive that part of the road.  And, what takes me 45 minutes, took them 90.  Our own group had people with first aid experience.  We had already done the right thing – so far.

I am NOT saying we did the wrong thing to wait.  BUT I am saying that, as a group, we may have to take a bit more responsibility for decision-making simply because of the distance and the possible conditions we are often in….

“Would you do it differently, then?”

Yes.  L, herself, has extensive first aid training.  She is tough, sane, competent and knowledgeable.  Best of all, she is calm by nature and was soon coherent.  And all of us know the road.  Most of us have SUVs.  In hindsight, I would have waited till she was settled (a decision in itself) and, if L thought she could be moved, we would have tried it gently.  Had she urged us on, we would have transported her to the back of my Pathfinder (already at the bottom of the hill), and I would have simply driven her to MEET the ambulance.

I was carrying the VHF and our chainsaw.  And we were also lucky to have let the ‘impulse’ make me buy salt.  We were doubly lucky that one of the neighbours had a duvet.  And, then the salt…..I have never bought road salt in my life.  Total fluke.  I have never carried a blanket in the car, either.  But there will be some changes made along those lines for the future, I can assure you.

***EPILOGUE:  They are home.  They are in good spirits.  And I was wrong (not for the first time!).  One of their rescuers DID, in fact, go to the house and turn on the lights (they had a generator going that may have put in too much charge and ruin the batteries – it was the right thing to do).

SNOW!!!….and we are a smidge unprepared.  We are in the middle of a water project.  Not good timing.  Oh, well…...

We have two cisterns.  The tall 1500 gallon tank is up the hill, the other is the original 1100 gallon, 7 ft diameter squatter tank under the house.  It was put there because there was an accommodating rock ledge and it would be near the pumps and pipes, the demand-heater and the tank would be saved ultra violet degradation being out of the sun.  It has served us well for ten or so years.

But part of the ledge supporting it has shifted.  And the tank now hangs a bit where the ledge fell away. And that doesn’t bode well.  Eleven hundred gallons weighs 5 tons.  Should a full tank decide to make a break for it, it could take out the log-leg type foundation and more than the ledge would fall.

So, I decided to move it.

Over the last few days, Sal and I have drained and cleaned the tank.  That was not easy, it being so cold and wet and located in a tight space.  But it’s done.  Now would be the time to remove part of the foundation structure and move the tank out from under the house and move it up the hill as planned.  The damn thing weighs over 200 pounds and, with a little sludge still left in it, it feels like a ton.  I can move it if I hit it like a linebacker hits a tackling dummy but I am more like a dummy hitting a large and stubborn Sumo champion.  Nothing is moving much for me so far.

The hill I have get it up being covered in slippery-as-grease, snowy-wet moss doesn’t beckon me to try very hard either.

And here’s a mystifying challenge.  The opening in the foundation (when a support beam is removed) is 84″.  Which was what I expected since I built it.  And the tank has a diameter of 87″ which is 2″ more than I expected.  I remember the original placement being a tight fit, like putting a size eight foot in a size seven shoe but like the analogy, it can be done for a short time and that was all I needed to get it in.  I squeezed it in.  But now it looks like the foot has grown to EEE width?  Given that I can hardly move the damn thing and the plastic in this cold is less than flexible, I am having some second thoughts about attempting this trick right now.  I do not think I can squeeze it out.

The problem is that with the tank now empty, we are running a temporary line for water and it is always partially filled with air due to the placement of the upper inlet. Taking a shower is like being spat at.

So…….what to do…….as the temperature drops like a stone…..and the spittle is flying….and the desire to do it is waning…..?

The common sense answer is to re-plumb the upper hill tank to eliminate the air and do the squatter lower tank when the weather is warmer and I have a winch rigged up to pull a round tank through a square hole.  I.e. next spring.

Running that idea past Sally’s ‘let’s get ‘er done’ attitude is a challenge of another kind……makes the Sumo-thing look easy…….

And some people wonder what we do all day…..

………………..Good news!  Sally agreed to make it a Springtime project……woohoo!  Just as well…..a re-arranging of pipes brought the upper tank online and with no air in the lines…we are good……well, I am GOOD (and now warm again) but Sal has to go to work today at the post office.  Little boat in a blizzard disappearing into the gloom…..

We gather logs like squirrels gather nuts – for the winter.  But logs are heavier and sad to report, Sal’s not getting any stronger.  So, we have had to adjust the BTU collection process somewhat to suit our fading abilities.  So, this is the ‘ropes-on-logs’ piece mentioned in the last blog.

Just a typical OTG article. I’ve written it before.  This the elderly couple version.

First step is to find a floater log.  To us, a floater is a freedom-seeking runaway from some logging camp up the coast that managed to slip away unseen in the night or during a storm.  Typically these rovers are pretty small in diameter and represent no major loss to the clear-cutter who falls all ‘fiber’ that is ‘in the way’ but who also knows the skinny pieces are barely worth anything.

But we like ’em.

The reference to ‘floater’ is defined by us as the amount of log floating above the surface. We can see high or low floaters from our lofty perch.  And we prefer high.

There are a lot of successful escapees out there on the beaches and afloat at high tide but some of them have been free a long time and they have become waterlogged.  A log almost fully saturated becomes a deadhead with only one end protruding above the surface. We ignore ’em.  They are simply too much work to deal with.  They eventually just sink. There are tons and tons of super-soaked cut trees on the bottoms of the channels and in large lakes with logging operations.  It’s an incredible waste.

Usually we can spot and corral a dozen or so 30-foot logs in a year.  A perfect harvest year is 20 logs averaging 10-12 inches in diameter.  The biggest might have a 14 inch diameter, the leanest comes in at 8 inches.  We have only had one perfect harvest year so that knowledge keeps us on the lookout.

In a cold year where the fire-in-the-stove first starts say, October 1, and remains on pretty steady through until May 1, we would burn approximately 600 lineal feet of 8 to 12 inch diameter wood.   I am guessing at three or so cords.  Since we are always more than a year ahead in our wood inventory, we can burn what we need and still have the next year half to fully ready.

But then we have to ‘get head’ of the curve again.  “Time to get in some wood!”

By the time we are ready to actually work…..well, Sal has usually spotted, chased, corralled, towed and tied up at least ten before we consider it worth the effort to get going fer-real……so she has already worked.  We will now have at least two days of work ahead of us.  First I go to the lagoon where the ‘little dogies’ have been tied up and cut them into ten foot lengths.  So, in this example we turn ten 30-footers into thirty 10-footers.  And that requires more rope-tying and herding and bunching.  That did not use to be the days work.  It is now.

We now have 30 ten footers at the bottom of the hill approximately 120 feet from the top of the hill where we need them to be.  The hill is almost a cliff at 35 degrees. If you fall from the top, you get hurt before you come to stop a third of the way down. It’s a steep hill and haul.

I have a DIY-type winch setup that I did not do myself.  My friend, Warren did it.  He ‘married’ a 5 hp Honda to an old winch and I bolted it to a made-in-place steel frame that I cobbled together at the top of the slope. Connected together with v-belts working like a clutch, I rev up the engine and engage the winch. The 120 foot cable rides on a block rolling along on a fixed-in-place highline. It will haul 500 pounds up the hill easily.  It can’t do 750.

But before the winch does it’s work, Sally has wrapped a choke on the log (a heavy nylon belt), and then, using a block and tackle lifts one end of it so that it is free of getting caught as it is dragged up the hill.  And therein lies the reason for cutting the wood into 10 foot lengths.  Sal can lift ten footers – from one end, the other in the water.  Even twelve footers in a pinch.  Fifteen footers have her just hanging off the rope with the log refusing to get off it’s butt.

And then we haul.  A few minutes later the log is at the top, I lower it with the block and tackle, roll it out of the way and send the line back down to Sal for the next one. Fifteen or half the inventory did not use to be a full day’s work.  It is now.  So is the second batch of fifteen.  With the frequent breakdowns from the jury-rigged contraptions, the work may be stretched over three or four days.

When we get all the logs to the top, we are about 1/3 done.  There is still dragging, bucking, carrying, splitting and stacking to get it put away but we leave a vacation of time before we get back on that job.  We tell anyone who asks, “Well, letting ’em dry, eh?”

Is it a horrible job?  Not really.  It is always a bit nerve wracking until we have enough logs gathered.  It is an increasingly difficult chore for Sal to block and tackle the logs up and dragging logs and bucking them is a noisy and tiring affair with wood chips everywhere – especially my socks.  But, generally speaking, it is just one of those satisfying chores where you start and work and, when you finish, you have something essential stored away for future use.  We think like squirrels.

The dogs in the title of this blog is the term given to the spikes we drive into the logs so that tying a line to the log is easy. The cog?..well…mainly I just liked three rhyming words in the title, but technically the winch is a bunch o’ cogs, so all three terms apply.    ,

Logs on ropes next issue – probably.  But I have to indulge in politics once in awhile. Sorry.  This really should be about Christy and John sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! But we’ll get to that……….

Edward Snowden says the electronic voting booths were easily hacked and demonstrated that claim (allegedly) to the media with a $30.00 ‘card’ I guess he made or bought off the dark web.  “No biggy!” http://www.techly.com.au/2016/11/28/edward-snowden-shows-how-painfully-easy-it-is-to-hack-a-us-voting-machine/

Bear in mind, now, that Mr. Snowden is currently residing in Russia.  If he can do it from Russia, Ivan and Mikhail can, too.

And consider the latest amazing US election results that proved every modern poll wrong. Every political analyst was wrong, too.  In fact, everyone was WRONG except for Trump who said, “If Clinton wins, the system is rigged!”  That was a statement that, at the time, made me wonder how he could be so sure………unless, HE had the ‘fix’ already in the system.

So, am I nuts?  Paranoid?  Beyond cynical and now into conspiracy? Is the credibility of the US election not 100% discredited simply by Snowden’s card trick?

And yet no one is saying that out loud……………..well, Jill Stein is playing stooge-up-front for Hillary on a few recounts but the accusation is NOT being made….jus’ sayin’.  

When Bush stole the 2000 election from Gore, there were a lot of questions (the Republican biased Supreme Court ruled against a recount, Jeb Bush ran the state that determined the win and he had the counting overseen with the help of GW’s election campaign manager)….the appearance of justice and fairness was clearly wanting even if the results would have been the same.

And it is unlike the US to ‘avoid meddling’ in free elections.  They have a CIA history of doing just that all over the world.

Now – for the record and to help in this, my mental health diagnosis – let me add to my own lack of credibility: I do not believe one single word of the official explanation of 9/11.  Call me doubting.  Or nuts.  But two paper-thin airplanes cannot bring down two giant towers in a perfectly choreographed demolition.  Impossible. Beyond impossible.  It’s a fantasy.  It’s a lie.

So, what happened?  And why did Building 7 just decide to fall down in yet another perfectly controlled way?  It was not even hit!?  So, there is an obvious really BIG lie that just sat there OBVIOUS on the ground for a remarkably short time, I am sure.

But I digress.  The question is: am I nuts?  I KNOW I am not nuts for seeing what I see.  I KNOW I am not nuts for thinking what I think.  But am I nuts to say it out loud?  Maybe.  But there are, it seems, plenty of other much more credible nut-bars like me on those same two topics and many more.  I used to call them all conspiracy nuts.

Now?  Well, conspiracy theorists is easier to say……

Put in simpler terms: I do not know of one person (USA or Canada or Europe) that wanted Trump to win.  Maybe Eastern Seaboard ‘John’ (nice guy – different views). But that leaves hundreds of friends and contacts who were NOT on Trump’s side – admittedly not all of them registered to vote – but still……………..how does a guy internationally and domestically so disliked, pull that off?

Honestly? Democratically?  I just don’t think so………….it isn’t passing the smell test for me. 

……she thinks it’s for the best.  I didn’t argue.  It’s ’cause of her yoga, you understand……?  Let me explain……………

Sally heading out to walk the line

Every year our water system clogs up once, twice, sometimes a few times.  When that happens, we climb the hill, clean out the pick-up for the downhill pipe and then wait a few hours for the new flow to show up at our site almost a kilometer away. Our site is at elevation 70′ and the pick-up is at elevation 120′ and that head difference of fifty feet gives a nice flow into our cistern.  When it is flowing….

But, it is NOT QUITE that simple.  The kilometer long pipe lays along the stream bank and, of course, has joins.  Sometimes the joins freeze and break and then the pipe leaks.  The pipe has a few turn-off valves so that we can test one section versus another and, in freezing weather, sometimes they freeze and crack. But the freezing threat has been all-but-eliminated these past few warming-up years so any problems we have encountered usually come from something else.

The boat moored in the bay as Sally heads up the hill–the stream cannot be accessed from our place by land

And therein lies the rub.  “What else could possibly go wrong?”

Our water has been off for over a week but we had plenty in the cistern so Sal decided to wait and take a peek after yoga on Wednesday.  On Wednesdays, she is already in the boat and dressed for the occasion.  She’s also more limber and flexible than me (a water buffalo is more limber than me).

Sally walks up the easy part of the trail

She first clambered around this end of the property to see if there were any slipped joints, burst pipes or fallen trees messin’ things up.  But, after climbing up and down steep gullies in heavy bush carrying her repair tools she determined that this end was good.  Then she headed up hill to clear the pick-up and it was clogged so she thought she had it fixed.  But water still was not flowing.

The trail gets rougher…

Pouring rain didn’t help in an ironically cruel backdrop kind of way.

…and rougher

The second effort  (the next day) is to cruise the pipe as it is strung on the cliff (much of it impossible to get to) and to listen for water escaping. Difficult to hear a leak in a rainstorm.   Last summer, some mice or squirrels chewed through a length of pipe and that leak was discovered by listening and then seeing water spouting out.

But the second section seemed intact.  So, Sal took her boat further in to the bay and monkeyed her way through thick bush and slimy rocks to one of the valves and opened it.  That was the bottom-of-the-system valve and could be used to determine which side of the pipeline was at fault.  Water was in the system but NOT flowing after a few minutes.  The upper section was at fault.

She came home.  I made her hot chocolate.  Her hands were like ice.  She was soaked.  “I should get changed and go out again, do the top half.”

“Don’t do it.  We have water.  Tomorrow, I’ll go with you.  If it is a top half problem, it is either the pick-up which you just cleaned the other day or else it is a tree having fallen.  I’ll bring the chainsaw.”

“You’re right.  It’s already 4:00 pm.  I’d be up there in the dark.”

As it turns out, the top half is the easier half when it is just the pick up being clogged but, if it is something else, it is a real challenge.  The slope is steep and completely overgrown encumbered with dead-fall and half-in, half-out of the stream. It is awkward, tiring and even in the summer, you get soaked.

In the winter, you get frozen and soaked.

“I climb better than you.  I also wouldn’t want you on the slimy rocks.  They are treacherous right now.  So, I’ll figure out what the problem is first and, if we need you to chainsaw, then you can make your way up there.  OK?”

She took her walkie-talkie.  I have mine.  She is bushwhacking slowly up the ‘hard section’ as I write. I may have to join her.  I may not.  Maybe just another hot chocolate to make, maybe a schlep and a chainsaw….we’ll see.

Heading into the bay where the stream is, in Sally’s little Whaler

Epilogue: I joined her.  It was the third effort for her on this problem.  My first.  But she had found the break on the last effort but it was in an awkward spot deep in the jungle.  Brute, dumb strength was required.  So, dragging my knuckles and grunting, I went along to be carefully supervised by the more ‘experienced’ of us.  That does not always work.

Getting ready to cross the stream

Elephants and whales occasionally show their sentience.  But we generally obey. And why not?  My mahout is pretty good.  Rarely gets carried away with the stick.

Fixing the damaged water line–crushed by a fallen tree

Sal’s also eligible for her old age pension early this next year.  I am thankful they don’t pay that stipend judged on physical ability. She wouldn’t be eligible at this rate for another twenty years.  Maybe…..not even then….?

Looking upstream from where we fixed the water line

A woman stopped me in a store in Campbell River and asked me a question about the labeling.  “We’re new here.”

“New to the store or new to Campbell River?”

“We just moved here from Newfoundland two months ago.  Tell me…..is the weather always this bad?”

“Nah.  Sometimes it really rains.”  

Her jaw dropped.

“Hey!  I am only kidding.  Seriously.  It doesn’t always rain.  Sometimes it snows. But, you know, climate change and all that…now it is just rain and more rain. Allatime.  24/7.  But it isn’t cold anymore so we are happy.  And no mosquitoes. Earthquakes have been pretty light lately and so that is good. ‘Course, lots of people dying from Fentanyl so the death toll still remains high.  The good part of that is that it has lessened the demand for real estate, ya know…?”

“Oh my God!”

“I know!  Now is the time to buy.  Your timing is perfect.”

I left her, jaw agape, at the mushrooms.  She was there a long time.  I guess my label explanation was not clear.

We had arrived that morning on the early-for-us ferry at 9:00.  It was a bit rough.  So rough, in fact, the captain delayed departure by a few minutes explaining that we would still make the scheduled arrival but the less time spent out in the strait, the better.  (Think about that for a minute).  We arrived to the terminal in a roller coaster – literally.  I have seen a lot of big waves in my time but never have I seen 8-footers only thirty feet apart.  It was extreme chop.

We went about our business – which was minimal due to quite frequent visits over the last few weeks – and headed back early.  When we got to the terminal, we heard that they had stopped the ferry earlier in the day because it just got too rough.  But it was running when we were there and we got on and headed back.  When we got home a few hours later, Sal checked messages. We just received the notification that the ferry had stopped again on the very next sailing after we got back.  We managed to ‘slip’ between two ferry cancellations.

Some ‘Merican fishboat got caught out in that and was in serious peril so the coast guard went to rescue them.  But they could not move him against the tide, the wind, the current rips and the rain so they held up in a back eddy for a few hours till the worst of it abated.  The water was so bad in Johnstone Strait that day the Coast Guard couldn’t move!

You won’t read about any of that in the news (unless the woman squeals).  It is just an ordinary day, really.  Coast guard does a rescue, the ferry captain uses common sense and skill to maximize service while likely saving lives and adjusting the schedule as required.  Sal and I just went to the hospital for a test and did a little shopping.  Then we drove through the wilderness on a partially washed out logging road and made the last leg of our journey home in a small 17 foot boat during a torrential rain storm.

So……..how was your day?

I have, in the recent past, made the odd reference to my new status as the orphaned husband or widower-by-quilt and this blog is the proof of that pathetic circumstance.  I didn’t lose my wife to the postman, I lost her to fabric art!  This is her blog:

There are three things I know about myself that apply to my quilting:

1. I am one of those annoying people who believe the rules apply to everyone but me. (Editor’s note: Nothing.  JDC is NOT allowed to comment).
2. I love quirky stuff–be it movies, décor, or individuals (now you know one of the many reasons why David and I are together).
3. I have always loved fabric and believed that one day I would create fabric art, whatever form that might take.

I have used patterns occasionally but the quilts I have enjoyed making the most are the ones that come from who-knows-where. David told me that he thought readers would be interested in my creative process. Yikes! I didn’t realize I even had one.

I had to think about it.

I first thought about ‘Plum Crazy’. My daughter specified the colours she wanted so I purchased those. I looked at lots of quilts on-line. I had recently used metallic thread in a workshop and decided to incorporate that. The plum coloured fabric I bought reminded me of a moving blanket we had brought back from New York decades ago, in a similar colour, so I hand quilted Plum Crazy in a similar fashion.

So, the quilt was really just the result of a bunch of different ideas percolating around in my head and gelling at some random point. Is that a process?

‘Plumb Crazy’ made for my daughter and our son-in-law.  E. specified plum, black and white for the colour scheme–which translated into my design of stylized birch trees. Hand quilting on the plum background and machine quilting (silver thread) on the trees.

What was the process for ‘Black and White and Read  All Over (pun intended)? Not so complex. I just wanted to use black and red, my son’s favourite colours, and found a quilt on-line that I liked and figured out how to make a similar one.

‘Black and White and Read All Over’  made for my son and daughter-in-law because red and black are my son’s favourite colours. It doesn’t fit with their décor (or probably anyone’s) so it has an attached bag that turns it into a black pillow when not in use. Copied from a similar quilt I saw on-line.

For Sharon’s little baby, Rachel’s, quilt I picked out some pretty pink fabrics and sewed them together in a simple framed block design with a little hand quilting. Quick and easy so I could get it to Hong Kong before she goes to kindergarten.

Rachel with her mom and dad and her ‘Pretty in Pink’ quilt

The ‘Sashiko Sampler’ came about because I had recently discovered Sashiko stitching. I love the contrast of the white stitches on indigo cloth and the beautiful traditional Japanese designs. I started stitching 6″ by 6″ Sashiko squares, not having a plan in mind. When I had finished a bunch I bought some Japanese fabrics that complemented the indigo and made quilt blocks. Then I laid the fabric blocks and Sashiko squares out on a countertop. I liked the off-white colour of the counter between the squares. I consulted with Leon and Ole, two tall, male German wwoofers who were staying with us at the time, and they agreed. So the sashing became whitish. When I put the quilt top together I could see that the little bits of orange colour in some of the fabrics could be accentuated with an orange strip in the binding so I added that to brighten the quilt. Voila!

‘Sashiko Sampler’ – My design using  traditional Japanese stitching with white thread on indigo cloth. Details bel0w:

Signature block on back of quilt

‘Garden Path’ – design from a quilt workshop. Detail below shows the variegated hand stitching on black:

The quilt below is made from Kaffe Fassett fabric. Kaffe is a famous knitter and quilter, who tours the globe like a rock star, welcomed by droves of mostly middle-aged (and older) knitting and quilting groupies. Anyway, it is his books of quilt designs that inspired me to start quilting. And when I saw a bag full of his fabric for sale at one of our Quilting Guild meetings I nabbed it. This quilt is fashioned after one of his designs called Mirror Squares. I loved working with this fabric–it is so bright that it is really uplifting, especially on a bleak rainy day. It always gives me a lift when I look at it, which is a good thing, as I spent over a hundred hours doing the hand quilting, in addition to the cutting and machine piecing.

Based on a Kaffe Fasset design, using his fabric, unnamed as yet. Shown hanging in the local Credit Union on our neighbouring island. (Detail above illustrates the spiral hand quilting.)

Still fascinated by Sashiko stitching, I wanted to try mending with it, which was how it was originally used. I must have planned on making a denim quilt for years as I had a huge box of old denim garments. I combined these two aspects with a third. (I had learned a new way to assemble a quilt as I sewed.) I started cutting out pieces and putting them together and ‘Workmates’ is the result. I found that the ‘real’ tears and holes on the garments were too dirty and fragmented to be effective for the look I was going for. So after I made the quilt I ripped tears and holes in it to repair. It was a lot of fun to make. I still have almost a full box of remnants so there will be more denim quilts.

‘Workmates” using old denim shirts and jeans that David and I wore out while building our home. Sashiko stitching used in the traditional manner to repair tears and holes. My design, natch. Detail below.

David loves the appliqued pencil, just like his in real life.

‘Moonshadow’ is a combination of fabrics I found interesting and put together in a bit of a random way by cutting strips and blocks off kilter. I like the colours in this one. I made a sister quilt which is almost identical, except I used reds, oranges and beiges, which I expected would be brighter. Surprisingly (to me, anyway) it is very monochromatic and has none of the life that ‘Moonshadow’ has.

I am working on my  ‘Moonshadow’ design at the moment, adding some hand quilting.

After what I wrote above I now feel I have to show you the sister quilt, ‘Walking on Sunshine’. I don’t like it–not YET.  And it is kind of stupid to end with something horrible. So, I am still working on it.  However, if anyone has any suggestions on how to salvage it, I’m listening.

‘Walking on Sunshine’ -yuk

I just realized I am writing when I could be quilting. Bye.

A few months ago, Sal suggested writing a fiction novel about an older Canadian couple down in the southern US on a snowbird vacation.  The story line would revolve around what happens to them when Donald Trump takes over the presidency.  The ‘third act’ of the novel would be a cheap B action-filled escape to the Canadian border with militiamen, bigots and ordinary-but-fearful-and-armed Americans at every turn.

I dismissed it.  “Sal…..it can’t work.  First, you have to have Trump win and that doesn’t seem likely.  And then you have to have old, fat white people the target of old, fat white bigots…such a couple would likely get a pass from the all-but-insane of the camo-wearing hate-mongers.  Too crazy to work.”

We’re scheduled to go to Phoenix for a getaway in January- just before the Donald takes office.  We’ll be there when he does.

I am having second thoughts.

Seems hate crimes are up by 67% since Trump won.  To be fair, most of them are against Muslim women and amount to hijab-snatching and insults but more than just a few include people of colour attacking old, fat white people.  In the first instance, I am assuming the Muslim women were innocent and said nothing to provoke the snatch and dis attack but, in the second, there may have been some provocation from the white guy.  Or not.  I suppose, it is entirely possible that some poor old white guy encountered some mean Bloods, Crips or even Muslims.

But, the point is: hate crimes are up already.

And, it seems, a lot of loud-mouthed bigots are giving voice to their joy over Trump’s victory.  That’s provocative.  Even Robert DeNiro wanted to punch Trump. I can’t imagine what a testosterone driven, young Mexican who just wet-backed across the border to work cheap for rich people must feel like.

Summary: bad feelings abound.

So, here’s the scene: old, white, Canadian, vacationing couple decide to drive a few hundred miles to visit another city.  It’s not late but it’s late dusk as they crest a small hill nearing their destination. Five hundred yards ahead is a cluster of cars and pick-up trucks.  A group of ten or so men in camouflage are standing around.  A few guns are visible.  The couple stops their vehicle a few hundred yards short of the ominous scene.  Reports of volunteer border militia come to mind.

But….everyone in this scene is white.

Do they continue on, confident in their white-ness?  Or do they think that ‘being Canadian’ might be as bad as ‘being black’ or Muslim or Mexican?  Do they consider that it might NOT be an illegal border patrol but simply a band of highway robbers?  Do they take the chance?

In my imagined scene, the old guy decides that discretion is the better part of valor and executes a quick u-turn and puts his foot down heading back to where they came from.

But there’s a problem.

The cluster of road-blocking vigilantes anticipated this and had three or more vehicles parked back in that direction.  They were in the shadows as the old couple passed a minute or so ago.  And they are now blocking the return route.  As the old guy’s truck hits close to a hundred miles per hour, he sees the trucks parked across the road up ahead and decides, on impulse, that hitting the desert (he has a 4×4) is the better route.  He slows, picks his spot and then veers off the road and heads out into the darkening wasteland hopeful that the nut-bars don’t follow.

Problem #2 is that, after traveling for a few hours to get to that nasty roadside attraction, his truck’s fuel level is relatively low.  There is not enough gas to get back especially doing it cross country.

Plus, it is now almost dark and he has no idea where he is.  Not really.

In his rear view mirror, he sees a set of lights coming.  It seems that one of the bad guys is willing to give chase.

……………and so………….it begins.