When the Chinese kids first come, it is always a bit awkward. They are nice. We are nice. And everyone is ‘nice‘. It is probably the way of all people and it is nice but it is also not quite so real. It takes a few days for people to let their hair down and then it seems to be better. And that little bit of magic happened today.

It is hard to describe, measure, predict or even address purposefully but you know what I mean. ‘Breaking the ice but at a deeper level’, I guess. All of a sudden a look of understanding, a sense of familiarity, a quick laugh at someone’s faux pas. Those small signs that indicate our common humanity are what I like so much. It makes it all so much more fun.

But such signs between strangers that were relatively easy to read and achieve in the city (the context was more familiar to both sides) is a bit harder to achieve in the country. SO MUCH is SO foreign to them and, in some ways still for us. But they are bug-eyed (metaphorically speaking, of course) and that sense of wonder and awe keeps them quiet and a bit reticent for awhile.

Not today.

Today we went aboard the prawn boat to watch a set come up and then be re-baited and sent down. The fishermen were great and explained a lot about how the traps worked, what their jobs were and, of course, what the catch and by-catch was all about. Today they caught and released four octopi but not before we had a chance to look and touch. Squeals erupted. Grins radiated. Eyes sparkled. An octopus in a bucket is a marvelous sight!

Afterwards the kids went kayaking. That was good. And they had fun. I asked them if we should leave the kayaks out in case they wanted to give it another try…..? “Yes! We love to kayak!”

And as I sat down to write the day up, I glanced out the window as two of the girls approached the splitting maul, the chopping block and the dozen or so small rounds I left out on purpose. Whack! Whack! Whack! Thunk!
(much giggling) Whack! Thunk! (more giggling) and then VICTORY!!! ……a piece of wood split.

You had to be there, I guess.

For a bit of relaxation,, there is nothing like whacking a chunk of wood………..well, watching the girls whacking a chunk of wood is pretty good, too. I feel great!

D&L are WOOFERS (volunteers who work for room and board). They are from Chicago. They were our guest workers for a week last month and have been wandering the neighbourhood staying at different places since then. They are smart, young, personable and, interestingly for me, very English-language oriented. They do crosswords, play scrabble and read voraciously. It is not often a pair of young people have such extensive vocabularies and our conversations are often sprinkled with some great but little-used words. I thought they’d be good ESL teachers in Hong Kong and so I offered them a position at our favourite school there and they accepted! This is good.

The girls and Begonia (from our favourite school) have been here for a few days and so we thought it would be good to get the teachers-who-start-in-September introduced to the students-who-are-conveniently-visiting. D&L were at the time on the next island over and I fetched them for a sleep-over yesterday afternoon. Last night was a big Chinese/Gweilo dinner meeting.

It was like a house on fire! They talked and talked comparing notes and cultures, lives and politics, food, living accommodations, George Bush and Mao and on and on and on. I didn’t have to say a thing. I took the opportunity to go to bed at 9:00 to read but I spent a bit of time listening through the walls at the gabfest. It was great.

I like to think I am good company (I am not but I like to think it) and so we have kids come from China visit us every year. But, the truth is, we are old and they are not. This group of girls are over 40 years our junior and there is an age gap, a cultural gap, a gender gap (for me) and a language gap. Sometimes the gap seems large. But the gap is always narrower when the people are closer in age and D & L’s visit was proof of that.

As I get older I may be losing my previous standing (legendary in my own mind and based entirely on Sally’s cooking) as the host with the most. Looks like I am going to have to delegate that function. But this is going to work out just fine.

With the postal strike, my reading material is severely restricted. We normally get books-by-mail (and then by float-plane). A great service. But now I am limited to what I have in our own little library and, of course, most of it I have already read.

I picked up Scott Peck’s In Search of Stones. I chose it because the first time I read it, I found it boring. To a large extent it was a travel book but, at the same time, it was a story of his aging process (and his wife’s). Such a topic didn’t interest me when I was 50. But now I am 63. Now we have more in common.

Age is an issue out here. Not a big one. Not yet. But it is an issue and slowly, inexorably, it is looming larger. Getting older limits our activities to an increasing extent every year.

Oddly, I am just as strong if not, in fact, a bit stronger in some ways (I.e. I have great hair and it is finding new places in which to proliferate!). But I now get tired in half the time. It is more than just a bit irritating, it’s also a scheduling problem. I sometimes don’t undertake a task or project because I know I won’t be able to finish what I start in time for the next thing scheduled.

Sal’s a bit better (surprised?). She seems to have more energy but hers, too, is less than what it was just a few years ago. And her hands are stiffening up a bit. Like my back.

Of course, our eyes are all shot to hell as well. Sal can’t see up close. I can’t see far away and our middle vision both sucks.

But I mention all this not because I am complaining (well, not anymore than is written above, anyway). I am mentioning this because our health is still pretty good! I know that sounds odd but, at 63, I go up and down the lagoon hill pretty nimbly carrying a chainsaw and a peavey. Sal zips up and down so easily, it is like a walk in the park for her. We are outside every day and we are doing things that keep us in shape (I like hers better than mine but, face it, a firm potato-shape is still a shape!). This lifestyle is good for us. It doesn’t halt aging but it slows it down.

We figure to be able to keep this lifestyle going for a considerable time. One of our neighbours is in his early 80’s and he can outwork me by twice!

Yesterday, I popped in to see the prawn fisherman for a bit. I pulled alongside his boat while he was slowly proceeding along his trap-line and, handing him the rope, I scrambled aboard. No big deal. A short awkward climb up the side of a large boat and over the rail. We visited and I then went to leave. The crew had taken my boat to the other side and my way was blocked by equipment and a tarp. Paul offered to send a crew member to get it for me.

“No need. I can do this.“

And so I slipped between the equipment, scrambled past the work lines and flung myself over the side catching my feet on the rubstrake of his vessel and making the still-moving step onto my boat 5 or so feet below.

Paul smiled and said, “Glad you have a stable boat! See ya!” And off I went.

Again……..no big deal. But I am seeing more and more that a typical 63 year old urban male would likely have had trouble with that. It was a good feeling to know that I could have handled that same maneuver in heavier weather and in the dark.

You gotta find your victories where you can.

Sally had just finished serving breakfast (lox, bagels, scrambled eggs and fresh fruit salad) and the kids and Begonia were ‘gearing up’ for what they wanted to do. But I had an agenda……

We had picked up a few logs over the past few days and they were in the lagoon floating all nice and pretty-like, eh?

This won’t do! Not in the long run, anyway. In the long run, a log salvager might see them and, if they are in the tidal zone, they are his for the taking. I hate it when that happens (rare, but it has happened). The only solution to this form of legal theft (there are so many more types that I can’t deal with) is to cut ’em to length (about ten to twelve feet) and then we are safe. No one wants logs so short but us.

“Sal, before you guys plan too much, I’m going to go down to the lagoon to protect our forestry interests.”

She decided to join me (she almost always comes when I have the chainsaw running because she thinks she should be there to scream if I ever cut myself enough to warrant such hysterics. I’ve come close but so far only gasps and sighs with occasional accompanying shakes of the head. I am sure her day will come).

So, off we went leaving our guests to fend for themselves. The chainsaw screamed (and Sally didn’t) and pieces fell. It was all going well. But one log was high and dry on a big rock in the middle of the lagoon. I under-cut it so that it would fall right. As I did, it unexpectedly fell a tiny bit down and pinched my saw. I was stalled and stuck.

This would not be a problem most of the time. But this time, the tide was coming in and I had decided to do that one mid-lagoon log just as the water was touching my boots. I quickly threw as large a rock as I could to stand on and yelled to Sal to pass me a thick branch or two-by so that we could lever it up and I could remove the saw. Sal, thankfully was wearing water shoes.

She levered and I removed the saw and finished the cut. The log fell down in the right place and made a big splash.

Now I was standing on a little rock in the middle of the lagoon with about a foot of water under me and the tide coming in.

“Sal! Come get me! Carry me to land!”

“Yeah. I’ll get right on that. Just give me a few years to bulk up!”

It’s not a BIG story. It’s a very small one. But that and wet feet is all there is to report today.

One might think that living out here promotes contemplation. And, I suppose, it does. In a way. But not like you’d think. H.D. Thoreau contemplated at Walden and, for the most part, that seemed to be the major function exercised there. He got good at it. But, for me, contemplation is a rarer thing not frequently experienced in the purest form. In fact, I seem to have very little time for it. Out here, I don’t live in my head.

I did in Vancouver. Some. I mean, of course I had to deal with the mundane chores of living in the city and earning a living but I also spent hours in the car and I confess to driving with only half my brain being occupied – if that. Most of the time I was driving I was thinking of other things. I was contemplative in the car.

In retrospect that was true of watching TV as well. I’d zone out. Of course, some part of me was conscious but, really, how much brain power is needed for watching TV? So much of the mental energy spent was quasi-contemplative at the very least.

Put another way; I thought a lot living in the city but I didn’t think I did. Ironic, don’t you think? (there it is again!).

One of the few places I found that my mind didn’t wander was the golf course. That may have been a hint that I could ‘let go’ when outside in nature but I didn’t really see it that way at the time. I was just walking and hitting a little ball and sharing some goofy jokes now and then with my playing partners. Good clean fun. No thought required. None given. Rare.

Even though pure contemplation time is even less out here – one has to focus when using a chainsaw or outboard motor after all – when you do choose to do so, you can do it like a pro. It is quiet. Distractions can easily be eliminated. And I am practically instantly in a Buddhist-like zone whenever I ‘stop to smell the roses’ or watch the whales go by. It just happens. It is almost spiritual.

I can even get it when puzzling out a simple mechanical problem or doing some plodding-but-not-so-heavy labour. I can slip into a comfortable zone. Like Thoreau.

Really heavy labour doesn’t do it tho. I am very much wishing for something else when engaged in a cement work, for instance. I loathe it. I have not transcended heavy labour. No Zen zone and concrete for me. I am just thinking of ‘getting ér done and getting out!‘.

The best time for me? I can lay in bed after awakening for up to an hour and feel the breeze coming in the open window with the faint sounds and smells of the sea and the nearby forest. I just lay there and think. It is glorious! No interruptions, no unpleasant noise, no worries, no schedules, no responsibilities…………..even the effects of gravity are lessened when horizontal.

It’s great.

Gordon Campbell was recently appointed something special to Britain by Stephen Harper. How is it that a BC boy with a drunk driving charge and a penchant for spending money on celebrations while bullying and lying to everyone all the time (and selling off our resources and infrastructure) is a good choice for international diplomacy? Or for anything, actually?

Ooooh……I was getting mad just thinking about it.

So, I wrote some more. I went on a tear over that appointment and the CBC not doing any real reporting. On anything. But I won’t bore you with that. The waste of time that is the CBC is a book that should be written!

But before I quit writing the rant-on-everything that I erased, I brought in the bafflegab Osama bin Laden death and at-sea burial, the all-too-neat felling of the World Trade Centre and I was well on my way to the $36 billion debacle of Canada purchasing fighter jets. I was even going to get to the ‘lost’ millions spent on ‘G-20 security’ that was never accounted for (Auditor General) and then I was going to segue into the stupidity of watching anything to do with industrial hockey when I realized – all of a sudden – that all of that was the reason I was now more interested in worms.

I gotta hand it to Harper, Gordo, the CBC and the BIG LIE MACHINE. It is because of them I live up here and enjoy worms. I never would have pursued this kind of lifestyle without ém.

Our garden seems to be doing pretty good but I read somewhere that worms were a good addition. And so we got some.

I got the first batch of worms last year the hard way. Digging. Sally and I went over to an abandoned homestead and dug in the area that was their garden. We assumed correctly that there were worms there and we ferreted about until we had a handful. And I mean a real handful of all-worm, not half and half with dirt. It is much harder than it sounds to find a good hand-full-of-worms but we thought we had enough. We went home and put them in the compost.

About a week later I dug around the compost looking for the worms. They were gone! The little blighters had made a break for it and were on the lam, so to speak. It was discouraging. But I adjusted emotionally and we carried on.

But this year, I had this desire for worms again but just didn’t feel like digging for them. Enter: Garry (sic) the Worm guy (www.redwormsbac.com). Garry (sic) sent me two pounds of red wrigglers by courier to a friend in CR. I picked up the worms with the Chinese guests and they rode on their lap all the way home (the worms rode, the Chinese provided the laps).

And today, while Sal and the kids went to the local school for a show-and-tell (each other to each other), I built a worm house. Wet shredded paper on the bottom, layer-on the worms and dry shredded paper on top with a bit of compost material.

“I don’t think you did it right”, said Sal when she came home.

“What’s wrong?”

“I dunno. It just doesn’t look right.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. How can worms-in-a-box look right or wrong? Was Sal a worm in a previous life? Who does she know that I don’t connected to the worm crowd?

“Waddya talkin’ about?”

“All I am saying is that, if they all die, it is your fault!”

So now I am worried sic. And all I wanted was to have a box of happy worms.

Sometimes things just work out!……..beauty, eh?

Begonia and the girls swept off the AC jet in Vancouver on a delayed flight and they just made the Coast Mountain Air connection by minutes. Last ones on. They arrived at the CR airport on time, I bundled them in to the car and we headed to the ferry. The Queen was cramming the last few cars on the stern end when we pulled into the empty lot and zoomed across to immediately board. We were the the third-from last to get on. Turned off the engine at the same time (it seemed) as the ferry left. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Typical arrival, boats, rocks, kelp, slipping and sliding. And dogs. And then a great meal.

But it turns out that these people had learned to sleep well on planes! Egads! They just weren’t tired. I was exhausted and could hardly wait to retire but we chatted and chatted and then they went on their computers for another hour or so (doing schoolwork, no less!). Lights out at 1:00 AM. I leaned over and whispered to Sal, “Maybe you should take them on the longest hike tomorrow and throw in the mountain climb as well.”

The kids are pretty funny. I swear I weigh as much as all three of them combined. When we met at the airport, there were two ‘obviously’ Chinese backpacks on the luggage rack and so I picked them up. I switched the two to one hand so that I could grab the next one coming. The girls were shrieking, “Ooooooohhhhh so heavy! Cannot lift! Ooohhhhh”. I was sure they were kidding. But when we got to the end-of-the-road where I keep the boat for our passage to the island, I had to transfer the packs to their backs because I was carrying other things (cooler, box of worms, bag of building supplies, etc). As I placed each pack of about 25 pounds on each girl’s back, they visibly sagged and staggered. They struggled along the relatively flat path for the 100 or so feet and collapsed in a heap in the boat (after I helped them step in).

Twenty five pounds is probably close to 1/3 their weight and, lacking any musculature whatsoever, must make it difficult. Sheesh. The kids are lovely. Smart, fun and eager to learn. But lumberjacks they are not!

Minnie, Nicky, Catherine and Begonia (their teacher) arrive late today from the CHMS school in Hong Kong. They will have been in transit for over 20 hours although part of that is waiting at YVR for their plane to Campbell River.

They will get a few hours of the Vancouver Airport as their first taste of Canada……then me, Campbell River, the Campbell River ferry and an hour or so of being jammed into a Pathfinder going down a windy, rough and dusty logging road. Typically, the kids are OK with all that although this time it will be almost dusk by the time we get home. It is the sight of the last steep hill and the waiting boat that first freaks them out. A little.

I get all the gang in the boat and we head out to our island and, if the weather is rough, they get sprayed. That usually wakes them up! Then we arrive at a distant and rocky shore and we are greeted on the beach by Sally and two dogs in what must seem like to them, the middle of nowhere. But, so far they usually do OK. They are coping. Mind you, dogs are things to be very, very wary of and they show their concern on their face and through their body language – their luggage is always kept between them and the dogs.

But it is the scramble up the barnacle and kelp-covered rocks with their baggage in tow that is the first real test. Sal tries to ease them in to it but, really, she, too, is on the beach with a suitcase or two and her feet are slipping. How much easing can she do?

By the time I get back from docking the boat, the gang has been introduced to the boat-shed-cum-temporary-accommodation that will be their home for the week. They put on a good face but I can usually sense the shock setting in. At this point, their eyes and actions suggest that an alternative would be worth discussing. But they are too polite to bring it up.

And then Sal feeds them.

Sal is a great cook and a good meal coupled with a total of twenty two or more hours in transit makes even the most freaked-out guest suddenly sleepy. So, we send them off to bed and consider day one complete.

Day two is when we separate the lumberjacks from the pantywaists. When that is sorted, Sal takes the lumberjacks on an adventure and me and the pantywaists do something ‘nice’ like play with the dogs, set up their computer or sit around and read. Sometimes I teach them to chop wood. Usually one day with me is enough to convert everyone into lumberjacks and I am basically free after that except for the support chores that I try to get done while everyone else is being a lumberjack, hiker, oyster-gatherer, school-visitor, yoga-doer, boat-rider, mountain climber or kayaker.

We will be busy for the next week.

All day Saturday: baking and ‘prepping’ for our guests arrival. Sunday: book club and happy hour guests. Monday: shopping down in Comox at the new Costco to ‘fill up’ the larder/freezer/fridge and ‘picking up’ the two monster winches and loading them ourselves into the back of the Pathfinder. Tuesday through Thursday: work at the bunkhouse plus one social visit with the prawn guys squeezed in if possible. And Sal is cleaning everything because the ‘kids’ are coming (from Hong Kong).

Projects: lower funicular, garden table centre, new winch placement – all currently on ‘hold’.

“Gee, Dave, now that you are retired and live way out in the country and all, what the heck do you do all day? Get bored?” The answer is hard to explain except to say, “Omygawd! There is never enough time. I just want to sleep-in a few times!”

“Yeah, right! My guess? You and Sal have matching hammocks and never get out of them. Hahahah!”

The thing is – we’ve never been busier. Well, OK, we have been busier but we are certainly as busy as we can manage. Don’t forget, all those ‘taking care of the household chores’ is a much longer and more difficult task out here as well. It seems we are always doing chores and such to keep the old homestead running. Being busy is not the challenge, finding time for relaxing and goofing-off is! And, when we do find the time, it is not usually ‘together’.

Mind you, I still find a bit of time for the relaxing/goofing-off needs (I blog) more than Sally but she sure doesn’t (she logs!). If she has a spare minute, she and the dogs go play in the lagoon. And that requires a climb up and down a 125 foot, 30 degree slope just for starters. Then they make her fetch sticks!

At 63 I am slowing down, I admit it freely (or more accurately put: I want to slow down!). But if I compare myself to the local guys my age, I am about ‘normal’ in the energy and work-output department. Sal, of course, is in a department all her own although, to be fair, all the women out here seem to work pretty hard. I have never ‘bought in’ to the social stereotype that claims women have it so much harder but now that Sal and I are side-by-side, I have to admit that it is true. She simply works more than I do.

I like to think I am still useful and helpful, tho. If it weighs more than 50 pounds, I usually do it (altho, not everytime by any means!). If it weighs more than 80 pounds then you can be 98% sure I do it (but there are exceptions). Over 100 pounds, I definitely do it – but I then do it with Sal. Over 200 pounds, we try not to do it. And I sometimes make sushi and wash up now and then. OK, I admit to vacuuming on blue moons. But there is no denying it. Sal never stops and I am hard to start.

Anecdote: one day we were unloading a huge pile of supplies and taking it to Read. I also had to assemble the inflatable boat so we could do it. It was cold. It was wet. It was raining. And I was in a hurry to get it done before darkness set in. I jumped out of the car, unloaded the trailer and assembled the boat. I launched it and filled it with crap. In the meantime, my usually trusty partner had taken her ‘sweet time’ to find her glove linings, put on some chapstick, fix her hair, find her hat, change her boots and powder her nose.

I was not pleased with the division of labour.

When she deigned to show up, the job was virtually all done except for the 125/135 pound outboard motor that still had to be lifted from the trailer, carried down the ramp and placed on the stern of the boat. I had left that to the last because it was a two person job with one of us (me) having to be in waders.

“Nice of you to show up”, I said more than just a little sarcastically.

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that you look all comfy and cute but there is a bit of work to do out here!“

With that, Sally bore a hole through my head with her glare while walking slowly towards the trailer. She didn’t take her steely eyes off me. Then, with a mere flick of her upper body, she lifted the entire outboard and strode off the trailer and into the water with it. Defiantly, she slammed the machine onto the boat and said, “Well, you just gonna sit there or are you gonna get in and fasten it to the transom?”

Sally weighs the same as the motor. Maybe a bit less! I just stood there, gobsmacked. How is that even possible?

What do we do all day? I dunno…………..ask Sal.