So, the poll is in: the majority of the advice is ‘be yourself’.  The second one is: ‘be yourself off the grid’.  So, we aren’t going fictional.  We aren’t doing a mystery.  No how-to.  Back to Dave and Sally frolicking OTG.  Great input.

OUR LIFE OFF THE GRID – The Geriatric Years

Which reminds me of a small problem….we don’t frolic much anymore.  Oh, we gambol like the little (old) lambs we are now and again.  We jump for joy (or because of a bare wire shock or a sharp point intrusion on the skin) once in awhile.  Sal jumps.  I might convulse or go into spasm. We even skip the trail lightly on a lovely day (well, Sal does.  I lumber down the trail ponderously like a hungover hippo but I am happy despite all indications otherwise).

The point: we aren’t as much into the ‘doing’ heroically as we were ten years ago.  Sal refuses the high tower competition, for instance.  I can’t get her to climb up the tower for love or quilting supplies.  She is balking at any more construction, too.  We both still seem OK with the chopping and schlepping but even that is being done without our usual smiley happy faces on.   But the nice faces come back when we have tea break.  Our desire to risk our physical well-being to add to the empire has waned somewhat.  What was once a grand adventure is now a grand lifestyle. Which is still very good.  We want this but we want it now without working too hard.

We are very lucky.  We managed to put in the time when we could.  We did what we could when we could.  We kept at it for as long as we could and we are 90% there with only a second bathroom and the greenhouse to finish.  Oh yeah…the lower funicular still has to be wired up when the motor controller comes.  But I think we cut it kinda close, to be frank. Age is catching up.  We did all that when we could and we know that because we are not as good or energetic at it as we were.  We get tired.

This year was the first year I felt old.

I am NOT old.  But I felt it.  I don’t like that feeling.  I preferred last year.  Or the one before that.

We went to town for a shop when the storm was blowing full-tilt the other day.  And, we came home yesterday with it all when it was dark and as cold as 7 of 9’s smile.  And everything felt heavier to carry (mostly because it was – we packed heavy this time).  We got in to the house with a temperature of 6C and it has taken til now to get it warm and comfortable.  It’s blowing November chills at about 20-25 mph and Sal went to bookclub today in the boat picking up a few locals on her way.  And all of that is just fine.  We love that.   Wonderful, actually.

But the point is: it was all just a little bit harder.  It is getting harder because we are getting older.  It is NOT the adventure that has become harder, it is we who have become wussier.  We are feeling it.

Feeling it is another way of saying ‘feeling alive’ and that is 90% still the reason for it all. But I knew I would get old or die trying and that meant that I had to plan ‘assists’ and aids for when I needed them.  And I could really use that lower funicular right now.  But it will come. It is close.  I am smidge late on that but not by much.  And I can still do everything and will likely be able to still do everything for a few years more even if I do not have the funicular and other physical aids to help me.  We are still healthy.  We are not infirm.  We are good.

But I want it to stay that way for as long as possible and that means getting in the aids and the assists as soon as possible.  Time marches on and my marching days with heavy loads are drawing to a close.  Time to finish up the empire so that Sal can quilt and I can do what I do best……

…which will be my next goal – to find out what that is.

A reader commented the other blog that ‘they are looking forward to my next book‘.  That was nice. Much appreciated.  But I could use a little help in that regard, if you don’t mind.

I am getting close to churning out another three hundred pages of gibberish (actually, it requires about 1000 pages so that Sal can cut and slash, lacerate and trash, reject and rewrite it down to 300).  But close is the operative word.  I haven’t started yet. I am having directional problems.  My literary GPS is out of whack.

What to write about?

“Never mind, honey, don’t sweat it.  You might be just a one-hit bit of mediocrity, anyway. Maybe you should take up cooking?”  Sal is losing her motivation in the kitchen and it is amazing how many times she suggests I turn my hand to the culinary arts rather than worry about the literary ones.  Support like that is hard to find.

“No.  I think this is something I have to do.  My fan base has needs.  And I need to fill ’em.  And, right now, the fan base is really quite small – in the dozens, if not less – and so the task is made so much easier by that.  If I write for Dwayne, Sid, John and DC, I should be good for the other dozen or so anonymice (my pluralization of anonymouses)”.

“Well, whatever you do, do not write about OTG.  I don’t think I can handle it.”

“OK.  Fine.  But waddya got?  Ya want me to do a mystery involving murders committed at bookclubs?  Quilting during the apocalypse?  Pregnant orphaned lepers living in culverts in Bangladesh fighting back at sexist factory owners?” (Chick-lit is full of that kind of stuff).

“You don’t know enough about quilting.  So, no!  Not that.”

“OK.  That leaves culverts, lepers, the apocalypse and Calcutta.  Is that what you are suggesting?”

“Well, I kinda like an apocalypse in Mexico plot where we are trapped in a resort in Puerto Vallarta with our dogs and have to scramble our way back home.  Has to be a comedy, of course.  Make one of the dogs pregnant if you want.”

“One of the dogs?  Shouldn’t the pregnant one be a given? And I am not so sure that an escaping elderly couple in Mexico with dogs during the apocalypse is the best foundation for humour.  You thinkin’ zombies, too?”

“No.  Of course not.  Now you are just being silly.”

“Right.  Of course.  I am just being silly.  But I am also being sincere.  I really do not know what to write about next.  I really think I am onto something with this ‘Old people OTG-thing.  I think it resonates.  I think I should do OTGll – The geriatric years.”

“Well, I am not keen on reading more about your ineptness and accidents.  It’s bad enough  living with it.  Have you considered writing a cook book?” 

It is clear I have to seek outside advice from people sane and grounded.  Do any of you know someone?

We met Billy Proctor and his co-writer, Yvonne Maximchuk, at the Campbell River Museum yesterday.  It was their latest book launch, Tide Rips and Back Eddies – Billy Proctor’s Tales of Blackfish Sound.

Yvonne is close to our age.  Billy is in the dwindling generation ahead.  He’s in his early to mid eighties.  Still fishing.  Still hunting. Still doing what Billy has always done – living in the great outdoors, off the grid and with the sea.  Billy is the real deal — west coast to the bone. Grew up and lived his entire life catching salmon, hunting deer, growing veggies and picking berries.  His mind is sharp, his body is strong and he has a great sense of humour just tickling at the surface of everything he says.

We should all be so healthy.

Yvonne is NOT his wife.  It’s Yvonne and Albert who are married (read the book).  Yvonne WAS his wife who passed away a few years back.  Two different Yvonnes.  YM is Billy’s friend and past-time deckhand when he fished more regularly.  It was YM who prompted Billy to start writing with their first book, Full Moon and Flood Tides, and that was not easy at the time — Billy could read but he could not write, neither literally nor figuratively. His signature is still chicken scratch.  But he persevered and he is now a full-on author as well as a west coast icon, museum curator, and growing legend.

I like Billy Proctor.

And I like Yvonne Maximchuk.

The reasons that spring to mind are that they are ‘authentic’ and ‘real’.  Then, maybe, amusing and honest with shades of kindness and a clear and strong passion for life.  You could do worse than have those two in your immediate community, methinks.

But what a deal!  OMG!  They came down for the book launch from the Broughton Archipelago.  Long boat ride.  Long car ride.  Long book launch (four hours what with the preparation, presentation and the obligatory book signing).  Then, when it was done, they packed up the old dog-and-pony bookstore and headed off to Sidney to do a repeat performance.  It was a lesson in book promotion that did not appeal to either Sal nor I.

(Which, I guess, is obvious since we haven’t done any except rely on word of mouth.)

“GAWD!!!  Small room, dozens of people (fifty plus) and an hour or so of reading excerpts from one’s book?  I can’t do that, Sally.  I wouldn’t last thirty minutes.”

“Neither would I and not in the least because I can’t stand listening to your stories for the hundredth time unless there are weeks of breaks between them.  Even then, it is tough. Thirty straight minutes or more and I’d have fifty witnesses testifying against me on homicide charges!  Actually, there’s a good chance they’d all be charged as accessories, too.”

“Is that how book launches work?  And, if so, why do ’em?  Can’t be for the book sales. Even if all fifty of us bought books that still does not add up as a financial incentive when you consider that the expenses for the launch had to be more than what the sale proceeds were.”

“Maybe they do it for the fun?” 

“Well, the first few times would be fun but what about the fifth time in three days?  Wouldn’t that feel a bit stale if not, at least, exhausting?”

“Well, I’m glad they did it.  It was great meeting Yvonne and Billy remembered our book club’s visit this summer.  I feel as if I have a connection.  Plus Billy liked your book.  Said it was funny and you had the right take on bureaucrats, to his way of thinking.”

“The best part for me was getting his opinion on the environment.  A guy who has lived, breathed and literally been fully immersed in the west coast for over eighty years has a truth and a perspective that has to be more accurate than the mumbo- jumbo and gibberish of politically slanted Department of Fisheries reports.  He didn’t have much time for the DFO, that’s for sure.”

“No.  But the main message seemed to be that the west coast is always changing and he has seen it all.  Billy has expectations of cycles but an equal expectation of cycles interrupted.  ‘You never know’, seemed to be the lesson.”

“Well, that is sure true for us too, sweetie.  We don’t know squat.  And likely never will.  Life is a crap shoot and it seems to be that way for everyone — even Billy and Yvonne.  And, if it isn’t a crap shoot, it would be boring. So, I guess the Chinese have it right: “May you live in interesting times”.

Last day of the elementary level of Conflict Resolution was yesterday.  All kids received their ‘certificates’.  I am glad it is over.  But it was fun.

On the last day, the kids did role plays.  They first argue about some false issue I give them and then they use the tools they were introduced to to resolve it.  Of course, kids can’t really ‘act’ 100%, and they revert to ‘self’ pretty quickly but they gave it a shot and they demonstrated that they knew the tools.  Basically.  It was not hard to praise them. But the best part were some of the solutions.

To the 8 year old who was appointed the president, owner and CEO of an oil company in Alberta meeting with an environmentalist (9 years old), the solution arrived at was to sell the company, close the valves and start a cotton farm together.

To the brother and sister who had the house to themselves over the weekend and it was a mess with the parents on their way home, the solution was to stop blaming each other and simply lock the doors, go to bed and pretend to have been sick for the entire time the parents were away.

They failed the ‘test the solution’ part of the process.

To the 60 year old volunteer who was married to the 12 year old and arguing about child care, the solution was to divorce, move next door and hire a nanny (a solution Jack Nicholson, the actor, made famous in real life).

“What are you going to teach next?”  Asked the teacher.  “I was thinking of stand-up comedy but they already know that better than I do.”

Maybe we’ll let that teaching opportunity mellow for, oh, say, a year?

After class, we went to the other island to work on the car.  It was sputtering and running poorly.  I had used my low-cost diagnosis computer-reader to determine that it was the computer-connected mass air sensor (MAS) that was the culprit.  You Tube suggested spraying it with a special cleaner.  Further googling revealed that the special cleaner is 99% rubbing alcohol. So, pouring a small amount of that in to a small container, we went over and removed the MAS, immersed it in alcohol and shook it up.  Then we replaced the part and tried the car. Perfect.

The remedy suggested by the mechanic in Vancouver (the sputtering has been going on for a while but we drive little) was a $700 replacement part and, of course, labour and taxes.  The part is the size of a lollipop and consists of two filaments like that found in a small incandescent light bulb.  $700 seemed extreme.  Lordco parts quoted $650.  The filaments were intact so replacing the part seemed ridiculous.  And a chimp could do the labour.

So, we did it.  All in all, we felt pretty good about our day.  But should we have?

The main underlying lesson of teaching conflict skills is that conflict is not only common, it is perpetual.  “If you guys want a career that has a never-ending supply of customers, consider becoming a mediator.  You will never run out of work.”

AND: “You are destined to fight a lot over the next few decades of your life.  May as well get trained.”  What a lesson!

The second lesson was – no one fixes anything anymore.  They just replace it with a new part.  Plug, play and pay.  In this case, the mechanic was NOT obviously crooked but simply analyzing at a superficial level and replacing the part without even considering fixing (in this case cleaning) the part. No wonder life is so expensive.  Especially in the city.  Who, in the city, has the time to analyze and fix their own car?  Delegating to specialists wouldn’t be so bad if it was necessary but that little example would have cost $1000.00.

And I would have had to make $1300 to pay the taxes to pay the bill that included $150.00 in more taxes.

Is it just me?  Or does our whole bloody system need some major in-depth analysis and some very diligent reaming and cleaning?

Death, I mean.  By drowning.  We lost a few people out here again recently.  And a few more came pretty damn close. The poor British whale-watchers off Tofino, a few salmon fishermen near Campbell River and a guy off a 60 footer just a few miles from us.  I don’t know the numbers but more than a few people drowned in October in our local waters.

Bang!  One minute they were dry, the next they were in the water and feeling very, very alone.  It is unpleasant at the very least, panicking for most people and completely disabling for some. Keeping your wits about you is the first thing for survival but even that will only buy you a little time. If you don’t panic, you will immediately start to worry.  And with good reason.  Hard to swim fully clad. Distances to shore can be taxing.  Darkness doesn’t help.  And disorientation becomes a major factor as hypothermia sets in.

Hypothermia is the really big danger to face and it is always the winner if you engage with it too long. They say, being immersed for 20-25 minutes and it will begin to work at you and I am sure they are right but many bulky, well-clad types have managed a few hours so long as they could keep moving.  Regardless, getting out of the water doesn’t eliminate hypothermia but it at least increases your chances.  People on land still die of exposure from accidents of this kind.

We tend to ‘accept’ our environment as having danger but not really as being dangerous.   And it is. And being is different than having.  Being dangerous is like Black Widow spiders or an angry hippopotamus.  Or being surrounded by water.  The danger is always present even if it is not presenting in the moment.

But having danger is more like a gun.  Unloaded, locked away or dismantled, a gun no longer has the potential for danger.  You can neutralize it.  Deep, cold, moving water is simply always dangerous.  The drowning danger out here cannot ever be neutralized even with life jackets and the ever-ready coast guard.  People with life jackets drown all the time if they are left in the freezing water too long.

It is almost impossible to see that when you live with it every day.  Jump in the boat, get mail, see a friend, do a little beachcombing……all good.  But maybe just a half hour from disaster at any given moment.  And I have been there.  Got wet.  Got frightened a couple of times.

No one plans to fall in.

I suppose heavy urban traffic is much the same.  But, heavy traffic seems like the danger it is. It presents as ugly.  And we have measured that danger pretty accurately.  Over 30 000 people die from traffic accidents in the USA every year while Canada has about 2000 to 3000.  Traffic fatalities have killed more people than all the world wars put together. Traffic is an omnipresent danger, and we see that, we know that and yet, we tend to be accepting and unconscious of it most of the time.  We wouldn’t get around much if we looked at urban traffic as the danger it really is.

We are like that, too, about the water.  We see it as ‘occasionally’ dangerous, not omnipresent dangerous.  We are only really vigilant in bad weather or at night.  During the day, we are complacent.  And we are wrong.  More so than traffic watchers actually. Maybe because somehow the water seems more benign, less threatening.

We are proven wrong about that every year by losing some poor soul to the sea.  This year no exception.

Making frames for the greenhouse glass, I am.  1 x 1 angle steel welded together to make a ‘T’ and then, in the middle of the length, an upside down four foot long ‘T’ to sister onto the 9 foot long right-side up ‘T’.  Makes a + profile.  I am hoping that it is strong enough.  It is, I am sure, but the glass is heavy.  Maybe 300 pounds for each of the three  9 x 5 sections of double-paned glass on the roof?

The problem is not the steel, it is me.  I am not the world’s best welder (maybe the worst) and I also made the angle of the roof pretty shallow (10 degrees) so it is just a bit better than flat.  Kinda had to – given the various configurations of puzzling out the odd-sized panes to try to make a box of any kind.  It has been a challenge, this greenhouse, and it is not over yet.

I mention all this for a few reasons.  One, I have other things to do and having to do this project now on my third iteration, I am irritated.  I should be further along.  And there is little if any guarantee number three is the charm.  I may end up with the Greenhouse Mark Vll edition or worse.

A second reason is that time marches inexorably and it is now November.  The 2015 Greenhouse may very well become the 2016 Greenhouse.  And it is unlikely to be ready in time to try growing anything this winter.  Did I mention that I was irritated?

A third reason is my lack of zen-ness over this sort of thing.  Zen-types don’t get irritated. And THAT irritates me all the more.  I’d like to punch a zen-type smack in the face right about now.

Breathe……10….9…8….7…..

“If that is all you have bothering you, you are pretty lucky, sweetie!”

She’s right, of course.  I am very lucky and that is about all I have bothering me.  The rest of it?  I am pretty happy.

Still, I have chores and they are piling up again.  Mostly because I have cut my hard four-hour day down to an easy just-short-of-four hours a day.  I get going by 12:30 and quit at 4:30 but, well, you know…if it is raining…or I am expecting an e-mail….or the mail came….need a cup of tea……  OK, maybe I should be describing it as a hard three-hour day?

Winter does that to me.  The weather, the lack of light, the cold, the rain…just makes you less inclined to get out there and build, ya know?  I am not alone.  Most of the locals ‘hibernate’.  They may wait a bit longer – like January – but they hunker down, too.  I am really just acclimating, getting assimilated into the local sloth-like culture.  I may even be eligible for head sloth this year.

Now THAT would be a competition.  A lot of contenders for head sloth out here.  Some of them pretty good at it, too.  Been slothing a long time, some of them.  Real veterans.  But the question is really oxymoronic, isn’t it?  Sloths competing at slothdom?

Never mind.

I guess what I am saying (to myself) is that I have to get off the rock sometime this winter. I have hardly been off at all this year so far.  It was a great year for staying put.  And I am OK with that but it does make your world smaller.  Something shrinks a bit.  Moss grows on your shoes.  You pretty much have to re-immerse yourself in to the simmering cauldron, the stinkin’ cesspool, the maelstrom of madness we call civilization (for short) now and then, I think, to get some perspective.

I balk, of course. But I also notice my perspective narrowing if I don’t go exercise it.  I may have to get out a bit this winter.

And then take a long hot shower and vow never to do it again. 

That is what I am saying.

So, old guys, eh?  Loners, grumpy, ugly, anti-social…what’s there to like?

Well, if we are talkin‘ the old guys themselves, there is not too much.  Trust me.  I know some of ’em. Turns out, I am one.  Yuck!

‘Cept that ‘loner’-thing kinda keeps us hidden from view and, as a rule, we don’t tend to get as regularly underfoot as say, bookclub members or visitors or young people…ya know? I mean, there’s a lot to be said for some old dude hidin’ out in the forest who knows how to do stuff but doesn’t wander into the general marketplace of life very often.  He’s kind of a hidden natural resource.  Think Yoda.

OK, Shrek is close enough.

But, if we’re talkin’ about being one of them old guys, well, that’s another perspective altogether. Being an old recluse is a recipe for personal bliss.  ‘Specially, if you got a workshop and a beautiful, sweet wife who can cook as a bonus package.  Then?  Well, then it just doesn’t get any better. Shrek and I are both very lucky but I am the luckier of the two (have you seen Fiona?!).

As you can tell, you prescient ones, this is a slightly-late Thanksgiving blog.  It’s the end of the harvest season and, although we still reap and pay at Save-On, harvest at Costco, we still put away stores for the winter and we tend to hunker down some.  Now and then.

I.e: the fire is on every day now.

We got it partly right again and it was a bountiful, happy year for us.  And next year promises to be even better when the greenhouse comes on line.   We are thankful.   I am very, very thankful.  It was a very good year and our cups runneth over.

So do the freezers.  We got stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Frozen stuff.  And we are getting to that time of year when the sun don’t shine and we have crap stuffed in dark places (freezers). That means less electricity and inevitable thawing.  Or running the genset. Or eating a lot of frozen stuff. We are opting for eating our way out of this problem and then shutting off the summer electrical powered freezer.

Now there’s an OTG tactic I never considered – seasonal freezer use skillfully timed to coincide with depleting food levels.  Timing, they say, is everything.

Actually, timing is more than everything, it is critical to survival.  We are running out of fuel and, even though we are pretty frugal in that department, we still rely heavily on a small amount of gasoline for boats and gensets – especially in the winter.  And this month, we are cutting it a bit too fine. Fuel barge comes in a week.  We have three to four days of normal-use fuel left but, with care, we will make it.  I may look around for an extra tank.  I hate seeing the bottom of tanks.

Our summer friends are back in the city dealing with lawn care, doctors, socializing, visiting, Film Festival, bills, traffic, neighbours, rules, Starbucks and forced exercise regimes not to mention strata council meetings, parking, shopping and maybe even working still.   If not working then providing free day care for their working children.  Then there’s the doctor’s appointments that result from the first doctor’s appointments mentioned in sentence one.  Specialists, don’t you know?   Home, boat and car maintenance.  And the list goes on.

Well, not out here.  Out here it is quiet.  Sally quilts.  I look at Honda repair manuals. Scotch and Netflix follows a fabulous day and even better dinner.  It would almost be hard to be grumpy if it weren’t bred so deep into the older male’s DNA.

Nature knows what it is doing.

….we are ‘on’ the greenhouse again.  Work is progressing.  Things looking good.  This is a very positive step for mankind, if not just a little embarrassing for me.  I have to admit; I need Sal.  I need her nagging.  I need her strong pair of hands.  I need her ‘Let’s do this thing!’ attitude.  I even need her somewhat abbreviated attention span – such as it is: ‘Hey, look!  A squirrel’.

Don’t ask me why.  I just need it, OK?

The empire is slowly getting to the finish line.  Of course, it will never BE finished but the scope of the plan is almost complete, the planned jobs have all at least been started (save the guest bathroom but it is a must do and so will get done next) and we can kinda see an end in sight to major construction projects.  Which is good because we are already starting to see major maintenance projects looming up so, like I said, it never ends.

But it does slow down.  OMG have we slowed down!  Well, I have slowed down. Sal has been more distracted and, for the last year, by more than just squirrels and playing fetch in the middle of chores.  Now she has quilting on the brain.  Addicts have habits.  But Sally has all consuming obsessions.  And Quilting is looming to being the biggest one yet.

Anyway, she wanted to quilt and I am man, spell me m-a-n and so I went on to start the greenhouse a month or so ago without her.  Trust me, I did not go graciously to the site but, like I said, she was obsessed.  And so I had to go.

It wasn’t hard to go it alone. Not in the beginning.  ‘I can do this’.  Measuring long things without someone at the other end is a pain sometimes but not so much.  Lifting things into place is awkward and a smidge unsafe at times but planning your work eliminates much of that (or so I am told) and holding things in place while you put in a nail or screw can be tricky but, in a pinch, she would come out.  I started my work with confidence.

Best laid plans…mice…m-e-n.  

Even the first few mistakes did not daunt me.  Not too mcuh.  Mistakes are my mddile name.  I am comfortable with mistakes.  We spend a lot of time together.  Having to take the frame down more than once was getting on my nerves but, really, I am n-a-m and sllep me anyway that will just stay up for a $%$#@! second!

It got annoying.

“Hey, Sal….?  You know how you are always bugging me to measure twice and check with the plan or the directions and bugging the hell out me when we build with squirrels and crap?”

“Yes, sweetie.  I know I drive you crazy.”

“Well, it would appear that I need that.  I am much the worse for working alone.  In fact, I can’t seem to get anything done without your nagging and asking stupid questions.  I may even need to have the squirrels pointed out to me now and then.  I really don’t know at this point what the correct way to do anything is anymore.  I am shaken.”

“That’s fine.  I’ll put down my quilting and help.  Be right out.”

Whew.

“So, sweetie.  What are we building again?  Is this the greenhouse or the spare bathroom? And have you seen the fantastic Marigolds blooming so late?  Come see!  They are just beautiful, don’t you think?  Did you bring my gloves?  Do you want me to bring tea?”  

“OK, I admitted it.  I admitted it out loud with people nearby and I am sincere.  I need you. I really need you.  But surely that does not mean that you can immediately start the job with a string of goofiness.  Marigolds!  Please.  Not that fast.  Please….I need to adjust to it, the madness, the tangents, the questions….just give me a bit of time to get used to such stuff…OK?”

“OK, sweetie.  But what are we doing?  All I see is materials lying about and I thought you had been hard at work on it for the last week or so?  And so where is the plan?  And did you bring my gloves or not? And why are you being so mean to the Marigolds?”

Medically assisted suicide should be legal but there really should be a lot of checks and balances, ya know?  It should NOT be easy. Jus’ sayin’…………..  

We have one.  Five people sit on the local board.  They meet monthly.  Half of them get elected every two staggered years. Their principle job is to manage and make decisions on the ‘community’ land and buildings that we have including the community house, the workshop and the gymnasium.  It’s not a big job but one of Murphy’s laws is that each job expands just beyond the time allotted for it so we get some ‘issues’ now and then.

Mostly the ‘issues’ we get arise from something other than the buildings and they can be anything.  If the local grant application for whatever needs support, our board may be the official community voice for our collective sentiment on the matter.  If someone wants to take the initiative on anything from a local business to a political stand or even apply for a grant, they would first try to get board blessing….that sort of thing.

The primary function of the board at the political level is that the regional district uses them as the ‘contact’ entity whenever the larger government presence wants to get our attention.

And they fundraise.  But they don’t do it actively.  It is passive fundraising.  They are always fundraising because they always need the funds.  Even a roof repair on an old building needs new materials and so there is a constant hand out and there is a constant dribble in. But they rarely ask for anything.  People just give a little now and then.  We sell our book at the local post office and the proceeds (after printing costs) go to the board. That sort of thing.  And several people do that kind of thing in different ways.  Plus we have a membership fee.  Plus you can subscribe to the community newsletter.  I have no real idea but I am guessing that the board raises in the neighbourhood of $1000 a year (not counting the odd grant) and that seems to keep us in nails and glue.  It’s a good system. Mostly.

Big projects are harder to do for a society that operates with a gross annual income of $1000 and a gross annual expenditure of $999.  The workshop renovation actually required applying for and getting a $11,000 grant (I think it was that much).  We did all the work, the money only went for hard goods, materials and such.  That job would have cost $50,000 in the city if it had been undertaken and we did it all for 22% of that.

I mention all this because this summer saw another small influx of new people join the larger community.  Probably gained almost a dozen now in two years.  And, at the last two annual elections, new people stepped up.  So, the board will continue.  New people will add to the synergy, the energy and likely add some good ideas as well.  We will continue to prosper small and live tiny Green.

We had no Harpers to depose, no real electioneering went on, I doubt that anyone actually even spoke at the meeting – not to GET elected, anyway.  They just put up their hands to volunteer and were likely voted in by acclimation.  They won’t cheat or steal from the funds, make stupid moves to rattle sabers at the other islands, they will balance the budget such as it is.  They will do their job.  There will be no corporate pay-offs.  No one will be charged with anything or have to resign. The RCMP won’t investigate or even taser and jump on any backs.  And the community will continue to welcome newcomers with open arms.

Democracy OTG style.

Sal’s (and mine) nephew and niece are with us.  And it is really great!  Yesterday, we hauled an old boat up on to the beach after first pulling a log into place on which to place it. Lots of heaving and winching and ‘making do’ with rocks and hammers and made-from-rebar spikes.  The beach was rocky and irregular.  The tide was not quite high enough but close.  A real ‘woodsy’ chore.  E wading into the lagoon up to her knees, J winching like a pig on steroids, me running a second winch and Sal pulling on ropes.  Up it all came.  We all felt like we had accomplished something.  We are back in the OTG game!

It’s Fall, of course, and a lot of OTG stuff slows down.  We still have a lot of chores to work on but the pace morphs from glacial to cobweb-and-dew.  We just don’t get much done on any given day but, overall, things still progress.  But part of our excuse this time, as you all know, was and is our pre-occupation with the election.

Which I will leave uncommented on.  You know how I feel.

But, here’s a bit on it in a directly related way: Sal was a polling clerk to the returning officer.  She had to ‘vet’ the voters and give ’em their ballot and all that.  She worked the booth with one of our neighbours, Doug (he will remain anonymous even when named because every other guy up here is named Doug).  They had the polling station set up at the old community house (about 800 sft) and were obliged to open up at 7:00 AM and remain open til 7:00 PM.  A smidge ‘over-the-top’ for an expected turnout of about 50 or so.  Still, the first couple were waiting at the door having arrived minutes before Sal and Doug.  It was 6:50. They had to wait ten minutes.   Doug is a stickler for the rules.  Everything is done by the book and done absolutely perfectly.

Bear in mind that Sal left home just after 6:00 AM.  In her small 11 foot boat.  It was foggy. It was dark.  And it was raining.  She couldn’t see.  She used her compass to creep up the coast.  I shone house lights for her to have a ‘bearing’ from which to navigate.  About half way there, the skies opened up and it dumped on her.  When she eventually climbed up the hill to the old community house, she and Doug met the first two voters in a cold, dark room and set up the booth and opened all the necessary books and ballots.  Over the course of the next twelve hours 54 people came in, most of them around mid-day.

I arrived at 6:00 PM and was the last voter.  I went up so I could see Sal home.  After the close of the polls, I scrutinized their efforts as a Canadian is allowed to do and I found the whole task quite confusing and complicated although they seemed to have it all together. It took an hour to count 54 votes, tally what needed tallying, seal what needed sealing, and doing the bureaucracy that needed doing.  We left the place at about 8:15.  It was dark.  It was drizzling.  We were several hundred yards up in the forest.  There were no lights.

We eventually got in our respective boats.  The wind was up.  It was pitch black.  We stayed close to one another.  We headed slowly home arriving there by 9:00.  Maybe 9:30 what with tying up boats and bailing and gassing up.

Normally – out here – the vote would go Green.  Out of 50 votes, maybe 30 would be Green, 15 would be NDP and the balance sprinkled over the Liberals and the Cons.  This time, the vote was strategic and the majority went one way – NDP – that party deemed the most likely to unseat the Cons.  Still, all parties registered votes.

Sally, the part-time post mistress and construction-worker, the burgeoning quilter, gourmet cook and book editor, the gardener, the OTG chatelaine and urban veteran retiree gone feral added elections officer to her resume.

And you wonder what we do all day out here?