Lina is 20, from Switzerland and is our new W’fer. She is pleasant, intelligent, fun and a good worker. And we are enjoying her company. Of course, I feel obliged to teach her how to chop wood – for the sake of her overall Canadian Experience – and, for me, that is one of the best ways to enjoy someone’s company – watching them chop wood.

I am not entirely scheming in my motives. Even though I appreciate very much the additional wood for the shed, the reality is that students of the splitting maul don’t really produce that much split wood. Heat, yes. Wood, no. It is more of a learning (and sweating) experience. And that is where the fun comes in.

Lina was no exception. She looked at me chop a piece of wood and thought (I am sure) “Hey! I can do that! Doesn’t look hard to me.”

But then I get to hand her the instrument of biomass destruction. The damn thing weighs eight pounds and it feels like twenty after a dozen or so ineffective whacks producing nothing. The round just sits there. Ain’t splittin’. “Sheesh, I wonder what I am doing wrong. It doesn’t look hard but it is!”

“It is all in the rhythm, girl. You just gotta get into the swing of things.” (sadly, bad puns are wasted on ESL guests)

The truth is, it is mostly in the rhythm but a little bio-mass of your own doesn’t do any harm. I have that. In spades. But, really, a small, thin person can whack wood once they get a rhythm-and-timing thing working for them. And that part is fun, too. One minute they are looking awkward and proving ineffectual and the next minute the wood splits and so does a huge grin across their face. Two days later, the wood starts to fly. It’s great!

Lina landed in Anchorage! Direct from Switzerland. Now that is a weird route. And now she is working her way south. At 20. Both Sally and I remarked at her courage and curiosity. This kid sells books at a bookstore and just decided one day to get on a plane to Alaska and then go see some of Canada. It would seem that the hippy, back-packer spirit is alive and well. In Switzerland, anyway. Good to see.

Lina spends some time w’fing, some time traveling and some time just pokin’ around. She expects to be in Canada for a few months. A week with us. (We will happily refer her to a friend should anyone want a house guest.)

I guess we’ve hosted about a dozen, maybe a few more, w’fers over the last few years and, tho each one is different of course, they all are fun to have around, are eager to ‘pitch in’ and seem to love the ‘life’ we are living. It feels good when you can give someone enjoyment by way of easy hospitality. They are appreciative in every sense – from the setting to the lifestyle, from Sally’s cooking to the chores we assign, from the dogs to the conversation around dinner. They seem to like it here, generally speaking.

And, I confess, I am amused by the chopping.

Did our favourite annual chore today – cleaning the chimney. It’s a treat! First, you get all the tools and plastic bags (forgetting one, of course, until you need it right in the middle of the chore), then you take the chimney pipe apart being careful to sprinkle the soot in all the places you can’t get to afterward. Then you carry the pipe outside and clean it with a ‘pipe cleaner’ and put all the soot gathered in the plastic bag with the unseen hole in it. Then the fun begins…….

We burn ‘gift’ wood, the stuff that floats in or close by to our shore. We retrieve it, haul it, buck it, split it and stack it – just as you would expect. But, because we get salt-water-laden logs, we have to dry the wood for some time. Still, not a difficult task and one we have set our mind to. We have the system down pat. Almost. Our wood dries for about a year before we burn it. So far, so good.

But the salt doesn’t go anywhere just because you dry out the wet. The salt stays. And salted wood ‘eats’ out your wood stove when it burns. No way ’round it. Goes like hot water on a cube of sugar, just a bit slower. So, I have a bunch o’crap in the stove that used to ‘be’ part of the stove that also needs cleaning out.

There’s a baffle in the stove so that the heat is not lost up the chimney too quickly. That baffle is like the sacrificial zinc anode on a boat. It is the piece that goes first. And this baffle has been in for two full winters now. Maybe three. It is ‘cheese’. Just a bunch o’crap metal that is flaking apart like cooked filo pastry. Literally.

So, we clean everything (like crude surgeons) in preparation of the baffle-cum-organ removal. Get the firebox all ‘tiddly’ and then shuffle and pry the old baffle out while the shards and flakes fall onto your face (you have to lie on the floor to gain access to it). Then, if you have the foresight, you take it outside and get the ‘new one’ to put in it’s stead. If you don’t have the foresight, you get a trip to town as the booby prize.

Mind you, you have not lost out on the booby prize entirely. In town, they charge you $185.00 (plus tax) for a piece of metal that looks like a flat, square cake. An inch thick and about 15 inches square, it is a hollow box of steel with some strategic holes drilled into it to make you think that you are getting something.

We must be getting something because the damn thing works like a charm. The stove keeps the house warm on the coldest winter nights and we go through less wood than anyone we know. A wheelbarrow full will last us three days and some of our neighbours use two barrows per day! So it is a good stove. Pacific Energy. The small one.

The problem is the salt wood. If we burned unsalted wood, the baffle might last five years. As it is, it lasts two, maybe three. We rationalize this poor habit by saying, “Well, we don’t have to fall a tree. We don’t have to limb it and get it here. Our wood comes a’knockin’ and we just have to let it in.”

But baffles ain’t cheap and there’s no such thing as a free log/lunch, I guess.

W’fer’s here! Sal’s went to get ér. Lina is 20, from Switzerland and is traveling around the west coast with a back-pack, a thin wallet and eyes wide open. Oh, to be young again, eh?

“Why, I remember when I, too, was a back-packer, Lina. Went to Switzerland amongst other places. Yes, siree Bob, I did!”

“Eh? (already losing the train of thought) Well, now….that would be a long time before you were born, Lina (turns out she was born in 1991!). I was there in 1968. Went to Geneva. I remember the cute little trams. Oh, never mind….”

I sound like a geezer just talkin’ to a young ‘un now.

She flew direct from Zurich and landed in Alaska, w’fed a bit and then headed down the coast by coastal ferries, first from Kechikan to Prince Rupert and then from there to Port Hardy. This morning she jumped on the bus in Hardy and got to Campbell River where she slipped onto the ferry and Sal received her at the other side. It all worked like a Swiss watch/w’fer.

“My, it is so much more expensive in Canada! Even the ferries. Alaska was a lot less expensive than I expected. Flying and the ferries in Alaska are cheap.”

Interesting. Alaska is cheaper than BC. And the Yukon (right next door to Alaska) is twice as expensive as BC. Go figure.

Oh, well, I am sure our government is looking out for our best interests. It’s just that, well, Sarah Palin used to be the governor of Alaska and well, she’s certifiable, didn’t like her job and didn’t go to work much when she had the job. I wonder what that says about our politicians when Alaska has a cheaper cost of living, eh? And the Alaskan ferries are run by the state instead of an American CEO?

“Hell boy! We ain’t stupid up here. We can’t afford one of them fancy-pants CEOs. Ol’ Madge runs the ferry system up here. Has done for years. Makes a mighty fine apple-pie, too, if ya ask her reeeeeaaal nice!”

Oh well, mine is not to reason why, mine is just to pay and sigh.

It costs a lot to be a Canadian.

On the way out to get Lina, Sal and I packed the boat with the year’s recycling and a bag or two of just-plain-garbage. The garbage was about 20 pounds, the recycling, about 150. Not a bad ratio when I think back to our cul-de-sac days. When we ‘add it up’ the composting (that stays home in the compost bin and rots) makes up the highest percentage of waste and I would guess that we generate about 10-15 pounds a week in bio-degradables with the bulk of that stuff composted. Cooked un-eatens and off-cuts go to the sea for the sea-gulls or onto the ‘perch’ for the ravens. Not much of that goes to waste.

We are getting more efficient in our ways. Well, in some ways, anyway.

Sal and Lina are going walkabout to familiarize her with the territory. Lina will stay in the boathouse. She’ll be with us for about a week. Give or take. Her chores (as a w’fer) will be to assist us in our spring cleaning. Don’t say it! Spring just arrived late this year. Better late than never.

I must confess that having a guest is not my greatest desire right now but spring cleaning falls far below that feeling so she is more than welcome. And young people seem to have a bit more ‘spring’ in their step and w’fers, anyway, are keen to please as well. She’ll be good.

Should be a nice few days.

I am pleased to announce the formal appointment of Ms S.J. Davies to the DOG firm (Dispatches Off Grid). She will head the photography department as well as continue in her unofficial capacity as editor-at-large and general critic-of-everything as well as the-boss-of-me. Ms Davies brings a wealth of experience and talent to the position not to mention cuteness in the extreme. Her title will be Grand Poobah or Pooh for short.

The old affectionate term ‘Pudding’ is likely to still be in use as well. Here at the office, anyway.

Sally joins our team at an auspicious time. We need pictures. And she has ’em. Negotiations for her services began two years ago but, alas, the discussions were interrupted by her other outside demands which included the aforementioned editor, critic and boss duties as well as book-club, kayaking, community-organization board member, yoga and running-with-dogs which occupied her talents full-time. Oh yeah……there were dinner parties and Chinese students, logging operations, oyster-gathering and traveling abroad to add to her duties.

Fortunately, her husband is wonderfully supportive and needs very little attention.

Of course she has her unofficial duties as well. Cooking, reading, more dog-playing, gardening and extended chit-chatting-with-everyone but today, we are pleased to state that her energies have focused and her DOG editorial duties are now uppermost on her agenda. I think I can say with confidence that we will see a picture now and then. Maybe. Who knows?

Let’s hope so.

There is no denying that business has dropped off these past few months. We need a little ‘fresh blood’. Readership seems maxed out and our resources are strained. Cash flow has been maintained, however, but zero is still zero no matter how you dress it up. Indeed the long term prospects for the firm are not clear. It is management’s hope that colourful visuals will draw a bigger crowd. A lot rests on Ms Davies’ shoulders.

Actually, despite the dismal numbers, I am considering taking the operation public. A new domain name has been researched and purchased and the DOG firm may soon move to a new location. You know what they say, “Go BIG or go home!”

We are going to do both – get bigger and stay home!

The new blog (once the consulting team of Ben & Ryan Extremely Limited) is finished, I may be adding some advertising to the pages. An income stream, as it were. I am limiting the merchandising to only those products I have personal knowledge and experience with but heresay and gossip will be considered.

My readership will have to expand or else the 22 of you will have to start investing heavily in diesel gensets and solar panels if this project is gonna pay off.

Don’t worry, there is new line of very quiet diesel gensets designed especially for balcony placement in high rise apartment towers and solar panels that affix to wrought-iron balcony railings. From UrbanOffTheGrid.com. Of course, you can start small with a chainsaw or inflatable boat, both of which store conveniently and are at-the-ready in your condo-unit storage unit. And we’ll have a complete line of water filters, eco-friendly washers and dryers and a catalogue of heritage seeds on offer.

Look to a bigger and better Off-the-grid site supplying all your eccentric needs soon.

Man, the weather changed like a politician’s promises. One day it was sunny and warm, the next few felt like winter had already set in. Sheesh.

I am OK with that, as a rule. Being a bit on the portly side, I am disinclined to hot weather and prefer a cool breeze at all times. Keeps the sweat down. Sitting in a cool breeze is even better. Spring and Fall are my favourite times of the year and reclining is my favourite position. It is hard to beat the combination of the two. Add a mint julep and I am there!

But such a weather change as we have just experienced prompts thoughts of a change in winter whereabouts. Are we going somewhere this winter? And ‘do I have to get up?’

Sally and I travel. Not a lot. Mostly in the winter. But a bit more than average, I think. And we don’t really care where we go so long as it is inexpensive, warm-ish (for Sally) and interesting. I require only a breeze and a low bug count. I won’t go to Australia or the far north in the summer for that very reason. Bugs. I am a natural, green, outdoorsy-kinda-guy but I don’t think a lot of bugs is natural so, if the bug count is high, I am not there.

We usually go to some place for 6 weeks or two months after Christmas. Give or take. Every once in awhile, we stay home and ‘enjoy’ the winter season here but, to be frank, it is an experience that should not be repeated two years in a row. In fact, as much as I like our place, I think 3 winters out of four should be spent elsewhere. It is not that it is too cold, too wet, or even too much of the same setting. It is the lack of light. By mid winter, it seems, the sun barely makes a showing. It isn’t really bright ever and it is dark by 4:00.

By the way, can anyone explain to me how it is that a mosquito can show up in the Canadian winter? They are rare, to be sure, but I would estimate that I encounter and kill at least a half dozen mosquitoes in the dead of winter. How is this possible? Is this a species that is evolving to year-around presence? Is this what global warming really means?

Sorry. I have a bug fixation and I am obsessed with mosquitoes. If there is one in the house, I am tracking it.

I am pretty sane otherwise.

So, this blog is not so much about me………….well, of course it is.………..but, what I mean is this: anyone got a recommendation for a cheap two months in an interesting place?

Been all over Mexico. Know Europe pretty well. Got a good sense of the Far East but there is some room to explore still. Know the US like I know Vancouver except for the Southeast.

I am thinking Portugal. Sally is thinking Turkey. Greece comes to mind even though we’ve been there. Any country going bankrupt has some appeal. We can relate.

Thought about Cuba. Thinking about Argentina…………..

Anyone got strong opinions on the Bahamas or Bermuda?

Waddya got?

September 13. Overcast. Chilly. Feels like Fall is approaching. It was a short but hectic summer. All in all, I give it a 6.5 out of ten.

For me to give a higher rating requires more projects and chores to be ‘done’. And they weren’t. “I’m sorry, but production was down, folks. No bonuses this year!” Of course, the Catch 22 in all this is that, for the most part, I am the single largest variable in the project schedule so I am really just grading myself. And I am not completely happy. “I see a lot of wine being drunk. I see a lot of food being eaten. I don’t see much in the way of progress, Mr. Cox!”

I stopped grading Sal after forty straight years of 10’s out of ten. In fact, most years she scored in the low to mid twenties despite 10 being the scale. Production counts!

But I still called her in for her annual review.

“Well, Sally, I note from your record that you’ve been with us for quite a long time now. I am glad to see you are fitting in so well.”

“Good. That’s it then for another year. Keep up the good work.”

That conversation was confirmation that this year was not one of my most productive ones. I blame the back-stop! If that damn backstop hadn’t gotten in my way, I would have had an extra month to further procrastinate on some of the issues on my plate.

I confess that the lower funicular – tho not dead – has not progressed as much as I would have liked. The log sort is 3/4 done but I still have some fine tuning to do. And the woodshed, tho for all intents and purposes full, is not. We still have 3/4 of a row to chop and stack.

And I am really going to have to address my winch problem. Hey! A plethora of winches is still an inventory problem if nothing else.

A Woofer, however, is coming in a week. She will be here for as long as ten days. I am gonna work her like a rented mule!

Ever heard of Bute Grease?

Me neither. Not til yesterday. Yesterday was our end-of-project construction crew get-together billed as a ‘beer and burgers’ affair. RSVP, don’t you know? It was a perfect day, sunny, windy and warm. Everyone (approximately 15) gathered on the covered portion of our deck and began to make an impression on the gallon or so of Sally’s Sangria and the assorted beers and hors douvres as I fired up the BBQ. Chit chat ensued.

You have to understand that our chit chat is not like most chit chat. We don’t usually do sex, religion and/or politics.

Religion is universally panned and there is no one to take the other side in the give and take of it. No practicing Muslims, Seventh day Adventists or Catholics here. So religion is not a hot topic. It is way below sex and sex is largely discussed only in a historical context if at all these days.

Sex, I gather, was a raging hormone of a subject at one time but not so much anymore.

We – out here – have, for the most part eschewed the political as well. Sometime exceptions: micro-political and macro-political. Everyday political is just not very high on the conversational top ten. Some people don’t even know who the current premier is or care (mind you, she is laying low and trying very hard to put time and distance between her and Campbell, don’t you think?).

BC politics is, for us, either largely uninteresting or unworthy or both. If we ‘do’ politics out here it is at the micro/local level in the extreme (bunkhouse, Steamboat trail, Q-hut, etc.) or very macro (Gaia, climate change, conspiracy theories and the like).

I’m cool with that. Anyway, I was worrying burgers so couldn’t really participate in the conversation anyway.

All that above was to introduce you to the ‘usual’ topics of conversation out here. Number one is construction. Of any kind. Construction is king out here. We can talk old-time log and pole construction to new ‘composites’ and carbon fiber. We can talk plastics, steels, bronzes and wood in every sense of the word (except sexually, of course). We can talk logs, rocks, cement and even the more basic building influences of water, earth, sun and wind. People out here know construction.

Honest to God – take the worst builder out here….ME!…..and take me to a room full of architects and contractors in the city and I will undoubtedly make a complete fool of myself but at least it will be in on a myriad of topics. I will cover it all. I can get embarrassed with the plumbers, the architects, the engineers and the carpenters. I have just enough knowledge for that. Our best people out here could teach the city professionals something.

So building is big.

But second is weather and, because we were having such a delightful time in the breeze and the sunshine, the topic turned to our weather. Amongst a lot of aspects of wind, weather, temperature and, of course, geology, I learned that the waters between Haida Gwai and the mainland are extremely shallow. I should have known that. I also learned all about how and when the glaciers altered our coastline and how the earthquakes added to it.

One of the most interesting subjects shared was the water spouts we used to get.

“Yeah. I was heading to work one day and it was windy and the weather was ominous. I looked ahead and saw well over ten or so waterspouts just a-zippin’ about and all of them on my intended route. I decided to head back home”.

“What’s Bute Grease?”

“Well, the Bute can blow pretty hard. When it gets over 100 miles an hour it whips the surface of the water and the little plankton-like creatures caught up get churned and boiled into a frothy mass. The frothy mass will get blown and tossed until hard balls of Bute grease end up on the beach. The stuff is a fabulous lubricant and the old guys used to prize Bute grease as the best grease there was!”

My jaw was open. Bute Grease! Wadda concept! Waterspouts 300 feet tall! And lots of ’em. And we were just scratching the surface of weird stuff out here.

Just when you start to think you know a neighbourhood, eh?

We were at Save-on (aisle 7) when the ‘little one’ hit. There was an old guy in front of me trying to figure out his credit card while trying to answer the cashier’s question about his Save-on ‘points’. Nothing was happening too quickly.

“Hey! Did you feel that?” the cashier asked.

That was way too much stimulus for our guy. The wallet, the credit card machine, his PIN number, the Save-on ‘points’. Then a question? He was simply stunned. He looked up at her, “Huh!?”

“We just had an earthquake! Wow! Just now! Did you feel it?”

“Huh?”

I was somewhat amused by this bumbling old fool and was justly condescending towards him when I realized that we had just experienced an earthquake and that I hadn’t noticed it either.

Well I did. Kinda.

I felt a bit of a shift in the time-space continuum but, of course, at 64 and not doing my yoga regularly, I just wrote the feeling off as another ‘woozy’ moment. I get those now and then. Feels a bit like an earthquake now that I think about it……

I rose to his defense.

“Hey! At our age, the earth moves all the time. It’s called gettin’ old’.”

Anyway, the poor ol’ git finally managed to enter his PIN and get his cans of dogfood into his ‘green’ satchel. He left in a confused state. Our turn to face the cashier was at hand.

“Wow! Did you guys feel it?”

“Yes!” I said. I left out the part that explained that I was simply confused as to what was happening – vertigo, wooziness, balance, sugar deficit or, as a distant possibility, earthquake. I was still processing.

And she was on a need-to-know basis. ‘Yes’ was good enough.

Sally, who suffers from intermittent vertigo asked innocently, “What are you two talking about?” She hadn’t noticed a 6.4 on the Richter scale either.

“We just had an earthquake! The whole building moved. It was incredible. Didn’t you feel it?”

Sal looked at her blankly. Then she looked at me………….

“Hey!”, I said, “You should be pretty familiar by now with what the earth moving feels like sweetie-pie”. I leaned forward and offered up a slight leer and twisted smile.

Sal and the cashier looked at me, assessed the possibility and…………burst out laughing.

OK. I am no San Andreas fault. I admit it. So, sue me!

I can’t help but think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket but I know that such feelings have been the stock-in-talk of all older generations since the dawn of time. It can’t be that this time the old worrywarts (us, this time) will be proven right, can it?

I’ve never been right before.

I won’t bore you by citing all the reasons I feel this way. I am sure that you have a sense of it on your own. The main one, as I just confessed, is my age. Hormones must be part of it, eh?

But I am thinking that it is not so much my age that is important, rather it is the age of the society in which we are living. Our systems are old. Our institutions are on life-support. Our governments are dinosaurs. Even the infrastructure is decaying. The problem isn’t me getting old – it is that everything we rely on is getting way-too-long-in-the-tooth.

Especially for this uber-fast-changing world.

Our generation’s ideas are now too old to work as well as they once did. The institutions we spawned are boring, unimaginative and too concerned with self-preservation. They are too arthritic to move with the fast times.

The programs we rely on are inefficient and ‘in-the-way’. They are not part of the solution but part of the problem (germ ridden hospitals, for example, DFO for another). And they resist change (the RCMP for example). They are corrupt (our political/corporate/financial institutions for example). Our industries are so old they died collectively as the Sunset Group. Those that survived moved offshore (patriotism is not built into the corporate DNA). The generations that energized the world in the fifties, sixties and seventies, are too old to keep it up without Viagra. And the societal structures we created and supported are hoary and decrepit.

Face it, we just can’t ‘do the job’ anymore.

So, I look to the younger generation. And I see Christy Clark, our very own Sarah Palin. I see Stephen ‘Suckhole‘ Harper, our ambassador to the corporate world. And, sadly, I see an increasingly weakened Obama fighting an extremely uphill battle and not gaining much ground.

I am not encouraged.

To be fair, the next generation has been ‘on hold’ for awhile. The ‘turnover’ of conventional jobs just wasn’t there for them. We baby-boomers not only kept all those jobs but we held on tightly to what we could as the ‘old-time’ jobs went offshore. It is hard to get your father’s job at the mill when he was let go himself at 50 and has been unemployed ever since.

That generation ‘on-hold’ is starting to make inroads, however. Our Federal Public Service hasn’t had as young a ‘profile’ since the second world war. Same for Worksafe BC and the Provincial government sector. Sadly, those are the three areas that young people should avoid like the plague. But, I digress…..

In theory, that new blood should help invigorate. But I am not so sure it will. You can put a younger jockey on an older horse but it is not going to run any faster because of that. Some kind of revolution is long overdue. We need more than young blood, we need fundamental changes.

Could the world really be going to hell in a handbasket after all? Or will we revolt in time?

Wednesday. Yoga. Market. People. Sunny day. Nice lunch served at the dock. Sal’s right now on her way up there with three other women from the neighbourhod. Lots of socializing, smiling, chit-chatting. Oh, what fun!

I am here. Alone. Gonna work on the log path. Alone. No one around ‘cept dogs……….and, if they are smart, they’ll be scarce……

(Alone!!! Thank God!)

Poor Sal.

I am not really anti-social. I like people just fine. Especially from a distance and/or if they read my blog. Readers are loved. Commentators are adored. It is just that we have had enough already with people in our ‘personal’ space. Which, as I write this, now extends out to the 200 mile off-shore International boundary. It’s been a busy summer, ya know?

But, I’ll get better. Have to. Twenty or so are dropping by for burgers and beer on Saturday. Lots of smiling, chit-chat and socializing in store. WooHoo!

Local folks. Good eggs. The group involved in our community work. Builders, mostly. And partners. Of course, the timing couldn’t possibly be worse. I am just cobbling my log run together and tinkering and adjusting as I go. I can hear the guys already,

“Oh! I see you are building a log run. Something like ol’ Jack’s, ‘cept he used old-growth 12 x 12 Cedar timbers with one-inch galvanized bolts on cement columns. Ya think those scrap boards of yours will last?”

Should be good.

I am not 100% sure all 20 or so will show up. They’ve had a busy summer, too. We all did. Our island is like a leper colony after November and until March first and then; ‘we are remembered’. People start calling in April for a possible visit in August.

“Hey, Dave! Long time no see. We gotta get together, man! Hey! I am getting my relatives from Uganda again this summer. Grandma and all the cousins! It would be such fun to show them your cabin. Can you fit us in sometime in August?”

“Who is this?”

“Dave, it’s me. Charlie! Howzit goin’? Got room at the inn?”

Quickly adopting a Russian accent, “I am very sorry but you have the wrong phone number. Had a few such calls over the last few weeks. Your guy must have changed phone numbers, da?”

Truth is – it’s all left in Sal’s court mostly. Oh, I occassionally suggest a visit or an invitation (once every five years or so) but she has the calendar and the pen, ya know? It’s better that I just refer such matters to her and then go along with it – whatever it is.

Grumbling the whole time, of course.