I not only write my own blog, I comment on a few others.  Mostly political blogs.  I figure if I can get my politics out in someone else’s backyard, I won’t stink up my own.

It’s dog-think, really.

Laila Yuile is a political blogger and I like her.  No Strings Attached.  She wrote recently about site C and, in her text, she mentioned the hoary old phrase, “of course, we all deserve good paying jobs so that we can raise our children.”  Or something of that sentiment.  Her point being we need good paying jobs.

And so, now to my point…

I am not so sure there is such a thing as a good paying job.  In fact, I am pretty sure there is not.  If they ever paid you what your life was worth, you’d get a fortune in pay for the first few years and never work again.  So, the amount doled out by way of the system is ‘just enough’.  You get paid ‘just enough’ to get by and keep on working.  They call that good management.  We are being managed!

They want you to eat and sleep but they don’t want you to get rich and be an influence.  Of course some of us get by with less and some of us get by with a new SUV and a swimming pool but, basically, we all just get by.  Even the guy with two Escalades, a summer cabin and a mistress is not calling the shots behind the scenes.  Chances are that guy is just stressed out of his mind.

Only one percent of one percent have a say in calling the shots.  Maybe not that many.

The point is that the hoi poloi can never be anything other than that.  They are middle upper class at best.  Most of us languished in middle class on a good year and flirted with lower class more than once.  I grew up in poverty and scrambled up a notch.  We did not throw our weight around. Not ever.  We were and are the invisible, silent and dispensable majority. We are commoners.  We always will be.

So, really?  Is there such a thing as a good paying job?  Or is there just subsistence and subsistence plus and minus?

“Dave, why nit-pick?  If ya got two Escalades, a pool, a mistress and a few big screen TVs….what more does a guy need?”

Well, therein lies the rub.  We don’t really need any of that nonsense.  They convince us we do.   But even that is not the point. The point is we think we need that crap and so we sign up.  We enlist.  We drink the Kool Aid and join the system thinking we may eventually make 4-star general but knowing that most grunts remain just that – grunts.

It is not news, I know, but we were conscripted at birth (see your SIN card) and most of us don’t even think about it.  I think we should think about it.

And the irony is that we sell out to do it.  We sell our precious lives to make money to stand in line and buy a box we have no time to live in.  We don’t follow our dreams, we follow some curriculum.  We don’t march to a different drummer, we march in goosestepping cadence and sing the national anthem.  We are small parts of a large organism that is not a good one.

Our system has lost it’s moral compass.  We have shed our ethics and our morality because, in a money-driven world, those are luxuries.  No longer are we there to do the right thing. We are there simply to ‘make a buck’.  We are here only to ‘make money’ now; not to help others.  And, perversely, we willingly sign our names on a debt for a million dollars so that we can never change our minds. Some of us even take on system-entrenched careers like lawyer or doctor or accountant so that we are additionally trapped.

The longer I live off the grid, the more like incarceration living on the grid seems.

I know, I know….‘easy for you to say, Dave.  You are free.  We are not.  Stop saying nyah, nyah to us!

Sorry.  That was not my intention.  My smugness runneth over.  Mea culpa.  My bad. Apologies.  What I really mean is that some of us want to help others and study medicine or law or just grow great vegetables.  I have no problem with that.  But when your motivation is no longer to do good work or help others because you have to make a buck, then our priorities are all wrong.  The result of that wayward path is not just your own misery.  That is how evil gets done.

I have no real idea (I have a few real biases) whether site C is needed or not.  Is it good or evil? I don’t know.  I think it’s wrong.  But I do know that, when people are trampling all over others like the government and BC Hydro are, it isn’t all good.  And when I wonder why the BC Hydro guy is speaking with contempt to the protesters and the police get ready their tear-gas and tasers, I realize that they are doing it just to keep their well-paying jobs.

And there we are again….well-paying jobs…..

Attitudes toward money, work, things, schedules, time, focus, fears, goals, relationships, needs, wants and even government all change….just to name a few.

Money, of course, is money…..uber important stuff.  But, out here it morphs into something less important.  It changes in your head.  Money is no longer the reason for all things. Money becomes an ancillary issue at best.  Money is no longer #1 on your mental hit parade. People do not talk about real estate values, for instance.  Ever.

Hell, they do not even talk about the price of fuel which you would think would be on their minds. It’s not.  “It is what it is.”

The main reason for all that is simple: you are no longer – for the most part – engaged in the workforce. And the language of the workforce is money. Of course, we are all still somewhat engaged in it but even the most entrepreneurial OTG’er can’t put in a full day chasing the almighty buck.  Just ain’t enough customers, bucks or interest to make that happen out here on a daily basis.  Slowly your mind shifts from money-hunting and saving and spending to other things – issues requiring filthy lucre looming up maybe only once every two weeks at most.  Most of the time you are thinking about employing some ingenuity to a weird OTG problem that money just can’t solve.

Seriously, when the main topic of your old modern life fails to come up in thinking or discussion for at least two weeks, it diminishes as a topic in your own consciousness. Most people out here not only don’t wear a watch, they don’t carry a wallet!  You are no longer thinking every half hour, “Geez, parking just went up!”  Or, “Sheesh, I gotta get a raise or something…I can’t make ends meet”  Or, “Jeez, I could go for a Starbuck’s coffee!”  All those constant ‘consumer’ reminders keep money at the forefront of your consciousness. When they go, the topic fades.

There are many other reasons, too.  No stores helps keeps the issue at bay.  Fewer wants.  No peer group pressure.  Advertising non existent.  Slowly but surely, the cost of things becomes a non-topic.  When that happens, money becomes less of a focus.

It’s conventional attitudinal determinism, actually.  Researchers find that drug addicts are more addicted when hanging out with other addicts.  Surround them with people who do NOT talk, think and pursue drugs and the addict spends less time on their cravings.  And the cravings diminish.  In that sense, the modern state of consciousness regarding money is an addiction.  And, with time, it an addiction/fixation/topic-of-concern we eventually have less than our urban cousins.

Work is another thing.  Maybe because there is no competition out here, any workers for hire do not negotiate.  Nor will they quote.  And, if they do, it means little.  “Well, things changed, eh?  I had to go up north for a week and that meant my neighbour’s wood supply dried up and so I had to go down the road to another guy and that meant hiring a truck and the other guy charged more for the wood so the price I quoted changed from $1000.00 to $1100.”  

But it is more than just that.  People who might seem to need the work (they are poor) and have a mill and have some logs most often don’t want to make lumber.  “Well, it’s kinda wet out and I have mostly fir in the yard.  You can use Hemlock for studs.  Plus I need a part for the machine so I may not get to milling til next summer.”    

There are maybe ten small mills out here and it takes a while to find one that is even thinking about working.  And that’s because ‘work’ is no longer customer or schedule-driven.  Work is not 9 to 5.  Work is now driven by immediate needs or boredom.  “Well, can’t do any milling right now.  Gotta fix the roof on the chicken coop and put in the garden.  But, later, I can maybe fire it up.  I get kinda bored if I don’t do some millin’, ya know.  Just don’t know when.” 

I still have the remnants of city work habits.  If someone comes for something, I get it done within a day or so.  Often they are surprised.  “Wow, Dave, you wrote that contract up in a day?  Man, that’s great. Sheesh, I don’t need it for a month or so.  Can I leave it with you for a bit. Wife and I going to Saskatchewan for a wedding.”  

“No problem.  But I thought you needed it right away?”

“I do.  Right after the wedding.  And, after I put in the garden.” 

This second book I am grinding away at is not funny.  It is airy-fairy.  It’s psychological.  It is more ‘explanatory’ and deals a bit more with how to make the move, how to transition, what steps to take and what to expect.  How it all feels.  It’s about the thinking process and the shift from one way of living to another.  I am writing it from the perspective of having done it but having done it without knowing what I was doing at the time.  I still don’t. Not really.  I am still in transit.

Still, this book is about hindsight, partial hindsight – hindsight while still underway.

For example; one of the little weird, odd things I have discovered is how much time, interest, learning and investigating alternative energy took up.  It seemed to be the number one topic from the get-go.  I was attracted to the technology and I felt that I had to know all there was to know.  Then I had to get a ‘good deal’ and put together a ‘good system’.  The energy system became the focus, the iconic symbol of the effort to move off the grid.

I was talkin’ solar panels while still living in the cul de sac.  In retrospect, it was like a flag is to a movement, a leader is to a country, a loss-leader is to a supermarket.  It’s a symbol.

To be fair, talkin’ trash about alternative energy is part of the fun.  It’s new and evolving and there is so much to learn.  But, by way of making my point, people who move off the grid also talk a lot about sewage and water.  Somehow, we think OTG is all about power, poop and pipes.

It’s not.

Those topics have to be dealt with, of course, but they are not the essence of moving off the grid.  It is true that ‘the grid’ is all about power, poop and pipes but, if that was all there was to it, one could move off the grid simply by moving in to the garage.  Moving and living off the grid is 10% alternative systems, 90% lifestyle shift.

OTG is some new kind of different culture, some new kind of mindset, it is a different way of spending your time on the planet.  Flicking a switch to get power from a different source does not make a person OTG.  Even peeing in the woods doesn’t do it.  Living OTG is a shift in perspective, values, behaviours and possibly, relationships.  It is like moving to another country.  A third world country at that.

Of course, those topics are very subjective and personal.  It is hard to wrap your head around attitudinal shifts to the point that you can talk about it.  It is hard to imagine a new perspective until you get one.  Adding up your electrical needs is so much more graspable.  Piping in water is simpler to understand.  Newbies fixate on systems for the simple reason that they are needed and they are different from before when they lived in the cul de sac.  We know that stuff is going to change.  For many of us, we fixated on carpentry, too, simply because we hadn’t done it before – but now we are doing it and so it falls back in to the mundane.  Those topics are tangible, present and necessary.  They are also easy.

Still, the initial discussions: Lets talk poop, power and pipelines.

But the real topics are mental.  They are philosophical.  They are attitudinal.  They are the reconstruction of ways of thinking.  The real topics are hard to talk about because they are deep in our psyche, they are still changing, they are about life.

I am trying to give that a shot.  Feel free to help.

I have no idea if any of that which is written below is correct.  How could I?  I suppose I could do research but my opinions are never based on facts, so why start now?  I was just wondering why the economy is so flat and further….is there a good time to make a break for it? Just musin’, mostly.

Is there a natural time to stop playing?  Is there a time for everyone to quit the rat race?  Is there an ideal time to move off the material grid?  

I don’t imagine so.  We are all so different.  But young people are especially (read: hormonally) driven to find mates and so that fact alone suggests that the 20-somethings are more inclined to seek the largest gene pool available and that’s in the city.  Swimming in the gene pool is expensive.  Living in the city is expensive.  Young people drive the economy.

Thirty-somethings are usually fully engaged in whatever career they are pursuing and, if not, usually still looking for one to pursue.  If they have mates and children, those two factors mitigate to staying in the city and working and spending to do it all.  Thirty somethings sustain the economy.  

There aren’t many forty-year-olds out here. They are economic sustainers, too.   I guess if you are forty or so and have NOT YET been kicked out or committed to opting out, you are, by circumstance, pretty locked in to the major circuits and drains of the city and all that that requires.  Of course, there are exceptions but I don’t know any.

We have always had the marginalized but I think we have more now.  The homeless, the mentally ill, the under and unemployed, the millenials who never left the basement…these people are just not playing in the game.

But, by far, the largest contingent of new opters-out and OTG’ers are 50 to 65 year olds. They are the retirees.  They may already be rich and retire early, they may be late in that contingent and simply retire modestly or else they may have had the dream for decades and are slowly making the move incrementally.  For many of them, they are making the REMOVE.  If there is a new face in the sparser, non-competitive population, it is usually someone checking out around 55 to 60.

So, maybe 55/65 is the natural time-to-exit group?  There is no question that the majority of OTG’ers out here are 55+.  But I am still not so sure that indicates much except that it is true in our time.  And in our place.  It was true for me and Sal.  It was true for many of the folks we know. But there are plenty of exceptions, too.  So, hard to say.

But one commonality is largely true for all of us (at whatever age) who were rejected or who opted out: we are not huge consumers. In our case, our consumption levels dropped off because our kids fledged and we moved from a fast-paced urban setting which required high consumption levels so as to keep up with the Jones’s and to buy the convenience necessary to make more money. To be fair, we ‘consumed’ a lot getting ourselves established out here (although, no more than we would have in the city just living there) but, since then, our needs and wants have been reduced by 75%.  We simply do not buy as much as we did even in our thirties.

The point of all this musing in demographics is ultimately economics: Marginals, urban retirees and OTG’ers do not constitute much of a market. Never have.  Nor do those who are exiled by early retirement or illness even if they live in the city.  Of course, there are plenty of products we can buy and employ for our use and convenience and we do.  But products specifically aimed at early retirees or OTG’er are rare.  Products aimed at the marginals are non-existent.

I suppose more and more products and services are being generated for the ‘aging-in-place’ generation but that is a zero sum market.  A good example is a retirement home. The regular, good ‘customer’ is relatively short-lived, so to speak.  Hard ot build up a steady clientele.   And even if oldsters still buy, they don’t buy big and they don’t buy big-ticket items.  Few, if any, move up-scale, they down-size.  Ninety year-olds don’t have two-foot-itis nor do they lust for the latest muscle car. When you are old, OTG or urban, you simply buy less.   The marginalized consume even less.

Another way of looking at the lower consumption levels for me is simply looking at what I can buy out here.  Virtually nothing.  We have no stores, no restaurants, no services. One can hire local help for some transportation issues and maybe lumber supply. Maybe. Sometimes a heavy machine is available but, most often not.  And that is also true of older urbanites. They don’t shop for fun any more.  They aren’t accumulating.  Fashion does not motivate them.  They don’t want for much.

You might say, “So what?”

Well, here’s the point: the homeless, the early retirees, the OTG’er and the perpetually unemployed are a bit like the financial canary in the capitalist coal mine. They were rejected or opted out early and are no longer heavy consumers.  And that contingent is growing.  Fast.  Add in the ‘greening’ effect and people are buying less, recycling more and being less indulgent.  I think.  So, I am saying less consumption is a growing phenomena.

It is very much a function of age.  That’s for sure.  And, in particular, our lifestyle seems to accelerate that.  So, we who used to be drivers of the economy are no longer doing so. The bulge of the boomers marching to retirement is going to magnify that.

As people get increasingly marginalized as a consequence of inequality or incapacity or age they stop playing the capitalist game.  They cease to spend as much.  Ergo, the economy is flagging.

And you can see it.  The global downturn may be simply demographics.  It seems so. Japan aged faster than the rest of the world and it’s economy has waned for some time. And, at a smaller scale, we have plenty of older friends in the city and those living OTG and they are not spending as much either.  Large chunks of the consumer population are dropping off the statistical consumer radar.  Those of us older OTG’ers are just the early and more noticeable balers.  The urban old bale, too.  The dysfunctionals never had a chance.

The point: we will have zero to negative economic growth for the foreseeable future. And it may be partly my fault.

I fell a week or so ago and it still hurts to bend over.   Not so much.  Just a sharp reminder.  I am healing. I’ll be fine.  But I mention it again because I slipped on the stairs and about a week later, walking gingerly and holding on to the rail, I slipped again.  No fall this time.  Just a minor heart attack.  WHOA!  Just that feeling of ‘slipping on a greased surface’. Absolutely frightening.

“Sal.  As soon as I can bend, priority one is fixing the steps.  If not, priority two will be finding another husband and burying this one.”  

Two yesterdays ago, we began to pull up the steps and put down new boards.  After the boards were down, they were treated and then covered in wire mesh.  I tread on them with increasing confidence but still with one hand on the rail.  Once bitten…..

But here’s the real story: we put those treads down ten or so years ago when we were building the stairs which would allow us to ascend to the higher elevation for the building of the house. There are about 40 or so steps in that section.  Plus landings.  There are another 40 or so steps before and after depending on the terrain and deck and house design.  From low tide to the top floor, I think we have 80-something steps.  I remember the locals saying, “Your stairs are likely good for ten years.  But wood doesn’t last forever. Around then, you may have to replace much of it.”

Ten years flew by.

The top ten steps are shielded from the sun by a deck running along side.  Those steps get extra greasy in winter.  The rain would combine with the slimy, moss-cum-algae growth to form a slick grease that seemed slipperier than ice.  Every year it got a smidge slimier.

When we took up the first board, it was covered in a goo that, even when gripped tightly, allowed the board to still slip right out of my hands.  Even grabbing the boards with two hands denied a firm grasp and, as I worked them, they slipped and fell often.  Seriously, it was like handling slimy fish.

Planing the stair treads

I took each board and ran it through the planer.  Typically twice.  If I ran it slimy side up, nothing happened. The blades could not cut. The board might go through but most often it stuck.  Very strange.  If I put the boards bottom-side up, because the slime was considerably less on the back-side, the planer took off 1/32 of an inch and revealed a board that was perfect.  No rot.  No cracks.  If anything, the board seemed harder with the time spent in duty.  So, basically, I just ‘cleaned them up’ and replaced them.

It is remarkable that the wood was so un-flawed and perfect after all that time.  Especially in light of the warning and the extra slime.  I imagined the slime was also rotting the wood underneath but that was not the case.  Kiln dried, untreated, styro-wood from Home Depot would have been truly punk after such neglect.  I am sure of that.  This local stuff was great!

Before

After

Well, I didn’t actually do the lift and replace.  Sal did.  I was trying not to bend.  Instead,  I worked the reno-side (planer, saw, tool-fetching and supervision) and, on a few boards, I replaced them with new but it was Sal who took up the old and waited til I handed them back for replacement.  She’d take out the six deck screws and, a few times, do a bit of remedial work on the stringers and then put the boards down again using six different screws and holes.  Then she’d paint the new side with preservative and move to the next step.

Sally re-installing stair treads

She worked on her knees just as you’d imagine.  She’d position herself on the step below and work on the step above.  On the first of the steps, she put a hand down as she leaned to reach for the far screw.  It was so slippery, she fell on her face.  Because she was on her knees and so low to the steps it was just a surprise and no damage was incurred.  But imagine how slippery the steps had to be for that to happen.

When the top section was done, we stapled down new hardware cloth, a light metal meshing, for even better grip than that of the first day with new wood.  We had used the stairs for ten or so years without the cloth. Can’t afford to take that risk anymore.

We worked well.  We got the first section done. One third. We walked on it.  It worked. Good grip. But I can’t stop reaching for the rail.  It may become a habit.

Halfway down, half done

It sounds odd but this is a milestone.  Rebuilding something as fundamental as the main stairs even if it is still sound, is a milestone of sorts.  Nothing marks an anniversary quite like it.  We’ve been here almost twelve years but the stairs weren’t finished in the first year so this is like a symbol of our first ten years.  A milestone that portends of more maintenance, more repair, maybe even more falls.

Welcome to phase two.

8:00 am.  Foggy.  You can see maybe 50 feet.  On the water, of course, 50 feet may as well be 5 feet.  You look out but don’t know how far you are seeing because all is grey in every direction.  You know you can see about 50 feet only because that is the distance at which the dock you are leaving behind you disappears.  Once past that reference point, you know nothing for sure. You are literally in a cloud.

As such, you quickly feel suspended in grey but you know you are moving by the wet soft breeze on your face and the wake trailing behind your boat.   Going out in a small boat in thick fog first requires a strong sense of personal resolve and a fair dose of confidence. Knowing how to read a compass helps, too.  Being inherently fearless makes it much easier.

Sal was scheduled to go to quilting today.  The monthly Q-bee is on the other island. Starts early.  Pea-soup fog was not going to be a deterrent.  Sal cast off in her 11 foot boat when visibility was so bad, I could not see the water from the house deck.  But I could hear her motor.  She went zipping along at about 2/3 speed, maybe a bit less.  But she wasn’t crawling.

Don’t want to be late for quilting.

There is some logic to going quickly in the fog.  Our channel is NOT busy but when it is, it is often temporarily dominated by a big powerful water taxi going full tilt, equipped with twin diesels, made of heavy aluminum and sporting every electronic device possible.   It is possible they can see a small boat on their radar.  If they are looking.  Which they would not be doing all the time.  They can’t see logs and debris on radar so they have to watch through the windshield mostly.  Sally would be debris to them.

They usually just plow over debris.

So, it is best to keep your time in the middle of the channel short.  And the best way to do that is to line up your compass and crank it up.  Fly blindly, fly fast.  Cross the channel. Cross your fingers.

It is now 11:00 am.  I can see a blurry 150 yards.  Many boaters would call that foggy and not go out in it.  In English Bay, that would be a good decision.  Without radar?  A very good decision.  Most boaters have not memorized the shoreline nor do they follow it.

Out here?  Being able to see a blurry 150 yards is basically considered all clear. Why? Because out here one can remain close enough to shore if they can see that distance. And, if you can see the shore, you know precisely where you are because, over the years, you have unconsciously memorized the surrounding shoreline.

I know the surrounding square mile like the back of my hand.  I know the surrounding two square miles well enough to get around and I likely know enough of three square miles to know roughly where I am at any given moment.  Beyond that, I am not sure where I am. And once you have lost that sense of where you are at, even seeing some landmark you should know, won’t be recognized.  Once you are lost, you can be lost until you are within yards of home.

Sal made it, of course.  And the fog will have burnt off by the time she returns.  No biggie.

This winter is NOT crawling by.  I have no idea why this winter doesn’t seem glacial in pace and temperature as it usually does but it has been moving right along for me this year.  No down days, no frustration with the gloom.  I’m good. I’m alright and it is February. This time, staying home was not only the logical thing to do (with the dollar as it is) but it seemed right on so many other levels as well. Put succinctly, I have enjoyed this slow winter, the tumble on the stairs excepted of course.

Part of it, I think, is that, if you travel 3 winter times out of four, then the fourth time staying put is almost as much a change as the travel was.  Change by way of no change.

Another reason was that it has been a very changing winter.  We were cold in November. Snow in December.  January went by unnoticed. It is warm in February. That’s odd.  Light is also noticeably increasing in February, usually the bleakest month for me, and I am more aware of it this time for some reason. The word ‘spring’ seems almost reasonable to utter.

As any long time reader knows, Sal and I get along.  And we get along even when cooped up in small spaces.  We knew this about ourselves.  We lived 11 years on sailboats.  It was easy.  Could do it again in a flash.  We could likely live for a long weekend in a walk-in closet without much problem. And the real whackiness, is that we would enjoy that time!

Compatibility is more an art than a science but, in that sense, we are masters and could present at the Louvre.  Sal could teach that kind of art.  I would be the foil that she uses to prove her genius.

Right now, it is teeming.  Has been all night.  Windy, blowy, rainy, noisy and relentless. Sal is busy quilting.  Busy like a squirrel with nuts.  She doesn’t even notice me.  I am reading, writing and dreaming and thinking.  I am planning and investigating on Google.  I have lots and lots of thoughts and I am like a nut with squirrels in my head. Now THAT’S compatibility!

I would like for all this to continue for as long as possible.  Thirty more years would be good but my family sported an early best-before date genealogically speaking. Thirty is unrealistic.  Statistically I am in the ‘dead zone’ now and so twenty more will be a very fine run if I can make it.  Even that will be setting a new record for both my mom’s family (average lifespan under 60) and my father’s (average lifespan early 80’s).

Oh, don’t be silly!  I am not thinking ‘end of days’.  I am not morbid although, as I recall, it is the month for such thoughts.  I am just musing on time, weather, life and our place in it all. maybe it is time to start saying the ‘S’ word.  Spring is just around the corner and I, for one, am looking forward to it despite not hating winter this year.

Geez, could it be that I am just basically happy?

Slipped on the stairs and fell the other day.  Hard.  The worst part was the instant contemplation of skipping down the remaining 40 or so steps after the first three or four.  I was at the top.  When I gathered my single wit together, that bit of awareness told me I was rapidly gathering speed and headed south.  Yikes!  I could see launching myself into the sea!  So, I grabbed a vertical post to limit any further descent and slumped in a heap to a stop.

I may be getting a little old for this…?

I get hurt all the time.  This should not have been any different.  But it was.  It was different because I was being careful this time.  I was even holding on to the rail.  I knew it was slippery.  I was being cautious. OK, maybe slippers were the wrong choice of footwear but, being aware is 99% of the issue as a rule.  Not this time.  I was down in a blink and moving like Eddie the eagle.

I tend to disregard all that trauma, blood, pain and suffering not because I am heroic or brave but simply because 1. it happens now before I even know it is happening.  The accident is really fast!  My reaction time is really slow.  Ergo, it is all a complete surprise and therefore I may as well not worry about it anymore.  If I die, I am likely to be the last to know.

2. Sally always says, “Oh, Gawd!  Just get over it!”  You could have an arrow sticking through both ears and Sal would say, “Well, just pull it out and get on with it!”   She’s a lovely person but has the pain threshold of a boulder.  She simply cannot empathize.

3. Sal says no one wants to hear about it anyway. The book had just two incidents of trauma to illustrate the physical challenges.  We had a dozen from which to choose. “Save ’em.  You may want to write another book!” 

The reality is that I have been a smidge in denial about OTG and safety.  I tend to think that one can be run over by a bus in the city and the country just has different threats so why dwell on them.  And that is still largely true for me but I reluctantly admit that living on terrain that is generally comprised of sloping rocks angling between ten and thirty degrees is a bit more of a daily challenge than the slow amble in the foyer, mall or the plastic seat on skytrain (unless you occasionally walk the middle rail as some do).

Yes.  Traffic in the city is more dangerous.  No question.  So, you see my point.  Danger everywhere.  As Alfred E. Neuman said, “What, me worry?”  

As for the latest bump, it is a large bruise down my left side.  Except for bending, I am almost fine.  Bending seems to ‘crunch’ the bruises and that inhibits too much gamboling and frolicking about but Sal and I went about our business today (after three days of healing) and we brought 18 pieces of lumber up the highline from the beach.  We had to. More is coming.

Before we could do that, I had to start the old Honda winch.  It wouldn’t go so I took it to the workbench and stripped it, cleaned it and generally fussed over it.  It then started. Probably only took 60 or 70 pulls.  20 Advil.  But carrying it and pulling the cord was getting painful so Sal took it back.  In the wheelbarrow.  She affixed it in place.   Then she popped down to the beach to load the lumber and I hauled it up.

Then, we took the engine apart again and stored in the dry room.

A day in the life…..

Bob is 82.  Half Mexican-Apache, half Mutt and Jeff.  Who knows?  But he has black hair and tans easily, that’s for sure. Loves Mexican food and (gasp) SPAM!!

He was born and raised in New Mexico or some other scratchy patch of desert way down near El Paso and thereabouts.  Didn’t have more than one pair of shoes till he joined the army. Poor like a peasant most of the time, full of life even today and a big giant romantic of the kiss-the-girls kind.  Great smile, great personality, healthy as a horse and, in my view, a great guy.

He’s been living on his own now for the last 25 or so years.  Wife left him.  Ran off with another guy who looked just like him. Guy had the same name, too.  Fatter wallet was the only discernible difference in my view.  She didn’t even have to change her ID.

But, he was OK with that curve-ball.  Took it in stride.  Got a house in the south desert with lizards and cactus.  Took up with a cat.  Wiled away his time after retirement flying sorties.  He is a virtual flyer.  He has flight simulator programs and takes a Lear Jet to Paris now and then, a Sopwith Camel to fight WW1 battles and generally speaking, is living to a ripe old age having fun and eating tacos.

But, sometimes, of course, he watches TV.  He loves British TV series.

After watching the series Last Tango in Halifax, Bob was reminded of an old girlfriend he had been in love with in his twenties.  She, a seething Mexican beauty with whom he was totally smitten.  They got along well until the army or the military/industrial corporation with whom he was employed transferred him to California.  So, off he went.  They were young. They were pretty.  There would be others.

And there were.

But, at 82, he was reminded of E and looked in the El Paso phonebook to see if she was still there.  She was!  Same name.  Same woman.  Never married.

Bob went to see her.  It had been 60 years!  But nothing had changed for them. Bam! Second time lucky.  Love in all the old places.  They are getting married in June.

Mexican-Apaches….she couldn’t live with him and now she can’t live without him.

And you thought romance was dead.

Coming from town laden to the gills.  Headed for the community dock where we had arranged for a friend to pick us up (it is good manners not to leave your boat at the community dock for more than 24 hours because there are way too many boats using it as a drop-off/pick-up point).  We’d been gone five days.  He was there on time.  We were late.

We’d been right on schedule until the point we entered the cell coverage dead zone – the last ten or so miles on the last of the dirt road.  Turned a corner to see a tree down.  Tried pulling it with the truck but too much tree, not a heavy enough rope.  We tried calling our friend a dozen times but dead zone for us was a dead zone for him, too.  Even when I drove for coverage, he was deaf to our message.  We drove back out of the dead zone and phoned the road crew.

Someone in the US of A answered.  She was dispatch.  Ditzy.  Entrusting her to get the job done was not an option.  Plus it would take hours.  So, we headed down the neighbouring island.  Plan B – gonna hit up a neighbour.  Went into a yard.  Knocked on the door.  No answer.  On the second such house (all houses way down long country roads) I was turning around to retreat when I saw the guy’s workshop.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…………..

Jumped out, walked in, found his chainsaw and tried to fire it up.  It had been drained of fuel and bar oil.  Found his fuel can, found his chain oil, put two and two together and it fired right up.  Strode to the car like the chainsaw thief I was and passed it to Sally, and headed back to the tree.  A few minutes later, feeling a smidge guilty, I finished up the tree, dumped the oil and gas, gave everything a wipe and drove back to the victim’s shop.

Still no one home.

Put everything back as it was and, leaving no fingerprints, returned to the road.  As we passed the fallen but now sawn-in-pieces tree, I looked up ahead in the road just in time to see another tree fall.  Boom!  Right in front of us (well, forty feet).

We got lucky.  The tree was a dead and rotten alder and the impact on the road was enough to break it in half.  A quick turn and we sguiged through.

A few minutes later we got to the dock at the end of the road where our friend was just about to give up.  We connected and all was well.  Of course, we apologized and explained.  He said, “No problem.  I actually fell asleep”.

How can you fall asleep in a small boat tied to a bouncing dock during a gale and in heavy rain?”

“Dunno.  Good rain gear, I guess.  Plus, I have been doing this a lot.  This weather doesn’t generate any fear for me.  Just got more relaxed, actually.  Next thing you know, I just nodded off.”

I’ve been out here almost twelve years.  If someone doesn’t arrive on time at the end of the road, I get annoyed.  Twenty minutes late, I get worried.  After forty minutes,  I kick it up to hysterical.  If someone were to be an hour late, I’d be a frantic idiot contemplating calling the Coast Guard (“Do you guys ever do roads?  My guests are stuck in the middle of the forest. And there must be trouble because they are late”).

It’s why Sal lies to me when she goes over to the other island, “Sweetie, I’ll get out of quilting just before 3 and I’ll probably stop and talk and then shop and then drive slowly, may stop at Eileen’s.  Don’t worry about me until about 7:00.  I expect to be home at 6:00. The truth is quilting ends at 2:00.  They are all talked out (for the time being anyway) and I know Eileen is in India.  Sally arrives home about 4:30-5:00 like you might expect.  She explains that things just went smoothly.  In this way she thinks she is fooling me so that I do NOT to worry until 7:00.

Trees falling in front of you as you drive…that was the main point of this blog….that could get frustrating.