My friend, John II, turned 70 last year. For most of us 70 is a big number but J-2 is and always has been in denial about himself. He had to be. He kinda thinks of himself as younger, smarter and better lookin’ than he is. Many of us do. Seems it’s a male thing. God bless his deluded little heart.

Anyway, in an exercise aimed at getting his head around that milestone he come up with a concept, a paradigm, a mental construct that allowed it to all fall into a nice perspective. Something a person could get their head around.

“Well, I am pretty spry for my age. My mind and body are good. I have good genes and a great attitude (deluded, like I said, but great). I’ll likely live well for another twenty years!”

When he told me this, I nodded. Agreeing. Kinda. I have learned not to listen too carefully to everything J2 says because he says so much. I have learned to filter. I listen for the ‘highlights’ as it were, and I hadn’t heard anything new yet so I just wasn’t paying much attention……

“But, you know, 20 years is a hard number to grasp for people. Years are long blobs of time. Know what I mean? So, I decided to think of this aging thing in a different way.”

(yawn)

“I started to think about all this approximately 35 weeks ago today. My birthday. And, at that time, I figured I had – NOT 20 years – but about 1000 weeks left to live. But, ya know what? (the question was rhetorical by this time but now I was listening)…….those 35 weeks represent 3.5% of my remaining life! Jeez, man, just thinking about my age used up 3.5% of it!”

He really had my attention now!

I started to do the math……….my family is particularly short-lived. It’s amazing I got this far. At 63, I am already the second longest lived on my mother’s side. 64 is the current record. If I gave myself 1000 weeks, that means I expect to be ‘spry, mentally and physically fit’ and have a good attitude for 20 years. And live to be 83! Hah! Not a chance. I’ve never had a good attitude! With my attitude, body and family shrub (not a tree, actually. Too short!), I am clearly doomed!

(This could be my last blog.)

Anyway, my situation notwithstanding, J2 had made a good point (long overdue, I must say) and he got me to thinking. Am I doing all that I want to do? How much time do I actually have to waste?

I’m still thinking of that but I have already abandoned being limited by social protocol, morality, law, finances and the possibility of huge embarrassment. (Well, OK, I have abandoned those constraints a few times in the past but this is different). I am thinking outside those boxes from now on! Time to get on with it!

And that is J2’s point, really. It isn’t about anything more profound than your own mortality but, face it, your own mortality is pretty bloody profound! And, if you think of it in terms of weeks instead of those nebulous blob-years, it makes one more present. J2 has made the concept of death more present.

What a guy!

Phlegm still rules so this season’s cold is a tough one. But, we have carried on and nothing has really changed in our day except the consumption of Kleenex. And a few extra complaints, of course. Mostly from the dogs. They are not quite the centre of attention they expect to be and their disapproval is showing a bit.

Did a day at the community Bunkhouse project but it was raining hard and we had no tools for the jobs we could do and stay dry at and so little was done. It’s OK. We have a big window. We’ll probably use it, tho. Mind you, things are happening in the background and, like most jobs, it is the stuff that you don’t see that takes most of the time and effort.

Bert has been milling wood. We’re almost fully supplied in that department. So that is good. We’ve all pored over the drawings and made some suggestions for change and they have been accepted. So that is even better. I may have the beginnings of a used/salvaged inverter/charger based system developing so that we can run the ‘shop’ off Green power. And the electrical system in the Q-hut is moving right along. Nothin’ to see yet, folks, but invisible progress is still progress. I am pleased with the way things are turning out.

We have one road on the island (well, it forks at the BIG tree and one arm goes South and the other East). It is a logging road. Dirt. One lane. One of our young men was on his way to work in a small Subaru while, at the same time the boss was heading his way in the company truck. They met at a muddy downhill curve and, despite the quick responses of both drivers, a head-on collision resulted. The little ‘worker’s car was totaled. Employer’s truck fared OK, no damage or injuries except one tooth chipped. Everyone then ‘did the right thing by each other’ and then went home to ‘get it together’. No work done that day.

Weird. There were likely no other cars on the whole length of the island road at the time (approximately 15 miles of track). For both arms. Just the two that met at the muddy gully. Bang! They hit each other. Weird.

Pulled up a good ‘third’ set yesterday afternoon. Got about 150 prawns or about five pounds of tails. Being small ‘c’ conservative in my estimates (and acknowledging that we already ate some of them), that means a minimum of 8 pounds of tails so far. One more set and we’re likely good for the year! Nice way to shop, don’t you think?

Dinner guests last night. Much good food, drink and palaver. Great time had by all. Spread germs to all and sundry. Nothing like a dinner party for sharing, eh?

The poor ol’ Pudding has a head full o’ pudding. My germs got to her. She’s sick now, too. But, with Sal, little changes. A few (cute) sneezes and a minor complaint now and then but it is still ‘business as usual’ for her. She’s busy, pleasant and a going concern.

Not me. When I am sick EVERYBODY has to suffer!

Sal is out right now dropping the prawn traps again. We got skunked last time but the season is almost over so she worked the garden this morning and is working the oceans as I write this afternoon. Gotta get some in for the summer right now!

Actually, the season ‘officially’ starts in the first week in May. But that is for the commercial fishery. We amateurs can drop a pot or two throughout the year so long as we never actually catch too much. In May, the prawns come out to mate and the commercial guys come out to catch them. I think that is how it works even if it seems counter-intuitive to generating healthy stocks. But, you know, DFO has a hand in this….

One thing is for sure: DFO is messing up this fishery, too. Honestly, you’d think DFO hated fish/prawns/nature/life-in-general, the way they manage the resource. They are absolutely criminally negligent if not criminal-in-fact in their wanton ignorance and jackbooted arrogance.

Wanna get crazy? Read Alex Morton’s observations from being on the (DFO) Cohen Commission.

Breathe in. Breathe out. R-e-l-a-x……………..

Interesting to note: prawns are BI . They can be male or female as they so choose. I don’t think it is a matter of ‘choice’ as we might think it but it seems that two prawns are exactly the same in March but one of them will carry eggs sometime later in the season and changes somewhat to accommodate that.

If we catch a ‘female’, she goes right back in. DFO allows a few females to be ‘caught up’ accidentally but the pros are pretty good and, as a rule, they are all thrown back but not as quickly as we do.

Anyway, regardless of why it is in May that DFO allows the commercial fishery, it is a devastation. April 30th you can catch some, May 3rd, you get very little. By the end of May – nada. Zip. Zero.

The commercial guys just overwhelm the area. Their traps litter the bottom with as many as 100 traps per set and, if they drop on top of you, you can’t lift the whole shebang so you are trapped. And, if they drop first, your little trap will just get nothing and they will just lift and toss your gear if it gets in their way.

Things can get stressful if you play into that. The pros usually hate each other because of all that.

Most of the prawners are OK guys. We’ve even got a few friends amongst them and they have been up to the house for dinner. But there are some who are kinda whacked. Militant, bad mannered, surly louts who seem to hate everyone, locals, amateurs and other prawners alike.

So, we don’t prawn after the season opens.

Mind you, we rarely prawn even when they are gone. At least we haven’t done much in the past. Maybe a dozen ‘sets’ in six years…? But, with Johns’ new puller, we’ll ‘up’ that to maybe eight ‘sets’ a year I am thinkin’. If things ‘average out’, that means we’ll get about 12 pounds of tails. That’s a dozen good meals or a-dinner-of-prawns-once-a-month. Which is just fine.

While I was inside nursing the remnants of my head cold, Sally was out in the back yard making her garden grow. She’s got a green thumb, that girl. And a carpenters hand.

Sexy, in our new ‘organic, natural, rustic, sustainable and back-to-basics’ kinda way.

She wanted to make the back half of the new garden box a bit of a cold frame. So she framed the garden box interior with two by two’s and cut some clear, hard plastic to fit and, ‘voila’! She now has about 16 square feet of ‘greenhouse-in-a-box’ and, after an hour, when I went to see it, the temperature under the plastic was already a few degrees noticeably warmer than elsewhere. Today, she is planting.

Soon we’ll have veggies. This nature-thing is truly amazing stuff!

Mind you, it helps to have a Sally to get it done.

Speaking of natural; in the winter, our base population of 60 is cut to 40. People go South. Then, by Spring and in the Fall, it normalizes back to 60. Briefly. The summmer brings extras in the form of guests, visitors and transients and the population may swell to as many as 80 or 90! It is all part of a natural cycle. Here’s how it works:

Neigbours are now returning North like Canada Geese. Like the birds (snowbirds) the flocks of people are coming home to the islands to roost and get the cabin/nest ‘ready’. In the last couple of weeks, four cabins have filled with neighbour-folks all engaged in the ‘readying’ process. And this trend of arrivals will continue til the beginning of the summer when the next wave of ‘incoming’ take over. Visitors and guests come then. The population balloons through August and the first week of September. Think: a rookery of people.

Then they’ll leave by middle September and then the snowbird syndrome will kick in again and by January all those who are going to leave will have left for points South. This come-and-go has become one of the ritual migrations of our times, I guess. Evolution at it’s best.

This coming winter we will be amongst the ‘birds’ I think. That is the plan, anyway.

This is the best place in the world for me to live. Really. I love it. But that statement is only true for ten months of the year. The other two months aren’t hell, mind you. They are good. I like them, too. In fact, this winter passed very pleasantly. But, to be fair, by the time you get to February, you feel the need for some sunshine.

I didn’t used to feel that way. But I do now. By February, there is something kind of bleak creeping into my soul and it feels like only sunshine and a white sandy beach will fix it.

I think that if it was bright and sunny in January and February, I would not need a trip south because it is not warmth I crave, it is light. Anyway, our plan next year (2011/2012) is to head south. Probably Mexico. Drug wars be damned.

How and where we will end up are still up in the air but, if I had my preference, it would not involve actually being in the air. I have developed a profound distaste for flying. A bit more extreme than logic would explain. I just hate it. I hate all the airports, all the procedures, all the rules, all the schedules and I even hate the planes.

Even the flight attendants have no appeal anymore (Thai Air is the absolutely stunning exception).

Flying is not so bad but it takes too long. I can breathe my fellow passengers TB-ridden, Norwalk Virus-filled, influenza-riddled and oxygen deprived air for a few hours without gagging but anything more than four feels like I am sucking at the end of an exhaust pipe from a medical waste treatment facility. Detracts from the vacation experience somewhat, don’t you think?

I kept asking myself over the years: “what is the point of going somewhere to feel better if you are made to feel worse in the process of getting there?” So, I prefer to drive if I can. Hong Kong was a challenge. I tried to figure out a way. Seems they have not yet built a bridge over the Bering Strait. Damn.

So, Mexico beckons yet again. I may go down and rent a casita. Play some golf. Drink some Margaritas, dodge some bullets and try to avoid anyone who looks like they belong to the government, a drug cartel or a gang. Or the Federales. Or Policia.

Sheesh!

Head almost normal – empty. Nose less solid, more like stringy cheese now. I think I am improving. Less disgusting (nose description notwithstanding). Screen windexed.

Into the fray……..

The day the big tsunami swept up into my head, we had gone to town to do our normal two-week shop but with one major change to the usual schedule. It was also the annual dog clean-up date. Long overdue, I must say. Those two shaggy, stinky, ragamuffins went to Tammy’s Canine Emporium for Magical Change and came out like different dogs. Which is good. We needed a change. I was getting fed up with the old ones.

I try not to anthropomorphize the damn things but, really, there is no question they think they are a lot cuter coming out than they were going in. These two dopes literally prance and strut around in circles to show off their stuff. They think they are good-lookin’. REAL good lookin’.

One thing is for sure – they are somewhat better lookin’ and they are clean. Tammy does a helluva job. We (Sal, mostly) tend to them fairly well and they swim, on average, 2 days out of three, so they are never really dirty.

But they also like to be dogs and that means getting a bit dirty and, of course, Meg likes the smell of Otter poop as her signature scent. They can get a bit ‘present’ now and then.

I actually like them a bit when they are really clean. They are allowed to sit on the outside couch then. Give ém a week.

Head cold. Feel like I have a watermelon for a head. Like a there is a Rhinoceros jammed up my nose. It is hard to write while spraying mucous all over the computer.

Will write later when I can breathe.

Whales, that is.

A pod of Orcas came by today. I think there were five or so but Sal thought only 3 or 4. Hard to say, really. They were cross channel and, while Sal was out in the boat dropping a few prawn traps, I spied them from the deck and called her on the walkie-talkies. She finished setting and, with the dogs for company, putted over to have a closer look. She didn’t get too close but she was out there for awhile. So she may be right but I am pretty sure there were five or six.

Heard a single whale yesterday. No dorsal fin either. Just saw the plume-puffs. Maybe a Minke? We’ve seen lone whales before but usually they are humpbacks and not in the least bit small. When they roll past, you ‘feel’ them as much as see them. And you can always see them. They roll at least three feet out of the water just coming up for air. When they breach or feed and come partially out of the water, the big ones make the channel seem small.

Speaking of Minke…..

Our neighbour, Roger, was sitting on a rock at dusk the other day when he glanced to his left. There, sitting but a few feet away, was a mink looking right at him. They stared at each other without blinking for a few seconds and Roger, being the polite chap that he is, offered a pleasant salutation, “Good evening, little fella. How are you doing?” . That was enough species-interactive excitement for the little guy for one day and he zipped off.

We are always getting little wildlife vignettes and encounters. It’s nice. Everyone likes it. Doesn’t matter if they have been here for thirty years or not, they pause and marvel and appreciate the magic of it all.

But wildlife is a harsh life. Some uppity gull decided to filch some treats the other day from Roger’s serving platform. That buffet is dedicated to the Raven. Jack (our big male Raven) saw this and swooped. A tussle ensued with Jonathan coming out second best and missing not just a few feathers in the process. Seems ol’ Jack took Jon down to the ground and kicked gull butt for a few moments and then plucked a few just to make the point.

Those Ravens are something! I’ve seen them harass the eagle. They are not in the least afraid of the dogs and I have even had Jack take a few morsels direct from my hand. They do not invest too heavily in fear, it seems.

But, with that, a few chores and a brief visit from some neighbours (the human kind) that was basically our day.

Despite the presence of killers, it was a remarkably low stress day.

As I mentioned in the last post, we are building the decks on the bunkhouse. What I have failed to clarify, so far to my readers, is that I am the supervisor of the construction crew responsible.

Kinda.

My role is based primarily on the need for a go-between or mediator to be inserted between all the players, major and minor. And my qualifications, work history notwithstanding, are based almost entirely on my ready and effusive confession to not knowing anything.

Such inadequacy may, on the face of it, seem like a dubious and counter-intuitive qualification but it is not. In this case the dummy knows best.

Firstly, you have to understand that everyone up here is a builder of sorts and quite proud of it – save for me, of course, who is, instead, very proud of his wife as she is the real builder in the family. But I digress.

I know nothing and freely admit it. They know everything and quietly believe everyone else is a nincompoop. Thus the need for a go-between not encumbered by any skill or expertise. I am like the filter in the process that strains out the details but manages to pass on the main, basic message without colouring it with instruction, opinion or even basic knowledge. I am truly a simple messenger with the message so simplified that even I can deliver it.

A minor encounter with some Cedar planks illustrates this.

Bert (himself an expert builder and maker of things), standing five feet to my left, offered me some wood the other day that he thought might be suitable for my future boat building project. He said, “Got some nice Cedar. You could use that in the boat you are going to build.”

Dag(who builds boats by first falling the trees and then milling the wood) was standing to my immediate right and knows more about boat-building than Noah. I turned to him, “I might get some of that Cedar, there, Dag. Think it would be good for a boat?”

“Some of it, maybe. Not enough there, tho, for the boat you want.”

I turn to Bert, “Might take some of it. Might need some more, tho, depending on the boat, ya know.”

“How big a boat ya building?”

I turn to Dag, “Have we picked the boat I want yet?”

Dag says, “Nope. Not yet”.

I turn to Bert, “Don’t know as yet. You OK, with that? Can I tell you later what the boat will be and how much Cedar I’ll need?”

“Yup. How much later?”

I turn to Dag, “Unh, how long do you think it will take for us to decide this, Dag?”

“Don’t know. It’s your boat!”

This is where it got tricky. Everyone knows I don’t know anything and that extends to even the boat I want. I have some rough idea but Dag-cum-Noah knows so much more he is like my major consultant and it would appear that we were not going to take this conversation any further at this time. Dag has had enough talking boats for the time being.

“Geez, Bert, gotta think a bit more on it, ya know. You mind if I take a few days to mull this over?”

“Nope. That’s fine. Gotta move it, tho. May as well move it down to the boatworks, eh?”

The air was rife with tension. Moving it was OK. But moving it in the direction of the boatworks was a statement of sorts. A stance. I checked with Dag. He nodded just a smidge. It was approved. We could move the wood in the direction of the boatworks!

“Great!”

We separated. Dag went one way, Bert the other. More progress was made – the boat is getting closer to being made. I’ll refocus on the Bunkhouse decks when the tensions have eased.

We recently instigated a community work group. A work-force at the ready, so to speak. It was cast from the cauldron of hell-fire and brimstone that was the Q-hut crew. That bunch o’ pension-collecting rough-and-wrinkled necks that gather every Wednesday just a-lookin’ for trouble.

Yes, that would be the same group that is barely half-way through renovating an empty shell (Q-hut) into a cleaner empty shell for working in later. Someday. Maybe.

There does seem to be a vagueness to it all but we see progress. We just don’t know in which direction……….? At this point in time we are pointed in the direction of the Bunkhouse.

We are going to build the deck extensions and roofs for the community bunkhouse and I am fairly confident we can do this. After all, these are people who have single-handedly built their own homes from scratch, developed homesteads in the rainforest and who build boats by first falling the trees and then milling the planks. They can do just about anything if they put their minds to it.

Cash is, however, a bit of an insurmountable.

And ironically, we seem a bit lean on tools. I guess cash and tools are related. Anyway, we need some tools. Or cash.

I am quite sure that we are not actually lacking tools. That would be impossible, given the history. But we are lacking extra tools, tools for the common good, community tools-for-sharing. Because people around here rely heavily on their own personal tools and because community projects tend to treat tools poorly, not many are brought to community projects.

Not enough, anyway. We are consistently faced with willing volunteers who can’t participate fully for lack of enough implements. It is also understandable from a logistics point of view – who wants to schlep a hundredweight of tools to a volunteer work-party that requires you to hike and boat ten miles to get there?

I am going to make an effort to fix that.

That is where you might come in. You are second.

The first call, of course, was to the community itself by way of our very own media, the SNOT Rag. “If you have a good duplicate hand tool that can be left at the Q-hut, please consider donating it to the community tool chest”.

We need: Hammers: 4+ ,pry-bars: 2 ,level: 2+ , chalk-line: 2
Shovels: 2+ , rake, nail-pullers: 2+ , sledge: 1
saw-horse/workmate: 2+
Pick:1, big/medium crescent wrenches: 3, axe: 1,
come-along (not cheap Chinese-made ones):1
Ladder: 1 step-ladder: 1
pipe wrench: 1 Hacksaw: 1 (blades, too)
Handsaws (sharp): 2+ tape measures: 4 square: 2 vice-grips: 4+

Of course, we could use much more and the following list of wished-for tools are more expensive and really should be new or very near-new:

18.8v drill/driver with battery and charger (ideally a Rigid with the lifetime batteries). Two of them. Maybe three. Good skill saw (2), battery-powered sawz-all, mini-grinder, cement mixer, heavy-duty hammer drill, BIG vice, medium vice. Wood-vice. Bench top drill press. Portable belt sander. Bandsaw. Clamps of all kinds. Planes, files, sandpaper and block.

“So why tell me, Dave? I am just a reader of the blog. I don’t live there.”

Good point. I am putting this out there because I know what happens to ‘stuff’. We all get ‘stuff’ and then we have a garage sale and give away the ‘stuff’ a few years later. It’s what we do in this consumer society. Sal and I did it. Big time. I remember putting out on the ‘garage-sale’ driveway decades of collected ‘stuff’ that must have cost us thousands of dollars and dollops of time and selling it all for pennies. My BBQ went for $1.67.

So, if any of you on Vancouver Island or in the Vancouver area have ‘practically new’ hand-tools or even really great power tools and you are looking to find them a good home, please save them for my next trip south. Likely within a month or so.

I am not asking for sacrifice – if you are using them, keep ’em. And I am not asking for junk. Can’t use junk. I am asking for good, new, usable tools and I really just expect to get a few hand tools. Bandsaws, routers and such would be a very pleasant surprise and cash?!

Well, a cash donation is an option for the rich and foolish.

Mind you, we are already paying for a portion of our new $35B fighter jets. Maybe if we can afford to do that, we can afford to send money to a little village for tools. If cash is sent, send it to me. But, if you want a tax receipt and an assurance I don’t keep it to buy scotch, send me a cheque made out to the Surge Narrows Community Association.

“I am not going to read this blog anymore if you ask for money!”

I don’t blame you. Won’t happen again. At least not soon. Not in 2011, anyway. Probably. I am pretty sure. Depends, ya know?

John got an electric prawn trap puller. I get to use it. ‘Dem prawns bedda look out!’

Pulling prawn traps by hand is not so hard. The traps seem to weigh a lot when they are down deep, though, and the rope is hard on soft, flabby hands (like mine) but the reward is usually well worth the effort. IF there is a reward.

And therein lies the real obstacle to prawning: coming up empty. It is so discouraging to strain one’s poor little hands and back and not get some reward (spoiled brat that I am). Disney taught me that if I try real hard, I should get some prawns. Ya know? Like the Little Fisherman Who Thought He Could? Sadly, that is not always the case.

Sometimes the prawns are down there ROTFLTAO.

But all that is over. Now I can drop and lift prawn traps on a whim. Oooohhhh…….this is exciting! Worst case scenario: disappointment but without sore muscles. Of course, it does get better than that but saving my back is a close second.

There is no denying the primal satisfaction that one gets from bringing home the bacon unless, of course, one is not allowed to eat bacon anymore. Prawns are the new bacon. Real satisfaction hinges not so much on bringing it home but in being allowed to eat it and not having hurt yourself in the process. It’s why people write about picking blackberries more than they actually pick ém.

Same goes for writing about hunting, gardening, homesteading, log-home building and, well, you get the idea……..

Fact of aging: old people get almost as much pleasure thinking about stuff they used to do or are planning to do someday in the future than they actually ever do. I figure it’s nature’s way of keeping older people safe (until natural culling comes by way of cars, doctors, meds and spouses, of course).

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind a bit of a hike, a few scrapes and a prick or two from the blackberry thorns. That’s OK. That’s where my ‘macho’ comes in. But, when you hike and hike and sweat and fall down and get dirty and then you get bitten by mosquitoes and it’s hot and everything…….and you forgot your water bottle….and then there are no berries……….well, that’s when my macho runs dry. And my tears run wet. Aging also plays havoc with your macho levels.

And so it is with most of this foraging, gathering, hunting thing. The fruits of my labours don’t have to be as easily gotten as store-bought and delivered but they shouldn’t be so hard-to-get that blood, sweat or tears are required in any way whatsoever. Ya know? Who wants to cry over spilled blackberries at our age, eh?

We spoiled old brats (more commonly referred to as SOBs) are just seeking a balance of sorts. Fair play. It’s a tangent off the law of diminishing returns. Like fishing. One ounce of effort should get two ounces of blackberries or the equivalent in prawns. Like scotch! It’s only fair!

Fishing is the ultimate example of a pastime in need of some fair play. If you get your gear, launch your boat and head off all within a reasonable period of time – say one hour or maybe two if you have a lot of time to kill – and you drop your line and return home with a couple of fish within say, an hour or maybe two (if you have a few beers to kill) then fishing is OK. Not great. But definitely fair. You can choose to play or not based on that kind of risk/time/cost-to-reward ratio.

For it to be really great, the salmon would have to jump in the boat and clean itself but they are not that cooperative (not yet, anyway. Monsanto is developing a Frankenfish that leaps into your boat wrapped in cellophane but it’s a few years off the shelves just yet.)

But if you have to go to town to get your license and the motor doesn’t start and, after several weeks spent bored out of your gourd and considerable skin loss due to peeling sunburn and you don’t have one damn fish to show anyone (been there)………….well, the whole thing is just stupid, isn’t it?

And one thing should be clear by now: I ain’t stupid. Right?