GUMBOOT GIRLS (Caitlin Press 2014) is about the ‘second generation’ of ‘landers’  from the 70’s.  Hippy chicks. First generation would be the original fisher and logger wives of several decades earlier and, of course, there were the ‘originals’, the First Nations women, for thousands of years before that.  Sal is third gen.  Kinda.  Mostly.

Sally is the same age as the second gen women but she just doesn’t have the roots, the scars, the skills, the long history to be truly a back-to-the-lander, hippy-chick.  Sal was urban until her early fifties.  Cosmo.  Vanity Fair.  Even though she has all the right stuff and attitude, she is a veritable Newbie amongst the many long-experienced, true Amazons of the wild west coast.

Mind you, those ‘GUMBOOT GIRLS’ in the book were further up north as well.  Life was and still is harder up there and it must have been especially difficult at times in Haida Gwaai and the nearest mainland area from which these stories were forged.  These women went back to the land in the seventies when services, amenities, housing, money and even safety was in short supply.  They did good to make a go of being off the grid when the nearest grid was still hundreds of miles away.  And many had to do it alone.

GUMBOOT GIRLS is a good read.  But it is also truly descriptive. It is accurate.  It gives the right sense of living off the grid.  Our lives are not as hard and never will be as hard as the GG’s had it but we do face similar basic challenges and there is often some kind of commonality in their stories for us.  We can relate.

And that brings me to the point: I am not so sure I can honestly relate to First Nations.  Too foreign an experience for me to relate to.  Too primal.  And the early settlers were also such a hardy and impoverished group working ten times harder just to survive – I don’t really relate to them, either.  Too tough.  But I know the GUMBOOT GIRLS.  Some still live amongst us.  Many still live around the remote nooks and crannies of the wild and rural-side of the province. These are the new Cougar Annies’.  And we know some of them.

Essentially, they are the hippy-chicks of the seventies but the qualifying essential is longevity.  Duration.  Stick-to-itiveness.  These are not just the young beauties of the free love era who arrived in long, thin cotton dresses with flowers in their hair that were somewhat ubiquitous at the time. These are the ones that stayed, partnered up, built boats, found employment, constructed homes and gardens.  And they raised families as well.  These are the women who didn’t have electricity or running water, who also gave birth sometimes in tents and small cabins and who learned to fix motors and survive off the land (to a large degree) or else they would perish. These are the third iteration of rural women and they did good.

They still are doing good.  Sal and I did a quick tally this morning and came up with twelve names of nearby neighbours who qualify as 70’s back-to-the-landers who are still here, doing great and are real role models for anyone wanting to see strong, independent, accomplished women who can virtually do anything.

Talkin’ ’bout Sal’s generation…? The Sally-come-lately’s?  The ‘other’ members of the book-club?  Well, she and some of the others just-as-old but-not-as-tested, recently-arrived women have more than enough to deal with transitioning from urban life to off-the-grid living. They work hard too. They are not slouches.  Their work is not as hard but these women started at a later stage.  Mind you, the children are grown.  So, it is still a challenge – just in a different way.

And there is a next generation in the making as well.  Some are children of the GUMBOOT GIRLS and they have embraced this way of life with the same gusto. Some GG children have married other GG children.  Others went fishin’ in the urban gene pool – promising to come back. We have young women with young men trucking families and tools and a sense of adventure to remote places for work and even sometimes just for the adventure.  And we have WOOFER’s. The spirit of discovery and adventure in the wilderness is alive and well, to be sure.

A full-time partner makes it easier, too, in either generation.  Having enough money to buy the food you need makes it a helluva lot easier.

But something as modern and simple as cell-phone service or Netflix illustrates the real difference.  There has been a technological leap.  We have it much, much easier than the GUMBOOT GIRLS but we also are just close enough to know what they went through and to have great respect for it.

GUMBOOT GIRLS.  A good read about a great way of life.

Been away.  A memorial service.  Mother’s Day.  Shopping.  Outboard repairs.  You know….the stuff from which life is composed and comprised?

Sometimes life is a bit of a drag, tho………right? Seems slow?  I mean, it is not HELL but it is sometimes same ol’, same ol’. Right?  C’mon…..you know it can be like that!

But, of course, it hasn’t been that way much for us these past few years because living off the grid is an adventure and, the best part: you have some control over the tempo or pace of your adventure.  Time seems to lose it’s influence.  I work at my shop when I want to.  I explore the beaches when I want to.  I basically find myself in a curious place that is at my convenience to explore.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

But doing the ordinary stuff of life (as referred to in the first line) puts that in a stark perspective.  Put another way: I never wear a watch anymore unless we leave the island.  Then I put one on.  I have to.  I have to swim in sync with the world for a while.

The service brought people from four decades past together.  THAT was something.  We were being greeted by old friends that we had not seen in close to forty years.  Most had changed dramatically, of course, but interestingly, everyone’s voice was instantly recognizable.  Some greying, old, bald guy rolling around in an extra hundred pounds, extended his hand and, puzzled, I shook it.  “Hi, Dave!”  It was Don!  I knew it instantly.

And so it went.  Ghosts, practically.  But in the flesh and reminiscing out loud and right in front of me.  Strange but good.

One fellow with whom I had communicated only by way of this blog came up and introduced himself.  My deceased friend had introduced us on the internet but we had never met.  That was good, too.

The whole thing was good (save for the purpose of the occasion) but also very, very poignant.  It was like the mother of all milestones.

We all know we are getting older.  We aren’t stupid.  And we know that we are actually getting old, to boot.  But when you are collected at a funeral for a friend of forty years, those decades come rushing up to splash you in the face.  You can see your own life in the faces of those with whom you were young.  Very sobering.

In a way, Mother’s Day is similar.  Sal’s mom is in her 80’s.  Sally’s (our) son is in his thirties.  We had pictures of great grandma when she was much younger than we are now.  And our own son is a constantly surprising and ever-maturing adult.  Such occasions are also sobering reminders that time is not a slow march but a veritable sprint.

Worse for me, sprinting or even long distance running was never my family’s forte’. We are a gene pool of occasional walkers that use the benches and rest stops more than most.  And, sadly, we don’t usually get very far.  We cover distance like the Celts, Druids and Hobbits from which we are descended.  We are short in all the wrong ways.  Long on words, brief on life span.

And that is the beauty of this island.  I don’t have far to go and I can rest even on the short paths.  Plus it is full and interesting, like life should be.  Short and sweet.

Slowly workin’ away on the workshop.  It’s still fun.  So, I am going slower to stretch it out a bit.  Plus, I am getting a bit fussier in my work these days.  When we started into this DIY madness ten years ago, a ‘cut’ within half an inch was good enough.  Now, not so much – now it has to be a snug fit or it won’t do.  ‘Magine that?  Just as the project begins to wind down, we get good at it.

Well, Sal’s standards are higher, too.  That is definitely the larger part of it.  She nags til it’s done right.  She calls it supervision.  I must admit that things fit better and look better.  But she’s relying on my design and engineering so it may not actually BE any better.  We’ll see.

We used to work to the 30-year rule: “It only has to last as long as we might and we are not likely to last 30 years so relax!”   Sadly, we are now working to the 20-year rule.  And, ironically, we are getting better and better.  By the time I am working to the five year rule, I will be the Stradivarius of the cottage world.  Go figure, eh?

Ever built a workbench?  Well, I have.  Lots of them. Had to – they kept falling apart.  So, this time, I wanted to build one that would last.  You know, at least twenty more years?  But all the great workbenches I know of that last a long time are of the heavy-duty, blackened by the charcoal from the Smithy’s furnace and misshaped from the constant blows of his massive hammer – type.  Only aesthetically pleasing workbench I ever saw was a gazillion dollar masterpiece on display at Lee Valley.  It’s still there, of course.  Honda Civic’s are less expensive.

And, anyway, a man has to build his own workbench if he already went and built his own workshop, don’t you think?  It would be wussy not to.  So, I am.  Slowly.

Trying to think my way through this…….how to produce a nice, orderly work counter?

Normally that is not such a chore.  I can visualize.  But not this time.  This time it is hard to see order from what has always been chaos.  I have a plethora of tools spread higgledy-piggledy all over the place.  I have a batch wherever I ended up as I finished, started or interrupted one project after another.  Many tools make it from project to project but some are still back at the last effort.  Or the one before that.

But make no mistake, I am pretty good with this system.  I can remember back at least six projects…..Hmmmm, when was the last time I used that special clamp………….?  That would be January of last year.  I was down at the boatshed.  And I’d go down and check and sure enough, there it is.  Just where I put it.  A little over a year ago…………

Having duplicates of tools helps, too.  In my system, triplicates is even better.

Normally, ya don’t fix it if it ain’t broke and my tool-finding system works just fine – if I lived alone!

IF you have a wife who thinks cleanliness is next to Godliness and can’t help herself from tidying up, my system is severely flawed.  She sneaks around and tidies up.  Behind my back.  And so, things get put away and I don’t know where they are.  “Hey, Sal!  You seen my skill saw?  I was just cutting some two-bys and I went to pee and when I came back, it was gone!  You see any strangers lurking about?  What the hell?”    

“Oh, sorry Sweetie.  I just saw it lying there and so I packed it up and took it downstairs and put it in that locker where the other hand tools are.  I think it is under a lot of stuff.  I just cleaned up. Oh, and all the two-bys are under the house.  Under a tarp.  Tied up.”

“I was gone three minutes…………..?” 

“Snooze ya loose.”

Overdue Rant:

Sal is on the alternative-worker list at the post office.  The main postmistress has a life as does the 2nd and third alternates so #4 gets called now and again.  Sal is on this week.  Sal never took the job for the money.  She is just an alternate postmistress for helping to keep community up here together.  The post office is part of our social glue.

And then Canada Post cut back their pay!  You know, that same post office that raises the price of stamps, delivers late, loses mail and generally is getting their butts handed to them by FedEx and the like?  Well, they decided that the problem was that the postmistresses in remote outposts were getting too much money so they took some back.  Yet another example of urban-based decisions that erode rural life.

For getting in her boat – even in winter storms – for traveling by sea to the post office, for bringing her own kindling to start the stove for heat, for working alone for 4.5 hours without electricity, not having the security of co-workers or even the comfort of a bathroom, the lone worker there gets $45.00.  That’s her day.  They take her time and effort and have high expectations of her and then compensate her $45.00.  And she reports that income to Revenue Canada!

$45.00 won’t fill the tank of your car.  Won’t buy two good pizzas.  Won’t buy a pair of good gumboots.  And will not even post 45 Xmas cards!

But Sal will carry on.  Why not?  Construction work with me is her alternative and I don’t even pay $45.00.  Mind you, with me she saves on marine gas and gets to practise her first aid not to mention being on the receiving end of steady overtures of affection (which she calls sexual harassment, if you can believe it!).

Top posties make hundreds of thousands of dollars and the CEO, Deepak Chopra, (seriously, you can’t make this stuff up!) makes $500,000 a year.  Deepak runs a company that lost $37 million last year and pays it’s employees $45.00 a day and Deepak takes home $500K and a helluva pension.

Can you say, Third World Sweat Shop!?

Oh, I know, I know…………”Dave, you can’t draw conclusions from such odd situations.  The economy is so much more complicated than your anecdote makes it out to be.  You are wasting my time!” 

Yeah.  You are right, of course.   Canada Post is trying to get better, grow their business, provide more service.  They are failing but they are trying.  So they say, anyway. Like the CBC is trying and failing.  Like BC Ferries.  Like Education, Health Care and even Veterans and Indian Affairs.  Like BC Hydro.  They are all dedicated to serving the people, right?  How ’bout them DFO, eh?

Don’t bet the farm on any of that, folks.  Methinks that myth has been thoroughly busted. 

“So, if our institutions are no longer serving us primarily and are now just serving themselves, what does that mean for our society?”

Niall Fergusson, a right-ish-winged Libertarian Cambridge historian figures that history proves that empires failed first in their public institutions before the empire, itself failed.  And, even then, we-the-people never revolted, we just grew so apathetic that we were easily taken over by foreigners!  That’s right…..we all lost faith in our own system and then were taken in a war (historically, anyway).  He calls it the GREAT DEGENERATION.

How’s your faith in our system these days?

The government and our institutions are no longer about the common good, building a nation, healthy communities, social contracts and all that good Disney-esque crap.  They are just looking to make a buck. To sustain themselves!

They have rejected the social contract for the pursuit of money – for themselves.  It is that simple

Local markets and local people still pull together while our own elected leaders feed at the trough and sell out to corporations every chance they can get.  We have the image of the community minded postmistress, they have the images of Duffy, Wallin, Rob Ford and Deepak Chopra.  I’d love to see the poster.

So, who wins this one?

Do the people somehow pull together in alternative markets and public efforts to do good work? Do they stop pipelines, toss out the pigs-at-the-trough, do they reverse climate change?  Do they insist on saving their institutions even while the degenerative destructionists dismantle them?  Do we find justice in a system that simply mirrors the corruption it claims to resist – our legal and policing systems?  How, exactly, is DEGENERATION reversed?  Can we do it?

Most of us don’t see it.  The media is of little help.  Only a few show awareness, even fewer show concern and, seemingly, very, very few are actually doing anything about it.  The best we have on the front lines, it seems, are the postmistresses!  According to Niall, the greater ‘we’ won’t do anything.  We will watch hockey while Canada crumbles.

According to Niall, ‘Get ready for the GREAT MARCH’ (which, by the way, he sees happening in some form or another by 2020 or thereabouts)

Makes me wonder if I have previously marched far enough?    

We have a new winch.  Kinda.  It is really an old winch we had that used a 2hp, 3-phase electrical motor that was too hard to run with the little genset.  Now it is married to a good-sized Honda gasoline motor.  I am very much looking forward to putting this puppy through it’s paces.

I have been using the old weird winch that looks like it was invented in the Dickens era by Gyro Gearloose.  It works but it is slow.  Takes twenty minutes to get a log up the hill. Sal, setting the chokes on the logs at the bottom, would play fetch with the dogs during that time.  I would stand stoically near the old winch keeping the cable laying properly.  Pulling up six logs took hours.

Old Winch

A friend of mine saw the old set-up, “Why are you not using that big winch with the electric motor?”  “Long story.  Mostly about 3-phase power and my small genset.”

“You should have it on a gas engine anyways.  Like a mini-donkey engine, ya know?” 

“Yeah.  But that requires some kind of transmission, clutch and crap and well, I just don’t have the time.  It’s busy out here!”

“I’ll do it.  Get that monster over to my place in town and I’ll do it. Could be fun.” 

New Winch

So, I did.  And he did.  And now we have a new-old winch with a gas motor and all we had to do was schlep the 250 pounds of the steel-framed monster in and out of town and now back up to the top of the hill.  We lift such heavy things off Sal’s little Whaler at high tide using the high line. High tide last night was at about 7:30.

Sal turned out a curry at about 6:00 pm.  This after loading a lot of stuff from the other island and a lot of myriad other chores.  Result? Best curry ever.  Indians can’t make it this good.  Then she washed it down with a couple of glasses of wine and we headed off to lift the monster winch up the hill.

I was at the top of the hill setting the pull-line.  The winch was in her boat down at my neighbour’s dock.  She would paddle the boat over from there. One of our other chores that day was schlepping her outboard into the truck to take into town for servicing.  She untied her boat and, in an effort to get a good push-off from the dock, pushed too hard and fell in.

Gawd, I wish I’d seen that.

But she scrambled into the boat from the water quickly and, soaking wet except for her hair, (she is pretty quick when she needs to be), paddled the boat under the highline and we hauled it up within half an hour.  Job well done.  Sal went back and tied up her boat as I monitored the winch.  As the load was nearing the last few feet up the hill, she approached me from the direction of the stairs.  Clothes are sticking to her.  “Fell in!” 

“What? I didn’t see that!”

“Happened over by the dock.  You were doing winch set-up.  But it was OK.  I fall in on average once every year and so I am probably good for this year.  Might have been that second glass of wine.  You know what they say — drinking and boating don’t mix. I’ll go in and have a shower.”

I couldn’t say much.  Laughing too hard.

So, I wrestled and struggled with the monster at the top of the hill for awhile and finally got it in place.  Sal comes out after her shower wearing a cute little Thai housecoat just as the sun is setting to ‘support me’ in my efforts.  She is gorgeous.

Best curry in the world.  Clown-martyr, winch-wrestler and long-line hauler. Beautiful company.  It simply does not get any better.

I have a friend living up here, a neighbour of sorts.  He moves about somewhat, but in the immediate vicinity, so he is a hard-to-nail-down neighbour but still a friend.  And I find him fascinating.

D has lived most of his life up here. Well, actually, he lived a large part of it in an even more remote area.  He kinda went all-civilized when he came down this way.  He is, by any account, wilderness savvy and wilderness oriented.  In fact, he is stereotypically reclusive at times.

But not all the time.  Winters he sometimes travels to sunny climes and helps others down south build things from natural sources.  Like he is his own branch of Habitat for Humanity or something.  He is a green builder of incredibly practical and minimalist orientation.  D can make a house out of anything.  D is a real life McGyver.

When D wanted a boat, he went into the forest, felled a tree, milled it up with his chainsaw and then put it all together. It looks fantastic!  Robinson Crusoe is a pussy by comparison.  We’re talkin’ Grizzly Adams at his best here.

And D lives frugally.  Less than 10G a year I am guessing.  And that includes his trips to places as far away as New Zealand!  I have no idea how he does all that but he does.  And he does it well.

I mention D because we (Sally and I) are representing a basic, getting-back-to-the-land, minimal footprint lifestyle in this blog and, by comparison to many, I think we are.  By comparison to urbanites, anyway.  But by comparison to D, we are profligate pigs at the trough, wastrels of energy and resources and our footprints are huge.  Like clown feet!

And, to be fair, we are closer to the urbanites or the spoiled brat syndrome – no question.  I don’t think Inuit live with as little impact on the land as D.  Hell, I don’t think bag-ladies in the alley-ways of the city live with as little impact as D.  The guy is an environmental hummingbird in consumption and a Grizzly Bear of production and innovation in construction.

Great sense of humour, too.

Great with kids and Chinese students.

“So, what’s the downside, Dave?  Butt-ugly?  Mean as a junkyard dog?  Weird theories about aliens and the Bush family or what?”

Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?  Doesn’t seem to be one.  No downside, I mean.  Just a McGyver type who likes life and lives minimally.  Alone.  Creatively.  Healthily.  Sane.

I swear to God, you can’t make this stuff up!

I whined a bit about being in the city.  For four and half months, actually.  And I can’t take that back even if I wanted to.  Which I don’t.  I like it here better.  Way better.  In fact, I am appreciating here thanks to my recent urban experience more and more.  I didn’t think it was possible for me to proselytize more about living off the grid but I am.  Get out, guys.  Get out, now!

OK, that statement is not based entirely on my Vancouver experience.  Some of that time was very good.  There are things I like in the city.  And not everything here is paradise.  I freely admit that.  But the ratio of good to bad is so much in favour of the ‘country’ that I have to say it again.  Get out, guys.  Get out now!

I am thinking this way because I just read a book about how urban life is the new revolution.  How cities are the cutting edge of social advancement.  How life is getting better every day in leading edge urban centres and how the world will cure it’s ills through urban institutions.  The book is called the Metropolitan Revolution (by Katz and Bradley) and it is unmitigated BS.  Total crap.

How do these people get published?

I won’t bore you with the premise – ’cause there isn’t one.  It is a civic-boosterism, PR-type book on some urban initiatives that are themselves designed to address horrible and deep-rooted urban ills.  There is basic irony there, folks……….the authors are celebrating some potential cures for some long-standing ills.  Like band-aids for trauma.

For instance, they cite the 2 square miles of downtown Detroit that some rich guy called Gilbert is rebuilding.  Why cite that?  Because the city of Detroit has 137 square miles of squalor and chaos – that’s why.  The two miles looks good by comparison.  Over 25% of the buildings in Detroit are abandoned.  Even the water system leaks so much that only 40% of the water flowing gets to where it is supposed to.  Detroit is a failure of civilization not a model for the Metropolitan Revolution.  What nonsense!

I am writing about this because it is indicative of the BIG LIE.  Part of it, anyway.  The BIG LIE is, after all, BIG!  This part of the BIG LIE is that the city is great and people should go there.  And the lie is working.  Last year or so the world hit that critical balance point where the majority of people lived urban rather than rural.  There are now MORE people jammed like sardines than there are people living more naturally.  Of course, in the first world, we achieved that dubious milestone decades ago.  But now the world has caught up and we now have more bees in the hive than bees flying in the garden.

That’s not right.  Not for the garden.  Not for the bees.  The only beneficiary in that system is the Queen.

I am likely wrong.  I have probably erred.  Headed down the wrong garden path.  But I think that the best time to have lived in the city is over.  Maybe it was good for the last 200 or so years but it is now headed downhill.  Circle of life…kinda.

I think that the place to be (in future) will be small towns, villages and off-the-grid settlements.  I think technology will improve and we will be able to be global without being crammed into cubicles.  I think country will make a comeback.  I think that beauty will be seen in nature and not in concrete.  And I think that people will destroy themselves if they don’t get out.

So, I say, get out now!

Our house stands on stilts.  Mostly.  The back of the house sits on large concrete-merged-with-the-rock anchors but everything forward is on a log leg – shorter or longer as the house projects over the slope we are built on.  I am not an engineer so I planned on putting down the 12 posts required by our design but then, after looking at that plan, decided to double it.  And, well, insecurity being the true mother of invention, we actually have 31 posts holding up the house plus the three concrete anchors.  And, of course, most of that is cross-braced.  There are more posts if you include the surrounding deck.

Did I mention my insecurity?

Last night our area experienced a 6.6 earthquake.  People in Kamloops felt it.  So did people in Vancouver.  We didn’t.  At 8:00 pm we were sitting upstairs and did not notice a thing.  Even Fiddich didn’t bark!

I feel good about that.

Engineering, eh?  I recall talking to an engineer once (they are not easy to engage at a social level as a rule) and asking about what makes them tick and how good are they given that things keep falling down anyway? “Well, we are pretty good, I think.  We do the math.  We do structural tests.  We measure forces.  We approach the whole exercise pretty scientifically and then, when we have all the information we need we decide the specifications required.  Then, when we have all that, we double it!” 

“What?!  You mean you do all the science and then – what the hell – you just double it?”

“Yeah.  Pretty standard.  Do the work and double it.” 

So, when we were building, I figured I could do that.  I’d put in all the logs I thought seemed logical and then I doubled it.  Then I doubled that.  And then I added a few more.  How hard can this kind of engineering be?

“Dave, what’s the point?”  Well, I am likely to get a few slings and arrows over this but here goes: When in doubt about your construction, overbuild.  Since we were deeply in doubt when we started we simply added more mass to everything.  True, it’s more work and more materials but it was cheaper, faster and more personal than hiring an engineer. And, anyway, they are so hard to talk to, ya know?

I figure the house weighs somewhere between 60 and 80,000 pounds.  I have no real idea, of course, but I carried every piece of it at least five times so I’ll go with that figure.  I also figure that one of the logs, two at the most, can hold up 60,000 pounds so 31 will definitely do the job.

Overcompensation or just conservative engineering?   And there is no question that I am easier to talk to.  Call me.

I never thought I’d regard the First Nations as my heroes.  But I am right now.

Don’t get me wrong – anyone is eligible for my hero designation.  No races, creeds, colours, religions or the now-multiple-choice genders are excluded. To me a hero is a hero.  All you have to do is stand up to bullying, tyranny and prejudice against others weaker.  You just have to be a champion.  You don’t even have to win.

First Nations have been whining a long time about a lot of things mostly justified and they have also stood up strong now and again but most of that has been in their own self interest.  They have not been the champions of others.  They don’t even legitimately have the mythical track record of defending the earth as often claimed.  At least not so far as I have been aware. But that changed with Enbridge and Northern Gateway.  The First Nations seem resolute about protecting the planet on that score.  And it is spreading to other issues as well.  Truly, they are idle no more.

Everyone said – whites and First Nations alike – that Enbridge and the oil pipeline should not travel across BC and spill poison into the sea.  But it is native land the pipeline has to cross and the industry is throwing money at them at irresistible levels.  But they are resisting.  Strongly.  And that is pretty good.  It is very good, in fact.

But that was not what tipped me off to the new aboriginal chutzpah.  That came more subtly.  Seems no one wanted herring to be fished up north for conservation reasons.  Gail Shea, the minister for the DFO (Destruction of Fisheries and Oceans) over ruled public sentiment and fishermen and ordered the fishery opened anyway.  First Nations (and the Green Party) fought back and won.  The fishery was not opened.  Gail Shea and DFO lost.  Now that is very good indeed.

And then it went even further.  Seems our own provincial government was in consultation with FN over some projects that first required consultation with FNs (and environmental studies) and yet the government went ahead and approved the projects for go-ahead by order-in-council and when the natives heard about that, they threw the provincial reps out of the meetings. Physically.  In our modern way, throwing people out of meetings is the equivalent of a punch in the nose.

Normally all you would hear is, “Well, we are going to have to sit down at the table and, at the end of the day find a way to go forward.”  Translation: give me more money.  Which is enough in itself to make me want to punch someone in the nose!

In a way, it is a revolution.  Of course, the Indians have been revolting for ages (an old phrase from literature and not intended to offend) but, as I said, it has mostly been about them.  But in defending the coast against oil spills and defending the herring fishery against a geocidal government policy, they have stepped up for all of us.  And by throwing the bastards out of meetings, they have signalled ‘enough is enough’.

Put another way: the First Nations are actually doing something to change the way the government is mishandling just about everything.  Your MLA and MP could take a lesson from them.  And they should.

If I could, I would vote for them. First Nations are my new heroes.

Set prawn traps and a day later, reeled them in.  Got about 100 of the little crawlies – emphasis on little.  They were too small to keep (baby finger-sized) and so they went back in.  Disappointing but the right thing to do.  My neighbour goes out, lays out traps and the next day hauls in.  He has about 100, too.  All of his were the size of bananas!

How is that even possible?

Another neighbour goes by and drops off a log at our beach.  So we have officially begun our quest-for-fire season.  There are two logs down at the beach right now and there seems to be a rule – you can ignore one and just wait.  But, if there are two, you have to get at it!  So, we’ll be on the logging job pretty soon.

A buoy floated by.  Mid channel.  We know what that is.  It is a buoy with several hundred feet trailing out and one or two or even three traps attached to it.  All laid in too deep water so they floated off.  Could be a gift from the prawn gods.  Sal goes out, reads the name and pulls them up.  Belongs to a neighbour.  Sal calls. They’ll retrieve their traps tomorrow.

Another neighbour is over.  He has a pneumatic nailer.  Sal and I are finishing off the interior of the studio/workshop and need to borrow it.  We just finished doing the vapour barrier yesterday.  Interior ceiling and walls soon. So, we’ll get it, do the ceiling and return it before the big Easter dinner for ten the next day.  His house.  But Sal makes something potlucky. I’ll make the potatoes.

During this time, we cleaned up the big back deck, cleaned up the worksite and Sal did our taxes.  Today, we’ll also ‘burp’ the freezer as it seems to be not-so-cold these days.  That will take a while.  I also finished a couple of books and started a third, we’ve had three sets of visitors and Sal had to go into town for a dental issue.

Started the Longmire series.

None of that counts the first five days of schlepping stuff up the hill or the peat moss and steer manure that still has to come up from the beach.  Did I mention the propane fridge repair, the water pump repair?  Or the first dinner party, the doctor’s visits and the trips to the post office?   We’ve been home ten days.

And people wonder what we do all day?