ARMCHAIR CONTRACTORS

Posted on January 16, 2011 by jdavidcox

Despite knowing little if anything at all about just about everything, I tend to be opinionated (if not obnoxious) about things. Especially building cabins. I sometimes even think I know what I am talking about (if my wife isn’t present to correct me). It’s not an attractive feature of my personality but, like all human frailties, I can’t help myself and I do find some solace with the company of billions of like-minded fools who act as I do. We’re armchair contractors.

Worse though, I tend to share my opinions and ignorance like an act of generosity. “No, really! Help yourself. I have lots more advice where that came from!”

You’d be amazed at how infrequent are the requests for my advice. On anything.

On reflection, and with a rare encounter with self-awareness, I am inclined to believe that somehow ‘do-it-yourself-ism’ aggravates this ‘know-it-all’ condition. But I could be wrong about that (heh heh, only joking!).

There is nothing worse for a professional contractor to hear than those opinions of the amateur next door. Well, my doctor winces a lot when I mention my medical research on the internet so maybe it’s a universal problem for experts and knowledgeable people.

I wouldn’t know anything about that.

The latest poor soul to fall victim to my misplaced sense of expertise is my soon-to-be immediate neighbour a few thousand meters northwest. He is building a cabin.

The man is in his sixties, successful in life and proven capable in any number of endeavours, not the least of which was marrying a capable, competent and successful wife and spawning progeny equal in abilities to their parents. They are a can-do family.

“So, I guess you have everything organized for the big build coming?” I ask with Machiavellian delight. I know he doesn’t. How can he? He hasn’t consulted me (or my wife) and the task is a daunting one. It sure daunted me. I can still feel the daunts all over my body and in my bones.

“Yep. We’re good to go.” I search the words for double meaning paying special heed to vibrations of fear, insecurity, confusion or doubt. I remember those feelings well and want them shared. But, against all odds, he seems to really mean it.

Still, confidence, expertise, ability and a healthy bank account are not enough to deter my generosity of information. “Which barge service you using?”

“Not. Using a helicopter instead.”

Hmmmmmmmm….this is getting harder. “What’s your foundation?”

“Got a special system. Should go up in an afternoon.”

“Got a good genset?” “Got two.”

“Well, you know, mixing concrete up here is pretty hard work. Need any help?” “No. Got a new mixer. I wore out the old one!”

I may be a fool but I am not so much of an obtuse fool and it seemed to me that his answers were better than my questions. Maybe I had better shut up and just watch.

That nanosecond of self awareness thankfully passed.

“So, ever built a cabin before?” I ask with the slightly pathetic tone of a guy wanting to tell his story. I thought it might work. It doesn’t.

“Yep. Several. But my contractor has built dozens. He’s coming out with his crew to build to the lock-up stage. Is there anything I can do for you?”

I had been dismissed. “No. No. I’m good. Good luck to you. Doesn’t sound like you’ll need it, though. Sounds like you are ready. Good for you. See ya!” And then I leave much like I would leave the driving range when the local golf pro comes out to hit balls. There is really no point in hanging around. He doesn’t need me.

Not yet, anyway.

Now!

Posted on January 16, 2011 by jdavidcox

I was specifically asked (I swear) for an ‘oldie goldie’. This is from a few years ago but, today, it all came back again. So, in that sense, it is current.

One of the weird differences between living in the woods and the city is one’s increased ability to be more present in the moment. This altered state of being may just be due to aging and failing memory but I prefer to think of it as the beginning of some kind of better-late-than-never-enlightenment. I am no philosopher but going to the woods at least increases awareness of the senses and probably, by extension, one’s sense of being.

God knows I am overdue for some consciousness raising. For the most part I have lived my life in the dark recesses of thought, worry, planning and cursing the myriad and inevitable screw-ups associated with those activities. Plus I commuted. Put more poetically, I didn’t spend very much time smelling the roses on my way to or from work. Too much to do, I guess.

Of course, the counter to the ‘too-much-to-do’ excuse for being unconscious is that I have never been busier than I am at the cottage. I have a lot to do. And yet I seem to have more free time for this existential indulgence. Go figure. I must have slipped through a tear in the time-space continuum. “I have time to think therefore I am” (attributed to a modern era Sartre family member).

Or it may be because chopping wood takes time but not a great deal of focused-on-the-work-at-hand-type thinking. Plus, once you get the hang of it, it is difficult to screw up, the surprise of occasional bloodletting notwithstanding. Ergo, more physical time, less worry time – with just a bit of first aid practice now and then to keep your mind on its (and yours) toes.

And that’s a good thing. It is a much healthier state of living. Or it can be. I distinctly recall being so much in my own mind that I could drive twenty miles to an urban appointment without recalling anything I drove past while on the way. I was so deeply committed to what was coming up (or what had happened in the news) that I failed to notice what just went by. How does one live by staying in a media-dominated past and future life without even noticing the present one? It was not hard for me to live that way in the city.

Mind you, a large part of being present in the ‘now’ these days is not having to be present anywhere else. I don’t have to plan ahead. I have few, if any appointments. No one expects me. No deadlines. Hardly anyone calls or, if they do, I am not there to answer the phone. Philosophical question: ‘If a cell-phone rings in the forest does anyone care’?

The easiest way of achieving conscious presence is simply being outside and having all the physical senses wide awake and the usual thoughts turned off. Walking in the woods is a sure fire way of leaving your cares and worries behind. It’s a magical thing.

It’s also humbling. Each step deeper into the forest is like an entry to an empty stage with a huge but quiet and reverential audience. The space is broken only by your own intrusion. You are special only because you are there – no other reason. And, because of that, you become very aware of your own existence. Very profound stuff if you think about it. Which, of course, you shouldn’t do since it defeats the whole effect.

It is not just the magical moments that do it. Weather, too, is a big factor in awareness. In modern lifestyles, we can mostly ignore it and get along to the mall or the office regardless of how much Mother Nature protests. We deny the weather. Not so in the wilds. Out here you can’t ignore Mother’s moods. She is simply too present and omnipresent.

It’s impossible to ignore the ‘now’ when you are in the woods. ’Now’ is big out here. It embraces you. Living even partly feral requires an intimate and immediate awareness of your environment. Fortunately, the surroundings are attractive and beautiful. The present moment is often so enchanting, so totally occupying, you are ravished by it. It is literally a ‘momentous’ love affair with life.

Weird eh?

I have no idea if life really is more meaningful or if my existence is any more enlightened. I haven’t swapped my jeans for a toga-like sari, lost weight, gone bald or acquired a cult or anything really neat like that. Nor can I get into the Lotus position or even a beatific mood. I am pretty happy just to be able to get out of the chair on my own. I have no demonstrably hard evidence of achieving even the outskirts of Nirvana except for my desire to be here – and no where else.

I suspect I am doing well, however, if only because my mind is not so cluttered, my being not so burdened by trivial pursuits and my wife hasn’t left me. It could, of course, just be a later-in-life appreciation for this kind of living run somewhat amok with enthusiasm and excitement. But, if that is what it is, that’s not so bad either.

What is, is, after all.

Who is the moron here, anyway?

Posted on January 13, 2011 by jdavidcox

Is it just me or is the term ‘Emergency Preparedness’ an oxymoron of sorts? I mean, if you are, as they wish you to be, prepared for all the various-but-still-anticipated emergencies, is that not enough to cancel the definition of emergency? If you are prepared for whatever happens, can you actually have an emergency? Wouldn’t the incident experienced be downgraded to simply an inconvenience?

Of course, the other way of thinking is also true – if you have an emergency, God forbid an accident, then by definition you were not prepared. Duh.

But, it’s probably just me, picking nits. It’s just that this current preoccupation with safety and planning for every eventuality seems counter productive somehow. The only thing I have observed directly from all the security and safety measures preached ad nauseum is that less gets done.

I am not suggesting living dangerously – no, not at all. What I am suggesting is that some if not all activities pose some risk. That is life, after all. In fact, I likely cut myself at least once every day while building the house. I still sport bruises, aches, pains and the odd laceration from just getting through the day. WorkSafe BC’s declaration that “there is no such thing as an accident!” would mean, in my opinion, they are in denial.

And that can’t be safe, now can it?

Imagine my surprise when the local Emergency Preparedness Committee came for a visit to our neighbourhood the other day and declared for all to hear that we are all ‘living in a state of emergency’! To be honest, I had already partly dozed off before the introductions were complete so, at first, I wasn’t sure I had heard them correctly. Then, realizing the dire warning, I rose to the occasion and began shrieking and crying for help until my wife settled me down again with a well placed elbow to the diaphragm.

“We usually tell communities to have one week of food and water stored along with batteries and flashlights for emergencies. Extra blankets, a radio and a secure box for your valuables is also good. But, you folks can obviously live for a much greater length of time and are pretty independent as far as your systems go. Can you even have a power failure?”

“Uh, Jim’s old genset is pretty unreliable but everyone else has at least two and he kinda lives in the dark a lot anyway.”

“Do you have water?”

“Lived in BC long, have you?”

The people out here can not only live for as long as six months without ever visiting a store they can and do fix everything that breaks, make parts when they need to and some have even set broken bones using tree-branch splints. These people aren’t sissies.

As the woman said, “You people are living in emergency conditions.”

Why I do not need TV

Posted on January 13, 2011 by jdavidcox

It seems that Freedom is not so much of ‘nothing left to lose’ as it is a function of social constraints or, perhaps, just grey-matter gone gooey in all the rain. Get away from peer group pressure, neighbours and normally accepted/expected behaviour and you will, unfortunately for your spouse and family, find your true self. Being truly yourself can be a surprising thing. Trust me.

As my brother-in-law put it, “rural people aren’t nuts, they are the squirrels.”

The people who live out here in the forest are free to be themselves and many of them have taken to it like a lemming does a cliff. They are certainly eccentric if not over the edge. Some are complete loons (and, of course, in the spirit of the politically correct new tolerances for just about everything, ‘there is nothing wrong with that!’)

Mind you, my opinion on what is goofy is also changing the longer I live out here. I guess I am becoming myself. Apologies to all. I have shifted from my previous (albeit disputed) conventional, Stats-Can-poster-boy-type thinking to contemplating the wild and crazy theories of life, diet, economics, politics, weather and the media (just to name the current top six) normally raised over a cheap bottle of plonk by my new friends and neighbours. No, really – these guys are ‘out there’. Worse, I think I am slowly being converted. I used to just laugh and laugh when they talked to me. Now, I take notes.

We have eccentricities out here for everything. And you have no idea about fad-diets until you have met some of our more outlandish bachelor(ette)s. They will eat anything it seems except what you’d expect to find in a Safeway.

Phil, the fruitarian, showed up last year for a visit and announced that he was a fruitarian and had been for years. “What’s a fruitarian?” I asked. “I only eat fish and berries – like the bears.”

“Phil, bears are omnivorous, like humans. They will eat anything. Anyway, I am sorry to tell you that all we have to offer is ham sandwiches, home-made apple pie and a few cold cokes.”

“Oh! Well, that will be fine. Thanks.” He cleaned the plates and took a coke to go.

Bill was a strict ‘octo-lacto’ vegetarian but we were serving BBQ’d steaks when he dropped in. I had cooked eight of them for the expected number of guests but two canceled. No problem. Bill ate three. Presumably he went back to being a vegetarian the next day. He was no freeloader, mind you. He contributed soymilk, bottled water and a bottle of Omega three essential oils to the dinner. A bar of carob-based chocolate, too. A little known factoid: Octo-lacto vegans like scotch!

But the real eccentricities are saved for politics and economics. On those topics, we reside in Conspiracy county.

“It’s all a plot, a conspiracy. You see, G.W. Bush and the Queen are in on a secret pact with the Swiss banks (substitute ‘pope’, Israelis, Oil cartel, Bill Gates, the Rockefellers, Putin or Scientology for any of the three named above) and they are planning to take over the world!”

“You may be right but they can’t even keep the planes and trains on schedule and most kids under 19 won’t do as they are told under any circumstances. So, just how do you think these evil geniuses are going to pull all this off?”

“By way of genetically modified foods, TV programming and they spray us!”

“They spray us?!”

“Yes. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the haze in the sky. That’s residue from the regular spraying.”

“What are they spraying us with?”

“Hormones, mostly, a little radiation, some chemical cocktails and, it is believed, vitamins.”

“Vitamins?”

“Yeah, we have no idea what they are for.”

“You know all this sounds a bit nutty, right?”

“Yes, it does. But you are one of us now so try to follow along. It is why I am a fruitarian like Phil and I don’t have a TV. No GM foods for me. And I stay indoors at night when they do the spraying. I suggest you do the same.”

Oddly, I find that I am staying indoors at night.

One of my neighbours knits hats. They are very nice, really beautifully made and comfortable. If he likes you, he also offers to sew in an aluminum foil liner. “To keep the secret rays from the government microwave beams off your brain!” The good thing about his skill is that the foil doesn’t weigh anything and no one can see it inside the tasteful liner. It’s quite comfortable, actually.

We have a ‘phone book’ up here. One of the locals published it. Very few residents have phones but their alternative way of being contacted is listed so the concept is there at the very least. Most interestingly, all the names listed are first names. No last names.

“People got upset when I asked them their last name,” said the publisher. “So, I could only get them listed if I just used first names.” Of course we have Five Daves, four Steves, three Phils and Jens and, inexplicably, a Bubba (summer visitor, tho) so the mystery has been maintained somewhat. One neighbour I know as Gary is listed as Frank – for security reasons.

One of our locals is judged a bona fide genius. Mind you, the jury is somewhat suspect. Anything needing fixing, explaining or understanding is referred to Earl and the answer will be forthcoming if free libations go with it. Earl, himself, is rarely seen, however, except at community potluck dinners. And, when he is present, he is mostly very quiet or unintelligible. He, too, is convinced that the plots are all afoot and the end of days is nigh.

“Uh, no thanks on the turkey”, he said. “The government killed off all the real turkeys back in the 50’s and these are all clones of a mutant, genetically modified one that attacks your sperm count and adds to your female hormone levels. As soon as the government has enough technology for conducting wars without soldiers, they are going to eliminate men from the equation. They want us all to be women. Haven’t you noticed that almost all government workers are women? It didn’t start out that way, you know.”

Hard to argue with that even if you wanted to. But I passed on the turkey as well.

Tom is beyond eccentric. He is plainly off his nut. Having said that, he is amongst the most pleasant of companions and is genuinely welcomed wherever and whenever he shows up – for a while anyway. I like him, too. Kinda fun in a ‘where-is-this-heading’ kind of way. One day he showed up and did so without a boat. “Hey, Tom, good to see you. How did you get here without a boat?”

“Well”, he said with a huge grin, “that depends. Where am I?”

“You are here! At Dave and Sal’s. How could you get here without a boat?”

“Good question. My boat sank last week. I launched it at the boat ramp but forgot to put the plug in and it just kept going down. It sank with all my stuff in it. I was so discouraged, I left it there and went home.”

“I am sorry to hear that, but how did you get home? You need a boat to get home and you need a boat to get here. Work with me on this, Tom. Think hard. Got boat?”

“I must have!” he said laughing, “I think it’s down at the dock. I must have walked over. Ha, ha! How could I get here without a boat?” he said, looking at me as if I were mad. We had some tea and a nice visit before he went back over the hill to the dock.

I could go on. We have the seasonally naked guy (all seasons, it seems). The perpetually stoned, the new-age spiritualists, the really-skinny ones who fast all the time and the women who raise goats and slaughter them for some income but will only sell to a select few. One of them – at a community potluck dinner – got up to speak and denigrated all the males and followed that up instructing single males they had to eat last! Only men with their wives standing near dared go up at all.

It may seem odd to have this much oddness but it isn’t. It’s harmless and colourful, eccentric but entertaining and the really good thing is that you have no doubts about everyone’s true character. This is who we are and I couldn’t make this stuff up. Price of admission, free – as in free your self up, let it all hang out and pass on the turkey.

Trapped!

Posted on January 13, 2011 by jdavidcox

Had a few appointments in town and we had run out of dog food, milk and cheap B flicks so, today, we headed over to ‘end-of’-the-road’ to pick up our car and head in. It has been 15 days since we were last in town.

Eor is so-called because it is the end of the logging road on the next island over that, at one end, leads to the first smattering of on-the-gridders (the ones who have TVs and telephones, garbage pick-up, fire protection and police traffic harassment presumably in exchange for the the convenience of a store). The other very end of the Eor is an incline of about 250 feet of gravel road at a 20 to 25 degree angle. It is a steep hill that is relatively easy to negotiate if you have 4WD but it becomes a bit more problematic if there is snow.

And there was.

A 4WD neighbour had made an attempt earlier to leave the mid-slope parking area and his truck was at the bottom of the hill. He didn’t make it. It didn’t even look like he made much of an attempt at getting up, really. I assumed that he slid down the hill and realized at once that getting up was not going to happen. The truck was abandoned with it’s wheels in the beach water (high tide) and he had gone home.

Since I was currently parked next to where he had been, I decided to pass on my attempt. No sense in two trucks being there. We went back home in the boat that brung us.

We have been trapped before by weather but who hasn’t? You can be in Richmond and get ‘snowed in’. But this was the first time we kinda needed to get out and couldn’t. This was the first time I felt a bit trapped. I mean, really…….no milk for my tea, dogs get nothing but kibble, no movies and a missed appointment or two……….hardly anything to complain about. Still, I felt a bit trapped.

But it was notable that, in the past 5 years, we have not been restricted completely by our remoteness except this time and maybe one other (can’t remember). Generally speaking, we can get out or get by without any real inconvenience. And, even this time, the inconvenience is mostly to the appointments (they have schedules) rather than me. I mean; I am not complaining. I am kind of surprised. Five years on a remote island and inconvenienced so rarely I can’t even remember the second time…..if there was one.

Don’t get me wrong – there have been storms that only fools would go out in and so we didn’t even think about it. But neither did we have to. There have been storms that eliminated travel to places we wanted to go but they weren’t pressing – we could go another day. And there have been storms that limited us but not others whose vessels were more up to the challenge – so, in a sense, we were not ‘cut off’. We could call a neighbour if it was that pressing.

There are obstacles out here that you can’t get past. To be sure. But the main one is the logging road on the ‘connector’ island, not so much the sea. Trees regularly fall across that road in big storms and, when they do, they don’t fall alone. In big storms it is not uncommon for a dozen or more big trees to block the road. Even with a chainsaw (some guys always carry one after a storm), there can be too much fibre on the road to make a town trip worthwhile. When that happens, we let the road crew do it. And travel a few days later.

Today, we will let the milder temperatures and the rain do the job for us. Maybe we can go tomorrow.

Interesting…….experiment is over

Posted on January 12, 2011 by jdavidcox

I don’t get a lot of responses to my blog which is, in itself, a response of sorts. Benign apathy manifests daily and screams silently into n-o-t-h-i-n-g-n-e-s-s (except for a few of you and bless your hearts). But, damn………….

Running a few articles from past scribblings, however-much they may be still applicable, generated death-by-silence. It was a vacuum. The lights went out. Hello? Anyone out there? My existential angst went up as fast as the snow was coming down (we have a lot of snow right now). I exist because I can see my footprints in the snow but there was no written confirmation to be sure. Damn.

Sorrreeeeeeeeee……………..I’ll never do that again…………………….yikes!

So back to ‘fresh’…………..Alex Morton is one of my heroes. She walks, talks, breathes and lives for salmon and does so in a heroic way. She is an effective thorn in the side of our decadent, disgusting, delinquent DFO (those are just the ‘D’s) and is expanding her fish-based political irritation to the corrupt government generally by arguing for small communities and things sensible as well. She is getting quite a profile.

And so the Federal NDP tried to woo her to run for them. They may have tried to woo her to run for the Provincial NDP, too. I dunno. But she was wooed. And she almost succumbed. She almost ‘went for it’. But, she didn’t. She remained free of them. She is still an independent voice. Still a hero. You can read about her on: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

The thing is – Alex would be a good politician but no one can be a good politician who has joined a party. It isn’t possible. To join a party means that you put the party first, you put their agenda ahead of your constituents. It is a sell-out from the word ‘go’.

To be a good politician requires, first and foremost, honest representation of those who elect you. It requires personal integrity. It requires truth, plain and simple. And it requires being effective. None of that is possible in the party system we have now.

Need proof? Look at all the Gordon Campbell lickspittles who obeyed every command who are now ‘pretending’ to be so different. They either lied and sold out before or they are lying and trying to sell you a bill of goods now.

If Alex started a new party or ran as an independent or even joined a new party committed to changing those things, I would vote and work for her.

Nuff’ said. But you might want to look at her blog. It’s popular.

Glimpsing Hell

Posted on January 11, 2011 by jdavidcox

We live full-time in our cottage up the remote BC coast. It is a wonderful lifestyle in a spectacular setting and I am doing it with a wonderful partner. It doesn’t get any better.

But life has a way of encroaching now and then and it did so a few winters back. A friend of mine supports a small school for poor kids in China and the students needed help. He is a great guy, doing good work and so we went. Our job was to assist the students to learn English. He also wanted the children exposed to western thoughts, ideas and lifestyles.

To say that we had fun is an understatement. We had a great time. The children were delightful. It was also rewarding, interesting and challenging. But it was also scary.

As most people know, China is polluted. How polluted is hard to imagine. So, try to imagine this: Sally and I went on what was billed as a nature walk. It was a couple of miles over a small offshore island ‘park’. The trail was a sidewalk. Concrete. On that path walked thousands of people. It was more crowded than Robson Street at Christmas. In any fifty foot section of the walk there were at least one hundred people. At the end of the ‘trail’ there was the largest coal-burning power generation plant I had ever seen. I would estimate that I saw five to six thousand people on that walkway and the same number again at the terminus. It was not a nature walk by any definition I am familiar with.

Another day we simply went as far away from the city as we could in four hours and then we returned by a different route. The eventual destination turned out to be an ocean-side park about the size of a small city park in Vancouver. We took a ferry back. During our eight hours away, we saw one waterbug, Sal claimed to have seen a gull in the distance and I saw a moth under a streetlight when we got back. That’s it. Eight hours spent looking and millions of people seen and yet only three natural life forms in the wild.

What we have in BC and the western provinces is nothing short of priceless. And, tragically, it is becoming even more rare and valuable in a world gone consumer-mad. Those poor people paved paradise and put in a coal-burning plant. In the process, they eliminated nature except for the rocks and dirt. The air is thick with pollutants. Most days you can’t see two kilometres for the smog. They can’t imagine standing in a grove of trees that are fresh and clean. They can’t imagine free and diverse forms of wildlife. They haven’t got a clue.

But they will. They will see the devastation eventually for what it is: a deadly trade off for throw-away consumables. I guess the question is this: will we?

The government of BC calls our provincial resources ‘SuperNatural’. They are right. Sadly, they are mostly content with the description for marketing purposes. They don’t seem too inclined to promote it except to logging companies, mining companies and now river-buyers who will sell out our heritage by way of BC Hydro. This province is a jewel in a tarnished world and our government is selling the rivers! We have more economic opportunity simply by sharing our natural wonders, not having to sell them by the board foot, kilowatt or the metric ton.

I don’t believe that government leads. They are instead led by pollsters, advisors, cronies and lobbyists. And our current governments are following the old economic models of those perpetual advocates of self-interest and greed. If you want to see how that works, go to Detroit. Go to Philadelphia. Go to Hong Kong. Life sustaining nature is traded for one-time feel-good purchases and a pocket full of cash. It looks like the beads and trinkets trade for Manhattan Island only worse.

Don’t count on government. The Federal government has already overseen the demise of what they are supposed to protect. See: Fisheries and Oceans. See over-fishing and fish-farm pollution. Try to see wild fish! They will sell out our heritage as fast as they can. Saving our natural world is a fatiguing prospect for anyone but the options are simply not there. Don’t save it and you will breathe the air I breathed in China.

By economic forces, more and more people are being encouraged, if not subtly forced ,to live in cities. And, of course, the price of entry to the city is rising while the value of small-town Canada is diminishing even more rapidly. Small towns are dying in droves. Already 80% of the Canadian population lives in urban settings – mostly miserably. Sixty percent live in the five largest cities. It would appear that we are headed in the direction Orwell predicted, Big Industry is wanting and Big Government is achieving. If you want a sneak preview of things to come, go visit China.

Buying a cabin may not be much of a show of resistance. Even full-time, off-the-grid living in one is not. But, right now, I see this place as a refuge from the madding crowd. I see it as a respite from the rat race. I see it as a statement for how we could live. I see it as being contrary to the way things seem to be heading. And I see Hong Kong as the eventual lifestyle model for us all if we don’t embrace, value and protect what we have.

She’s a Woofer

Posted on January 10, 2011 by jdavidcox

It was two years ago. I was at a party on the island. I thought I knew everyone but it seemed I was mistaken. My host and I were talking when a young woman walked by with appetizers. “Who’s she?” I asked. “Woofer,” he said.

Now I don’t normally feel the need to defend the planet from sexism or rudeness in all its manifest forms but ‘woofer’ seemed a bit harsh even to me. I gallantly rose to the occasion and said, “Oh yeah? I’ll admit that she’s no Angelina Jolie but, really man, calling her a ‘woofer’ is just plain rude!”

“Dave, Dave. Calm down. ‘Woof’ is spelled W-W-O-O-F-’. It stands for ‘World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms’. It’s a volunteer program. Hosts feed and house young people, often from other countries, in exchange for farm, ranch or homestead work. Typically, hosts have rural homes on acreages, like us. Jen is ‘wwoofing’ here. She’s from Australia. She’ll help out in the garden and maybe chop some wood and then, in a week or so, move on to another host.”

(And here I was thinking that maybe just a new hair-do and bit of make-up might help the situation).

I was hooked by the concept of the program. I contacted WWOOF, sent in my name with a brief write-up, paid my dues, and waited for the Wwoofers to bark at my door. Sure enough, Sarah and Constance soon e-mailed an application from England. The game was afoot.

These two young school teachers arrived all pasty-white and ‘English’. I didn’t think they’d make it up the trail let alone work like the Sherpas I had hoped for. But they were fun and delightful company and we had a great introductory meal before they took to the guest room. And they did the dishes without prompting and so Sally was already on side.

Next day was log-hauling, bucking and chopping. Then carrying and stacking. I intended to start slow and quit early as is my usual practice with just about everything except reading and drinking Scotch. They’d have none of it. These two young people worked like slaves. It was hell. I couldn’t get them to stop so I kept bringing in logs. We probably put in two cords that day. Roughly twice what I am willing to do on my own. Finally, we quit, had dinner and they did the dishes again.

I was starting to like this wwoofing-thing. It was nice having young people do as I told them, an experience foreign to me since my own kids were about six. They were even polite enough to suffer through a few of my stories (…an experience foreign to me since my kids were about six…). No choice, really, as we don’t have TV. Naturally, trying desperately to remain sane, they went to bed early.

And so it went for a week. When Sarah and Constance left for another wwoofing gig on Hornby Island they left as friends with their legacy our winter’s firewood. We are still in touch. It was a good experience for all of us. And lots of fun.

This year, we have already hosted Ken and Deanne. Ken is from Eastern Europe and Deanne from the Maritimes. More wood. More fun. It’s been good. Ken works like Paul Bunyan and eats like his ox, Babe. Financially it is not quite the same great deal as it was with the two school teachers but we’re only out by a few tons of potatoes and an ox or two. Ken is a hard worker, good company and lots of fun. So is Deanne.

Each wwoofer is different. Some speak English poorly. Some, perhaps, not much at all. Some are small and unskilled, others are Amazons and work like machines. Generally speaking, they are all willing out-of-province or out-of-country workers looking for a natural experience in a cottage-cum-homestead setting. They need a place to sleep and put their belongings, some inclusive ‘family time’, usually around meals or chores and some free time. They work half a day or one day out of two although the woofers we have met helped out a little all the time. And they need good food. For more information, go to http://www.wwoof.org

I love my country lifestyle and, if there is anything missing, it is sharing it with others. Within reason, of course. Sometimes guests are not into the work and the chores we have to do. They prefer the deck and the mint juleps. That’s fine by me – I am a deck and julep kind of guy by nature, myself. But, when you come across young people (everyone under 50 is now in that category for me) who appreciate the environment, appreciate the setting, the cabin, the whole enchilada and are willing to contribute to the effort, it is a bonding experience. Friendships are formed around this kind of stuff. It’s a very good thing. I strongly recommend the wwoofing work experience to young people and hosting wwoofers to the older ones.

The Habit of Sheds

Posted on January 10, 2011 by jdavidcox

This is a repeat of an article published in Cottage Magazine. I thought I’d try recycling a few of them to see if they strike you as different. Of course, this one will. But will you be able to identify any future insertions?

I have to build yet another shed. I already have three. Sheds, it seems, are inevitable. According to the locals, you can never have enough sheds – or ‘out-buildings’ as they are referred to in bureaucrat-speak. It’s stupid, though. Sheds and outbuildings are often visible proof that you screwed up when you designed it all in the first place.

Mind you, some sheds should not, by design, be part of the main building. I need a boat-shed because, well, I have boats and all the stuff that messing about in boats requires. That stuff is heavy, oily, wet and sometimes smelly (but, then again, so am I and I’m allowed in the BIG house. Mostly.). Still, the boat shed should, by necessity, be close to the water and, since the house isn’t, a boat-shed was added to the estate.

I also needed a generator shed for the genset (duh!) and it should be as far from the house as possible for reasons auditory. And so the estate grew again – this time in the opposite direction.

Everyone needs a woodshed if now for no other reason than to put wood. Smoking behind it and spanking children in it has, after all, gone out of fashion. Woodsheds should be as open and as breezy as possible for drying the wood and relatively close to the house for the convenience of carrying same. So that’s three sheds. You’d think three sheds would be enough.

But it’s not. Because we are off-the-grid, we rely on batteries and batteries, damn their acidic and fragile nature, are sensitive to the cold. So I need to coddle my batteries in a warming shed of sorts to get them through the winter. Poor dears. For you handy-people, you’ll please note that batteries should be close to the house for wiring and line loss reasons and therefore not in the more distant genset shed or boatshed. Since a battery shed should be well-insulated, it would not, therefore, be part of the airy-and-closer-to-the-cabin-woodshed. Thus shed number 4.

Because we built simple and small, we have limited space in the house. Better put: we built too small. Our space is so limited, in fact, that the freezer and the washing machine were, for the first year, outside on the porch. This was OK with me as they seemed to be up to the task of facing the weather but, since they are so ugly, I was obliged to ‘hide them’ from public view. This is all because my wife’s sense of aesthetics is not the same as her counterpart in Appalachia. I pointed out as diplomatically as I could that there is no one viewing them except the two of us and we are all family. “Your point?” was all I got in return. Translation: ”….build them a house!”

So, I built a ‘wash-house’. But before that, the list also included a dog house my wife aspired to eventually see featured in an upcoming issue of Architectural Digest and the simpler but new backwoods biffy that can aspire to a more vulgar standard. The extra biffy remains as yet undone.

Even though we live in a modest home, our empire is expanding as if by manifest destiny. It’s all crude and rustic, of course, but spacious in an interrupted, willy-nilly kind of way.

And I know that won’t be the end of it. If I was a really good handy-man-type, I’d have a workshop. But I don’t have one. It may sound silly but I think I was in some kind of denial about workshops. I believed: if a man has a workshop, people will expect him to do work in it. So, logically, I didn’t get one. I have buckets of tools and boxes of junk instead.

Most annoyingly, my wife seems to think I have one and is always giving me things to fix or make in the non-existent work shop. The irony is that if I argue that I don’t actually have a workshop, she’ll simply add that to my to-do list. So, we both pretend that I have one.

But I don’t.

A garden shed with an attached greenhouse is now on our list, a natural consequence of regular Lee Valley catalogues. Such a shed is de rigueur in the country. And then there’s the guest cottage I really would like to add to the inventory, the tent platform for the attendant kinder and, of course, the much-discussed and coveted ‘designer’ gazebo (as if that will ever happen……!). Do arbours and hot-tub enclosures count? They are on the list too. What about garages for ATVs and garden tractors? Chicken coops?

My neighbours have barns, yoga huts, yurts, saunas and one even has a squash court (currently employed as a birthing shed for his sheep). Frankly, I think one can get carried away with sheds and outbuildings and I feel close to reaching that point already. Still, with some judicious dragging of feet I have managed to keep the expanding empire somewhat under control so far. But I am slipping. I can feel the inevitable destiny of more small structures pressing against my future. Resistance is futile. Let there be sheds!

Musing

Posted on January 10, 2011 by jdavidcox

Living off the grid has connotations. For some, it is seen as just a benign lifestyle choice; an appreciation for nature or a respite from the hurly burly. For others it is perceived as a bit of a moral choice to live more simply or less materially – sort of like being a vegan or ‘going green’. I am sure there are other ‘points of view’ on it depending on the person. And, for many, there is the implication that the off-the-gridder has ‘abandoned’ society and gone feral in a bid to survive the coming apocalypse. Or something like that. Something desperate, something primal.

All of those are reasons to change as we have done but they miss the most obvious reason: change for the sake of it.

None of those things listed first above were my primary motivation. My primary motivation was boredom. I like change more than stability. Change is my muse.

Sally and I had done the cul-de-sac to death. We had lived on boats, in apartments and houses – even mansions. We had traveled. We had pursued a variety of career choices, too. We have, in fact, enjoyed a series of life changes without any of them being imposed on us by family, health or politics. Those were all life-altering choices and we chose them freely.

For us, it was about interest, learning, curiosity, personal growth and the exercise of freedom. It was not philosophical in any particular way other than in the sense of learning, meeting manageable challenges and feeling alive. In a word: change.

If that continues to hold true for us, then we are likely to change again at least once more, maybe two more times given that each ‘lifestyle’ change so far has taken about ten years to cycle through.

But I have a feeling that the need for ‘changing it up’ is not quite as true for us anymore. It may just be our age. After a while of living, especially one that we considered was full and satisfying, there is the sense of ‘having done it’. Been there, done that.

It may be that this is so far and away the best place to live that the big search is over. We have been looking for something and now we have found it – whatever it was. Now, maybe, the searching will be for small improvements only; refinements on a theme, as it were.

Or it may be that the world seems to be going to hell in a hand-basket and who needs any part of that!?

I don’t know. I do know that I am more content than ever before. I do know that this lifestyle suits me better than most other things, places and activities, especially at this age. And I do know that it seems like the world is a very hot hand-basket these days. But I also know that I have felt that satisfaction before and it eventually changes to wanting something different.

If those same old feelings will again revisit us, what could the next thing be?