The newbies are still cranking it out.  Getting up and started is a big job.  Takes awhile, too. Yesterday was spent assembling some sort of floating rig from poly pipes to haul their runabout out of the water, a chore I am more than familiar with.

But I use logs to do that.  I dragged two long logs up the beach, attached them to run parallel and, when the tide is high enough, I pull my boat up the log ‘runners’ using a handwinch (now rusted useless).  But, I am OK. As you know, I HAVE winches!  I’ll just get another.  The ramp is a Micky Mouse affair and requires re-cobbling and fussing every time but it does the job – so far.  I really need to readdress that issue but, all in good time. I have asked for pictures of their creation…………so, we’ll see.  Maybe I convert.

B & K are at: http://www.oceanecology.ca and in the Port Neville area forty or so miles north of us.  Permission to ‘tell’ was given.  Their journal is good.  Being that far north gives them completely different seasons and a whole foreign climate compare to our area. Our climate is moderated by that big giant sea of warm water called the Gulf of Georgia or Salish Sea.  Their weather is a smidge colder. Mind you, with climate change and our own tendency to wander, we have contemplated going further out and the considered location was even further north than B&K.  Sointula seems to have some appeal especially for the fishing.

Sal went down to the boat-shed yesterday to do a little carpentry and some electrical work ahead of the arrival of some August guests.  So, I did the dishes, made dinner, tidied up.  I was gonna change into something nice and comely for dinner but it started to feel weird, ya know?  But I did greet her at the door with a glass of wine and a fetching smile. She grumped her way inside, fell heavily into a chair, gulped down the wine and described her vexing trials and tribulations at remodeling the shed.  I said, “Oh, sweetie.  It’ll be fine, I am sure.” And followed that up with more wine and more smiles.

We may need to get out more…………..

You may have noticed a waning of political rants and a dearth of disasters being reported on the blog lately.  Shingles cut into some of my thoughts, activities and work output for a long while.  It still is somewhat present and attention getting now and then.  It really took a lot more energy than I expected until I noticed the summer half over and none of the major chores progressing.  Something is going to have to change.

We may need to stay home more……………

So, using that opposing logic; we are planning to stay home til it is winter (try and get something done) and then snowbird out of here for a bit.

And that is a nice segue into revealing what the second book title is likely going to be…

“Should I Go or Should I Stay?” – answering the off the grid question.

Or something like that.  I have come to terms with the nature of this book, it is just not funny.  It is not about adventure, injury, or danger either.  It is not even too much about our new way of life.  It is, instead, a re-hash of questions and answers that every OTG’er asks themselves usually without getting any real answers.  We hope to change that a bit.

And then get this book monkey off our back.

I wanna write something different already.  And Sal, of course, just wants to quilt more. So, we have to get this puppy up and running even if it can’t run with the big dogs.  It just has to go.  We’ll likely fuss more with it til January and then, ready or not, let it out.

Well, that’s the plan but you know plans….best laid or not…..?

Received a very nice surprise email the other day…….B and K (introducing themselves) have recently taken to living OTG and doing so up the coast. They had been reading the blog for awhile (for fun) and just recently made the decision to go. I am guessing the blog title resonated.  And I guess they wanted out of the rat race, too.  Despite the blog gibberish and obviously with considerably more reading, education, skills and experience behind them, they chose to make the leap.

They moved further OTG than us and took their energies, equipment and with their probably-rapidly-depleting bank account, bought a large chunk of remote real estate and are currently building and solving problems just like we did.  Likely better.  They are younger.  They seem smarter.  Just two people. Husband and wife.  Just retired.

Nice to see.

And they are loving it.

“Geez, Dave, it must be getting crowded up there!”

No.  Not really.  You could sprinkle ten thousand people between us and them and no one would see anyone else from their living room window unless they were passing in a boat. It would take a helluva lot more people to ever get the designation ‘populated’ out here. And ‘civilized’ is never gonna happen.  We are all more like demented cats than sheep. Whole lotta eccentric and independence going on.

“But, is it a trend?”

No.  I don’t think so.  The overall numbers seem to remain relatively constant.  Maybe even dropping a bit.  Living OTG still ain’t a trend.  NOT hip.  Not yet, anyway. People 50 and over tend to ‘cabin’ and ‘cottage’ still and those younger tend to head for the nearest and biggest gene pool.  I think that is all we are really seeing.  Of course, the post war baby-boomers are now retiring so that would suggest a bump in the numbers but they just aren’t there.  Not yet.  Not now.  Not here.

Having said that, the ‘two’ mentioned above are actually the second couple to recently arrive and the other couple are much closer.  About four miles away.  But, get this, he is in his 80’s and she, tho younger, ain’t no spring chicken.  My age – ish.  So, they are starting OTG’ing a bit later than even we did.  Mind you, they have had a place up here for years that was their summer cabin so maybe that was really the start. It is hard to get a sense of any trends or anything when the numbers are so small so, basically the trend to report is just that: the numbers are small.

I used to think the retiring of the boomers would swell the ranks.  I don’t think so anymore. Then I thought that the 2007/08 bank debacle would reveal the futility of the system for more people and they would just opt out but that didn’t happen either.  Since then, as you know, I am inclined to think that madness and violence and zombies might just do it. Maybe not.

But lately….?  Well, I am pretty sure that Donald J. Trump will increase our book sales in the US at the very least. That is likely true for any book with OTG in the title.  And, if he actually succeeds in becoming emperor penguin, we may soon be standing in a crowd of Americans up here.   Democrats and Republicans.

Which reminds me: Director Ron Howard and Producer/actor Henry Winkler just put out a movie satirizing Trump.  It’s on Netflix.  It’s a bit too heavy handed to be ‘good’ but I haven’t watched much.  The first ten minutes was enough to get the gist.  But what is interesting for me is that it is so-soon up and watchable.  It is virtually a line being drawn while the race is still being run.  It is a media based declaration of civil war.  This seems like just not an act that can be laughed off as a joke, especially being released during the campaign. This is a media skewering without precedent.

I applaud their courage (if not the artistic merit that in their haste to present they seem to have missed).  They even referenced Trump knowing Roy Cohn (the infamous McCarthy era lawyer) early on to make their point that Trumpism is McCarthyism.  This is a new form of politics, it really is.

I am (by my own definition) an inferential scanner.  I tend to ‘scan’ information and then derive knowledge or even opinion from that very human, subjective, faulty, biased data processing operation.  It’s like scanning a dance floor to find the love of your life when you are 19.  It’s even a bit like reading the book jacket, a few pages here and there and maybe a synopsis on Amazon and considering yourself having ‘read’ the book.  Of course, I don’t do that with books but I tried numerous dance floors when I was young.  And I have resorted to doing that with professional sports as well – I just watch the last five minutes at the very most and deduce from that all I needed to know.  That is so much true for me now, I don’t even watch the last five minutes of anything except maybe the highlights of the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup.  The whole season is right there in the executive summary of the ‘year’s highlights’.

It’s how Trump thinks but he doesn’t even know any of the games. Not really (silver spoon in the way). Perhaps Liar’s Poker.  I, at leas,t played hockey and played football and many other sports (it’s why I can watch golf but not curling or trout fishing).  You need to have had some REAL experience to see the brilliant one-handed catch by NY Giant’s wide receiver, Odell Beckham Jr, to know that it is, in fact, a bloody brilliant miracle catch!

But that is not my topic………here it is:  Is my scanner off-base?  Am I seeing or am I NOT seeing an uptick in the violent madness that makes up our world these days?  I sense that the violence, murder, shooting, bombing, mayhem and even governmental heavy-handedness has increased markedly in the past year, maybe 18 months.  Do you think so?

I have taken to asking a few friends and the answers are ‘Yes, but….’ and what they mean with the ‘buts’ is that maybe it is all just being reported on more…..or social media is more on-the-spot than conventional media used to be……or maybe it is just that the new news simply follows the old news premise that ‘if it bleeds, it leads’.  No one knows, of course. We are not real data processors.  We are not hungry readers of stats.  Most of those I know don’t live in any ghettos, France, Turkey or Ferguson, Missouri.  We don’t know.

But it feels like it is so. I would suggest a 15% increase based on nothing rational, logical or researched at all.  Just my gut.

And, if it is true, what does that mean?  More specifically, what does that mean for us? Those of us NOT living in ghettos?

So, unlike my usual posts where I pontificate over some idiotic issue or wax poetic about ravens, this is really just a question.  Are we living in a crazier more violent world that is trending worse?

Or not?

Off the Gridding sounds so romantic, don’t you think?  Conjures up adventure, nature, simple, healthy, rustic and and being independent.  Flora and fauna abound.  Ravens. Whales.  Blackberries.  Oysters.

‘Oooooh, what’s not to like?’ 

The short answer: NOTHING!  That image is correct.  It’s heaven out here, no question.

The long answer?  Well, much the same….of course.  Heaven is heaven for a’ that.  But there is a slightly different reality over the long haul from the one first imagined from the statements above.  It ain’t just a walk in the park.

For one thing, you still need some money.  Not as much as you think you need but you have to have some.  I figure $1500 a month per person more or less depending on how far out you are. And that also requires whatever house you have built or bought out here being debt free.  Same for vehicles and equipment.  And the sky is the limit when it comes to equipment. So, bottom line: you need a lump sum to get started and then a regular income even if it is rather paltry.  OTG ain’t free and it is a rare person who can make much of a dependable income out here.

You need a good partner.  All the single people out here struggle so much more.  They also get more and more eccentric without the balances and off-sets a partner provides.  We all need partners and the further OTG you are, the more you need one.  No.  A dog or a pet Grizzly bear does not qualify.

You need basic good health.  Your prostate can be too big, your bowels easily irritated, you can suffer cat allergies or need to remain gluten and peanut free but your back has to be strong, you have to have your balance and you need to heal well.  OTG is physical. It is NOT for sissies.

You need to think outside the box-store.  75% of what you need, you can’t buy at Home Depot.  You are going to have to figure that out quickly and often.  My advice: start now, while you are in the best garbage dump in the world: the city throws away all the stuff you will ever need.  It is literally like a giant free-store if you have the ability to forage and hunt amongst the junk. Preferably with a one ton flatdeck.  Four-wheel drive.

You will need to develop some pretty basic skills quickly.  Like carpentry and mechanics. Skills are currency out here.  And they help keep you alive and your stuff operating. A good attitude and a lot of DIY books will suffice for awhile but you will have to rise higher than that over time.  You will be fixing your own washing machine, car, outboard, computer and, even more often, your own body and limbs.  Smarten up as fast as you can.

Try not to be a zealot about it.  Living OTG is great but you are allowed to enjoy a beer and a pizza if you go to town.  You do not have to be a Buddhist vegan pacifist who only eats raw vegetables and fruit.  That stuff has nothing to do with OTG.  I have no idea what that stuff has to do with but you can eat steak, drink scotch and watch cheap B blow-em-ups and still be an accepted OTG’er in my books.

I may even visit.

Living OTG is a simple goal – you are just not hooked up to all the umbilicals (read: leeches) of the world. Road, electrical, plumbing, social, communication, shopping – they are all grids, systems and the ties that bind.  But that’s it.  You may even try to pull them off of you while living in the city (ignoring the road grid)….it might be possible….but the fewer of the grids there are on offer, the easier it is NOT to have them.  So, I suggest just getting out.

To be honest, I suggest getting out to a small town that has some grid offerings.  Then go a step or two further out so you don’t have to rely on them but you can go there now and then for pizza and beer.  Best of both worlds.

But you don’t have to go far.  There is nothing about living OTG that requires the Dempster highway or Patagonia.  I think it does require a complete immersion in nature, the wilderness and a rejection of concrete, asphalt and stifling institutional-think but I am really only a short distance from the ‘grids’ myself.  Maybe an hour or so away.  I am definitely OFF them, but I can do a hop, skip and a jump to gain a toe-hold whenever that beer and pizza is heard calling to me.

I don’t go often, tho.  My last trip to town was over two months separated from the previous one.  And that was too soon!  If I girded up to attack and plunder the grid three times a year, it would be enough.

“Dave, why tell us this?”

Well, more and more it seems people are considering doing this or, at least curious as to what OTG means.  But almost all their questions show a lot of pre-acquired misinformation.  And many answers I am reading are just plain silly.  Many wannabes feel they have to be self-sustaining, live off the land, hunt squirrels, eat bugs and roots – that kind of thing.  “Gotta build a house from tires and straw bales. Compost my poop under glass”.  Others think they have to go vast distances into harsh environments armed to the teeth and dressed in camo.  I blame Survivor Man, the Idaho Militia and Duck Dynasty – for those very wrong pictures.  I blame hippy chicks for that raw vegan syndrome.

Living OTG can be sane, simple and doable.

It can also be hard.

So, this is a very brief perspective-sharing post to try to share that ‘moderate version’ of the OTG message.

Wouldn’t you just know it?  Yesterday’s blog……..I was thinking of ‘knocking on wood’ as I hit publish but didn’t.  It’s embarrassing.

Yesterday, I subtly gave myself a pat on the back for getting through a fairly simple outboard problem (out here) that would have stymied me a few years ago and would likely throw most of my city friends into the clutches of the nearest marine mechanic.  I was a smidge pleased with myself that we resolved the matter with only a few hours of fussing.

But last night we went for dinner at a nomadic neighbour’s.  S lives and works aboard his 100-foot mini-freighter.  It is a floating machine shop and he services the coast.  He was temporarily anchored just up the way and was our host.  Attending also was D who lives on his self-built 48 foot sailboat, St and K who just finished building their new speedboat to complement the 28 foot motorized barge he launched two years ago while, at the same time, building their house from scratch.  We also had J and J who, with two small children, are building a globe-girdling 45 foot catamaran to rival anything you have ever seen.  I was amongst incredibly skilled artisans who can do virtually anything.

And then I made the mistake of telling my ignition story.  

It was like telling Tiger Woods of the hole-in-one you achieved at pitch and putt.

S keeps a freighter going all by himself.  Mechanic, electrician, welder, captain, cook and general -all-around fixer of anything, he is competent and capable everywhere he goes. He is fully employed and in his sixties without even the assistance of a first mate or a dog. Cooks well, too.

D (also 60’s) once walked into the forest with his chainsaw and a few months later sailed away in a 48 foot sailboat that is gorgeous, well-equipped and in which he also stores his vintage motorcycle.  So, a few years later, he did it again with a 30 footer. Together S & D could conquer a small nation.

St and K are pushing 70 and, in the last five years built a house, garden, several boats and volunteered a lot for the community.  St learned to weld aluminum by first building a small dinghy and then building a fantastic, capable, powered barge complete with landing ramp and electronics and the whole shebang.  Think a value of $75,000 or more.  Then, while I whinged over Shingles, he and D – for fun – built two 26-foot speedboats.

J and J are younger (40) but have the same skill levels and independence.  They, too, can do anything AND have babies while they are doing it!

There was more practical expertise and outside-the-box thinking at that dinner than there would be in the entire city of Burnaby.

Of course, when it came time to leave, everyone went to the starboard side deck to wave us off and marvel at the jury-rigged ignition.  “Ooooh….will ya look at that, eh?  Started it with just two wires. Wow!  Be careful goin’ home guys.  Nice to have seen ya.”   

No place to hide in a small boat.

What I am about to describe is just an ordinary everyday challenge.  Now.  Even a few years ago, it would have been a major challenge fraught with cost and logistics.  Not exactly panicked, I would have been on high alert and working fast in the veil of darkness of not knowing what I was doing.  Maybe a bit tense is the best way to describe then.  A boat motor NOT working is NOT good for your nerves when you live OTG.  Yeah.  Tense is the word.

And I was not looking forward to seeing Guido again.

We came back from a big shop and tied up the boat to wait for the tide to come up a bit before the schlepping began.  But, when I went back to it, the boat was dead.  Not a hum. Not a click.  Zilch.  So, I got Sal’s boat and brought it alongside mine.  Sal joined me as we swapped everything over.  We also grabbed the batteries from my boat to check them out later.  She then took it around to the lower funicular and loaded them up.  It was a pretty full load.   And we remained busy til it was almost dusk.

We left the batteries on charger for two days and then went down to the boat with a bunch of tools to see what the matter was.  Checked all wiring….good.  Batteries charged right up…good. Ignition and shift gear control unit taken down, apart and checked with multimeter….good.

“Well, damn!  Everything easy or medium-hard checks out.  Looks like an engine problem, Sal.  I sure hope it is NOT the starter.”

And so parts start coming off the engine to get at the starter and once revealed, it seems dead.  Bummer.  Multimeter suggests starter or some kind of relay/ignition component that looks like a plastic cube with wires.  I wanted to know which was wonky.  So, I take a wire and ‘jump’ the system and sure enough, the starter works and the engine runs.

“Sweetie!  You are a genius!  What did you do?”

“Fluked a fix.  Got lucky again.  But we clearly have a dead ignition component so I will have to get a part.  In the meantime, I can wire in two hot leads that we touch together like car thieves and that will act like an ignition.”

“Cool. Grand Theft runabout!”

And, so we wired that up and now have two wire leads that are contacted to start the engine and then we ‘marret’ them and tuck them away to stay uncontacted while we drive around.  Total ‘cobble’. Real Rube Goldberg.  A smidge of the Guido school of mechanics. But, it works.

The reason for the story is a bit related to the previous post….we are changing.  Attitudes, confidence level, competence, standards…..we had a problem, we remained calm.  We worked through the problem and concluded it was, indeed, a broken crucial part, but remained calm. Then we found a way to carry on with a little experimentation and guts and still remained calm.  That is new.

But that news is that it is NOT the real news.  The real news is that this is an example of the larger change we are experiencing.  That is part of the growth, if you will.  That is part of a shift in consciousness and an increase in practical everyday knowledge.

Even five years ago, that problem would have necessitated engine removal, transport to larcenous mechanics who would ‘need to keep it’ for two weeks and then sad-facedly hand me a bill for $1200.00.  It might work.  It might not.  “No problem, Mr. Cox, Luigi and Alfredo ran it til it told us what we wanted, if ya know I mean?  We leaned on it a bit, eh?  I think we gonna have no problem with this little guy in future.  You got a problem, you call me.  Capiche?”

No real guarantees from Guido.  I’d prefer to do it myself.

Or, even better, let Sal do it.

Sex, religion and politics.  What else is there?  Really?

Sadly sex has being overdone these past few years, I think.  Thanks to Paris Hilton, Kardashian and all the other closets that have been opened, there is little left to imagine or talk about.  Too bad, really.  It used to be one of my main interests.  Now, not so much? Could be me, I suppose.

And religion?  Look where that is going?  Faith for some means kidnapping, beheading and blowing stuff up.  Or pious rigidity to the point of absurdity.  Plus there are all the still-silly costumes the high-priests wear.  Just like the old days, really.  They just aren’t evolving, are they?

Mind you, politics isn’t doing much for me these days either.  So, it is likely just me.  I’ll get on to other things.  Have to.  Back to OTG, for sure.  But, I’ll have to return to Trump now and then. I can’t help myself.  And there is the absurdity of the Martin Sheen.  Hard to make this stuff up.

Seems David Suzuki, Alex Morton and that champion of beach running, Pamela Anderson, have taken the Sea Shepherd’s yacht, the Martin Sheen, to ‘observe’ the fish farms around here.  It’s a peaceful protest of sorts (made for TV).  And we are all generally opposed to fish-farming so it is supposed to be a good thing.  Having said that, I am generally opposed to celebrity for celebrity’s sake and this strikes me as an absurd example of that.  But, then again, it could be me.

I am obliged to admit that my expressed sentiment is also partly due to my softening on the fish farming issue.  I still oppose fish farming for all the known reasons and mostly because of the sea lice and waste these operations create but I have been keeping close tabs on them for a few years and find them improving all the time.  They are clearly still in my environmental bad books but they have also put a few farms on land (an improvement) and they are reducing their use of chemicals and antibiotics.  They are also looking into new protein sources (bugs) and they are generally improving their staff, their knowledge and their practices all the time.  I now give them a low C-, up from a failing E just a few years ago.

But my biggest re-think on this issue has been that commercial fisheries tend to deplete natural stocks. That is NOT the case anymore if the fishermen run them (as they are allowed to do with some species) but under the supervision of DFO, a fishery can be and usually is decimated.  They are currently doing that out here with Spot prawns.  I contacted DFO on the fact that the prawn population in our area was at an all-time low just as they opened the season this year and their response was, “Well, if the prawns are wiped out in your area, the fishermen will move away.”

You have to wonder what we pay those idiots for.

But, before I move on completely……….a big thanks to Wrong John and Non-Con for their heated exchange in the last blog.  I love it when people express themselves.  Having said that, there is a developing ‘comment’ style on the net and it lacks in a lot of ways.  I have noticed it for some time but have not put words to it.  The commentators are NOT really exchanging information or conceding any ground when earned. There is nothing really new being added.  It is not a debate.  It is mostly what they call ‘flaming’. Insults. Anger.

The stuff from which Trumps and trolls emerge.

Real commentary is missing.  Instead there is word/spelling-manipulation like ‘Hitlary’ and ‘Crusty’ and ‘Lieberal’. In this case, it is not Wrong John’s fault, of course. Blog comments are implicitly limited and usually delivered off-the-cuff from the file labeled Pre-established personal biases and myths.  And most people often just copy the opinion of others anyway. They aren’t usually heavy with reason, logic or facts when they do that.  Nor original thought.  It’s like, “Up yours!”  “Oh, yeah, well, up yours even higher!”

I prefer wit or, second best, new information. At the very least read carefully what your opponent said.

OK, on to ravens, whales and ‘Oh, look! a squirrel’…..

We just had a pod of transient Orcas roll by this morning.  They did a little hunting just out front.  Got a seal.  Bit him up into pieces and, because they had little ones with them (2) and seemed to be rolling around them a lot, we think we saw Orcas feeding seal meat to their off-spring.  Hard to say, really.  But that is what we think.  Blood everywhere.  And whale watching boats, of course.  The most notable observation was the size of the BIG one.  That guy was HUGE!

Anyway – the point is that we are down at least one seal today but the squirrels and ravens are doing fine.

For the record, the Ugly American was a stereotype (and a book and movie) from the effect of the modern tourism industry of the nineteen-fifties.  Not all Americans fit the stereotype then or now.  The standard American tourist back then was rich and acted like it.  They flaunted their middle class wealth around the world and generated resentment by being arrogant and obnoxious. And they were loud doing it.  The American tourist knew little of different cultures and didn’t care to. As a consequence, they were not well regarded by the populace of other nations. Not for a long time.  But that was then.  This is now.  

Or is it? 

I don’t like Trump.

I thought that my reasons for disliking him were based on facts and knowledge.  His ‘position’ and descriptions of Muslims and Mexicans, his ‘laws’ he was going to impose. The ‘brilliant businessman approach’ that he was going to bring in to make America great again.  All the lies and false claims he makes.  The insults.  The bullying.  And, there is more. Much more. They were and are all incredibly stupid and so I rationalized that I didn’t like him, you know, from a logical, objective, fact-based point of view?

But that is not the truth.  The truth is I just don’t like him as a human being.  He’s a boor, a bully and a spoiled brat.  And I really HATE the stupid comb-over.  I also viscerally react to the faces he makes, the pouts, the grimaces, the big-open-mouthed hollers.  He’s loud in every way.  The decor of his home is nauseatingly rich-pimp-and-brothel.  Sculpted silicon manikins haunt the hallways.  And he’s so obnoxious, I want to punch him in the face. Once would not be enough.  He’s pressing all my lizard brain buttons.  I have to confess: I hate him for being rich, too.

That’s not right.  Really rich people can still be good, can’t they?

But since I am obviously descending visceral in this, I have to point out that his ‘style’ is clearly and factually divisive and that bodes poorly for a world in turmoil.  Doesn’t bode too well for a nation divided either.  Is this man a leader?  I do not think so.

That is what I think, anyway. So, is that ‘gut feel’ or is that a fact?  Lizard or Dave talking?

You’d think my thinking process would mean I default to Hillary.  But, seriously?  She’s rich and walking the Wall Street walk, too.  She seems to have dodged more than a few legal bullets from the S&L debacle to private e-mails.  She’s steeped in the establishment that has spawned this unholy mess.  She smells wrong, too.  And it is NOT like she is making courageous and heroic speeches, making good healthy promises, nor is she showing any kind of leadership except for a desperate desire for the Oval Office.

She’s ambitious, I’ll give you that but so is Trump.  My lizard does not like her very much either.

And that is what brings me to my point.  I don’t like either of them and my guess is most Americans don’t either.  In fact, I haven’t liked many of those who contend for leadership in a very long time.  Anywhere.  Stephen Harper, Christy Clark, Boris Johnson, Erdogan?

The thing that blew my mind was that, of all the GOP candidates, Jeb Bush presented as the most sane and likable.  JEB bloody BUSH!  Why, the hell, is that? Are ALL politicians simply really BAD people?

Or have they just been reduced to pablum-people by the system and no longer even hint at being real or human or compassionate or caring?  Could that be it?  We don’t like ’em because they do not demonstrate any of the humanity, morals, values and feelings we have?

And, if they do (Trudeau and Obama), it seems to amount to nothing…………..

And is that the Donald’s appeal?  At least – and I mean at the very least – he seems sick and sadly, pathetically human. He is ugly, ignorant, divisive and narcissistic.  He is stupid, biased, selfish and a bully-boy. Trump is an All American Pig of the first order.

But, given their culture, their history and their education system, maybe a lot of Americans can still relate to that?

Interesting, don’t you think, how a bureaucrat and a politician make a plan?  Assuming of course, that they plan at all…..

“Seems you guys in government have a Vancouver real estate problem.  Bad PR stuff happening here. You better gotta get on it!”

“Right!  Not our fault, of course.  We’re world class now, don’t you know?  So, who do we tax?  Where do we apply new fees.  That will solve the problem – for us, anyway.  We’ll get more revenue.”

“How will that solve the real problem?”

“People don’t like paying fees and taxes so they will stop doing it.”

“You mean like how they stopped paying the gasoline tax because they no longer bought gasoline?  Like how the rich people no longer buy fancy cars because of the luxury vehicle tax or the housing market has been kept affordable by all the myriad fees and rules and laws we apply in that asinine business called home ownership? You mean…like that?”

“Well, gee.  If we don’t tax ’em and we don’t spend their money, how do we do anything?”

“Well, it seems that you do very little as it is and what is done is usually wrong.  See the senate, the RCMP, the CRTC, the CBC and DFO for more proof.  Hell, look at just about everything the Liberal government does in BC!  The taxes and fees are already deemed too damn high and the people can’t even go camping!  You can’t take your kids camping in BC!  So, maybe there’s a clue in that…ya think?”

“Gimme an example of a better way.”

“Well, in just one small example …..if the government reduced all sales tax on solar panels AND allowed all Canadians to DEDUCT from their income tax the cost of installing a solar system to say, a ceiling of $35,000, then no new staff would need be hired, no Royal commissions, no standing committees, no white papers and no hot lines created and all the real work and wages would go to real workers doing simple installs.  The best part: Canada would make immediate strides in reducing it’s carbon footprint.  Mind you, the same would be true for applying such policies to electric vehicles.  No cost. Just results.”

“If we do that, we’ll lose a lot of revenue.”

“So, then, what you are saying is that it is NOT about solving the problem, it is just about getting a salary, is that it? You are not there to actually DO anything but just leech a salary and get your benefits?” 

“That is not fair.  And, anyway, leave me alone.  I am busy drafting up a new tax to be put on absentee Vancouver homeowners.  That’ll show ’em!”

“Show them what? You know that if the absentee homeowner can afford ten million dollars for a home, they can afford to put their kid or girlfriend in it?  And so how is a new tax going to make the house more affordable for the poorer young person, anyway? Isn’t that tax just about lining your own pockets once again?”

“So, how would you do it, smarty pants?”

“Well, I do not know what you actually want to do?  If you want growth and immigration, then just leave it alone and soon we’ll have another million rich people in the province.  If you don’t want immigration, then you’ll be accused of racism and isolation-ism.  You will likely lose your fancy position over that. So, what are you REALLY trying to achieve beside raking in more money?”

“Well, I guess we don’t know what we want.  We want their money.  We love money.  We don’t mind the actual people so much if they would just learn to drive better and stop shooting each other.  They’re kinda quirky and fun, tho, and I love their restaurants, don’t you agree? So immigrants are OK.  ‘Course, we want them to pay through the nose for everything and then work cheaply in the kitchens and farms so we hafta keep them classed as unqualified for our stupidly high standard jobs.  We want them to be peaceful and docile.  No gangs. We want rich, docile, nice people who know how to drive and can speak English and stay home at night. Preferably so healthy they do not need our hospitals. And with no kids! And they should be retired.  Rich and retired.  Is that too much to ask?”

“It’s a plan, Mr. Politician, but I wouldn’t bet on it.  In fact, it looks like a plan for failure at every level to me.  I say that because we have been at that same plan for a very long time and it has failed us and them miserably in the extreme so far. Can’t you at least – at the very least – let everyone go camping in their own province? Is that too much to ask?” 

Life off the grid changes you.  One becomes, over time, somehow in some way, ‘rural-minded’.  Countryfied.  And, in the process, city thinking will come to seem silly – at least when applied to the country.

It is NOT something that is forced on you, it is not something you can easily define, it is not required and it is not essential or even that important.  City-thinkers do OK out here.  In the summer, anyway.  Instead, gaining a rural mindset is simply a more logical way of coping with things that didn’t exist in the city.  It is a way of thinking that requires much more outside the ‘urban-mindset’ box that I had no idea I, myself, was working within even five years ago. It has taken me awhile.

When you think about it, how could it be any different?  Different cultures and societies require different approaches.  This is a different life from that of the city.

I now think differently.  I act differently.  I am different.

I won’t bore you with Dave’s Excellent Adventure at the Rural University (DEAR U) any more than I have already in this blog and the book and I will also spare you all the changes I have noticed in myself and, even more dramatically, in Sally.  But a few are kind of interesting to anyone planning such a relocation. Get this:

When we bought our land in our intelligent, sophisticated, educated and accomplished group, we looked at the map of the property and drew lines as to who gets what.  Why not?  That is the ‘way it is done’, is it not?

Answer: that is the way it is done in the city (where we did it).

First nations didn’t do it that way.  Even early farmers and ranchers used natural topographical boundaries more than lines.  Prospector’s long ago were entitled to use a portion of someone else’s land that was defined as the ‘pe’en’ distance of a dog (the assumption was a prospector had a dog and a dog naturally marked his territory when they made camp – thus the ‘defined campsite’).  There are 50 ways to leave your lover according to Paul Simon and there must be at least fifty ways to define your living space as well.

It’s been that way historically forever.  Countries are defined by mountain ranges, oceans, rivers and deserts, too.  And look at the fine mess we are now embroiled in when the Brits decided to divide the Middle east by arbitrary lines.  And Pakistan and India, for another example.

But lines on paper work when land is relatively flat as in most cities.  Lines work when land gets valuable and people want their square inch.  Lines also serve governments and registers and lawyers and taxes and, especially, fence building.  Lines serve a lot of people not necessarily those who live on the land.

Lines are a relatively recent idea, when you think about it…….

And so it is on our property.  The lines we first drew don’t quite work.  It will not be a problem. Our group is logical and fair.  We’ll revise our ‘defining area mechanisms‘ but, in the meantime, our current lines don’t work.  That is causing some ‘cognitive dissonance’ “How the hell can we fix it without lines?”

“Well, there’s the ‘pe’en’ dog mechanism to consider….?”

All of which is fine…….. it is just an example of thinking like a city person rather than a country person.

Here’s a few more: when we first obtained the land, we made rules for everyone to follow. I initially imagined employing a shipping container in my design (ahead of the time when designers had made such an idea more appealing) and it was strictly forbidden.  We made a rule. Chopping trees was forbidden.  Aluminum siding was forbidden.  Obstructing the shoreline was forbidden. Building on the shoreline was forbidden. Lots of politically correct, idealistic, urban-based values were adopted.  We had rules!

The land has been here a million years and it will likely be here a million more but we employed rules for the nano-second we live on it.  Hubris in the extreme.

Rules don’t work.  Just putting a ramp and dock in place so that you can access your site ‘obstructs’ the shoreline.  Breaks every rule in the book.  And, anyway, that original rule was made so that one could walk the shoreline.  Walking our shoreline is physically impossible for about 75% of it.  It was an idea that was just not practical.

Not to mention that we made the rule when no one was even here to try walking it.

And so it goes.  I mentioned to a local couple that hunting on our property would be severely frowned upon by our partners.  To be fair, I added that I would likely frown as well given my own squeamishness with the idea.  “Oh!  City people!”  they said, derisively.

Again, to be fair, I do not KNOW that hunting would be frowned upon but I am extrapolating from our collective rule-making history that forbade tree cutting and beach obstructions. Shooting a deer, by comparison, seems like it would be a hanging offense.

But we are adjusting. Slowly.  We’ll get there.  Or get here.  Whatever.  We have been cooperative co-owners, after all, for over forty years.

The point: living in the country is different than city people can imagine without having done it.  If you are thinking of going ‘off-grid’ or even living rural on the grid, expect to change your perspective.  Life out here is different.