It has taken awhile but Sal is getting ‘into it’. It may be a good thing.  We’ll see.

“Saw a bunch of canning jars for sale.  Thinkin’ about gettin’ some.  Might do  some canning.”

“Wha..?!  You don’t can!  You hate canning!?”

“I don’t hate it so much as think it silly.  I can buy stuff way more cheaply than I can can it”.

“So…………….?  Why you lookin’ at canning jars, then?”

“Well, it is the thing to do out here, isn’t it?  I mean, if people can, then they do, don’t they?  They don’t teach!”

“Huh?  ……oh, I get it.  Funny.”

“Never mind.  Just thought I’d lay in some goods…..ya know………..stock up the larder…that kind of thing?”

Lay in some goods……stock…larder….?

Sal’s been reading Joel Salatin.  He’s the guru of Common Sense Farming and an advocate for common sense in everything.  He’s an American farmer doin’ it the old way and living happy and healthy.  And he thinks he is wise.  He fights the local bureaucrats, doesn’t watch TV and he writes books on farming and gardening in his spare time.  After reading Salatin, you wanna buy a cow.

It is a political statement.

And that is at the very least.  You also want chickens and will probably start to wonder where you might pick up a good ‘hawg-killin’ tub.  He makes it all sound so righteous!

I dunno.  I’m resisting it a bit, myself.

But, he is an influence.  I’ll give him that.  And so we have come up with a Joel Salatin-kind of a plan to try out.  He is a big advocate of farmers helping neighbours and vice versa.  “Know your local farmer.”

So, we are gonna go say ‘hello’, anyway.

And we are going to trade.  We’ll take some oysters to someone who keeps bees.  We’ll take some clams to someone who keeps chickens. We’ll take some mussels to someone with an orchard.  We’ll take a fish to someone who hunts deer.   And, in this way, we’ll have honey, eggs,apples and venison – without too much blood or bee stings.  And all we have to do is work at low tide or in a small boat in the cold and the rain for hours at end.

Salatin is a genius.

No, really.  He must be.  Salatin writes books about it.  He does it all, too, I am sure.  But he also writes about it and I think he writes more than he does.  I think this because JS has written at least eight books.  It is hard to get in all that hawg-killin’, bee-keepin’, chicken-pluckin’ and farming and still have time to write eight books.

I should know.

No, I think he’s mostly a farm marketing genius.  You know, like the real estate millionaires who got so rich in real estate that they just teach people how to do it for the low, low price of $399 payable in small, monthly installments?

Maybe Mrs. Salatin is a realtor specializing in small farms?

Whatever.

Basically, I agree with Joel.  I really do.  He’s got his feet firmly planted in manure and compost and silage and all that crap.  Literally.  But he does make sense.  Kinda.  Trouble is, he calls his farm Polyface.  That’s a bit odd.  Kind of implies being duplicitous, don’t you think?  Farm-of-many-faces?

Still, his latest book is titled:  Folks, This Ain’t Normal.  And insofar as what passes for normal these days, I really agree with that!

We’re comfortably rustic.  Rustically comfortable.  Meaning: we ‘work’ to get our heat (wood) in, we plumb and collect and filter our own water, we have an expanding garden and hunt for and gather sea food.  We make our own electricity and we built our own home.  And we do a lot of physical plain-ol’-grunt work around a huge, wild and irregular ‘yard’ almost every day.  There is no pizza delivery, no quick run to the store, nobody to call for any kind of service except emergencies by way of the Coast Guard and there is very little assistance for anything – we do it ourselves.

Should be considered a hard life, eh?  Should be considered ‘rough’, ‘dangerous’,  ‘extreme’, ‘inconvenient’ and ‘depriving’.  Right?  A real adventure?

And, I suppose it is at times.  It certainly was in the beginning before we learned how to do some of it better and more easily.  There are still some aspects of adventure,  I’ll admit that.  But more than all those negative or scary adjectives there is ‘beautiful’, ‘healthy’, ‘fun’, ‘satisfying’ and ‘interesting’.  It may be a smidge harder out here but it is hugely more satisfying.

Put more succinctly: I am happy and more content than I have ever been in my entire life.  I love it here.

“Yeah, yeah.  Read about that already.  What else you got?”

China.  Seven of the ten most polluted cities in the world are in China.  Beijing has just gone off the pain scale pollution-wise.  Literally.  Their pollution scale goes to PM500 – considered so extreme at the time of instrument installation no one believed it would be possible to even live at that level.  The other day the scale at the American embassy in Beijing registered 776.  By contrast, New York registers 19 on average.  The air in Beijing is lethal.

The Chinese government is taking action.  They are keeping the school children indoors.  Well, they are doing other things too, but really?!  No one should be out in that poison and yet millions still are.  China is gonna choke to death on that stuff.  Some already are.

“So?  What has that got to do with you?”

Well, I can’t honestly say that we came here to get away from Vancouver’s pollution although we did talk about it when it got bad and made little meaningless promises to leave when it got worse.  But pollution is just one of the ingredients in the urban recipe for disaster that we felt was simmering under the surface.  Pollution, crime, regulation, security, GMO foods, factory food, gas prices, transit, airports – you know the list.  The list of personal violations, the list of government invasions, the list of social impositions and breakdowns, the restrictions, the growing and heavy presence of Big Brother and the Holding Companies, it was all becoming too omnipresent to ignore.

We thought we could see some writing on the wall.  And I thought I could read ‘made in China’, too, but it wasn’t that clear at the time.

Living off-the-grid sounds a bit extreme to most of those reading this.  I know that.  But the encroachments on our lives by the systems that are supposed to support us are increasing while the efficacy of those same systems is breaking down.  Western society is nowhere near as eroded or corrupted as is China but it is getting there.  Westerners would not likely stand by while it got that bad, I am sure.  I think.  I hope.

But like the frog being slowly heated in the pot of water, it is often easier to stay in the water and suffer the heat than take a blind jump out to escape.

Can any of you feel the water temperature rising?

…of community.

Community is easier if you live in the city.  Easier yet, if you grew up there.  The city is where the energy is.   It is where the people are.  It is where everything is!   Individuals are absorbed and immersed in the to-ing and fro-ing of the seething metropolis and all involved are somewhat homogenized by the process.

Generally speaking, any arbitrary slice of the urban population can be found to be working on commonality, cooperation, community and conformity most of the time.  They have to.  Or there would be chaos.

Many of us so influenced also enjoyed the socially cohesive advantages of having had a somewhat similar upbringing, a ‘mainstream’ education and, of course, being immersed in the everyday business of the urban work-hives.  A lot of uniformity/conformity is learned by osmosis and such social familiarity breeds confidence, a kind of social fluency, not to mention, ‘networks’, all of which is required reading for a real city person.

To do well in the city, it helps to be born and raised there. It also helps to dive in and get involved. ‘Go along to get along.’  And those people most familiar and comfortable with the ways of the city have a greater chance, as a rule, to find happiness and even success therein.

In other words: experience in the milieu is valuable.

The same is true in a different kind of way with rural life.  To do well in the country it helps to be born and raised there.  A lot gets learned just by ‘being there’.  Experience.  Networks are smaller and stronger but just as valuable  And, for a newbie, diving in is really the only way to get into it. A harder slog, perhaps, but doable.

The thing is, the rural population isn’t as identifiable as the city community in the sense of having ‘just being there’.  Not anymore.  ‘Country living‘ is more ‘new’ or foreign for many people who have been ‘civilized’ even while living out in the small towns.  Today, ‘country’ is often just ‘small city’.  I know many people who I would have previously described as rural who have no rural skills or orientation whatsoever.  They, too, live by their I-phone.

Odd observation: the ‘new’ country people move around more.

City people seemingly move around more than do country people but they move around the city.  The city pool is always crowded and much the same.  So is the store, the bus, the workplace and the neighbourhood.  You can move from four different neighbourhoods in Toronto to six different neighbourhoods in Vancouver and, generally speaking, know your way around pretty quickly. The patterns are the same.

New country people don’t have that kind of sameness, that familiarity, that cultural ‘mass’ to attach to or re-attach to.  Or be shackled to.  There just isn’t as much sameness for them.  Not so much commonality.

Few people currently out here were even born in this province!  Fewer still were raised here and even fewer have more than a dozen years ‘under-their-belt’ as real country folk.

In fact, there are only a few that I can positively identify as ‘real’ country folk.  You know?  Like farming, hunting, logging, canning, gathering and fishing?  Those people are rare.  Very rare.

And this lack of a long-rooted cultural mass is palpable.  If it wasn’t your intention to come for self development almost exclusively, you would find yourself surprisingly more alone.  You’d be different and stay different out here and there is no way to change that, nobody to emulate, no one to teach you.  No peer group. You are going to be different, more alone, more you.

Get used to it.  Country ways are on the endangered list for a reason.

The majority of off-the-gridders are urban transplants – some as long ago as the 70’s (back-to-the-landers) and some as recently as us.  But mostly from different urbans.  In fact, since we went feral eight years ago, I’d estimate at least a half dozen others have arrived but they have come from different cities, different provinces and from at least two different countries. And all from vastly different walks of life. Their west coast, off-the-grid roots are as shallow as ours.  And some of them are clearly different plants!

In many ways, we are a community of non-established, non-conformists who don’t interact much and, when we do, keep it to a minimum.  That does not aid in any kind of homogenization.  That does not make for much of a community.

Mind you, it doesn’t look quite like that.  Not too much, anyway.  We’re all pretty friendly.  And newbies, by definition, try to learn ‘the ropes’ fast.  They have to.  And they blend where they can.  But there simply isn’t that much ‘networking’, business interactions, meetings and the like that accelerates common language, habits, behaviours and community.  Each person remains, in effect, more of an individual. We live and act differently and there just isn’t the cultural force to assimilate us into a ‘common’.

Differences are also more tolerated and expected.  It has to be that way.  We know we are different from our distant neighbour and we accept it and almost celebrate it.  But not quite.  If we are celebrating our differences and character, it is a home celebration.  Most of the others are deemed just a bit too different or a bit too whacked to be celebrated.  But we do accept each other.

And, thank God, we have the space with which to do it.

We may never be anything else.  Not very many of us are ‘buddying up’.  It is just too big a gap to bridge in most cases and, without the economic motivation of youth and a growing family, there is less incentive to do so.  We don’t have to ride the elevator together every morning.  We don’t have to deal with a hundred e-mails a day.  We don’t have to take a lot of meetings together.  And we don’t get a lot of anything by ‘osmosis’ as a result.  If we lose ‘newbie-ism’, or ‘foreigness’, it is because we learned ‘off-the-gridding’ on our own and we learned it mostly the hard way – by doing.

Off-the-gridding is really our only strong common thread – that and appreciating our surroundings.  If we have a commonality it is a love of nature and a desire to reside in it.  And, to be fair, that also forms the community we do have.  Is it enough on which to build a strong, healthy, well-balanced community?  Honestly?  I don’t think so.

Will it be enough if the larger, more homogenized urban community goes sour?  Yes.  If things go all to hell in a hand-basket, then I think our wagons will circle tighter.  We’ll form more of a real community.  But probably not until then.

And I am OK with that.

It is odd what ‘gettin’ better’ means.  Growth is such a personal thing.

In sports, of course, there are measurements like goals, wins, stats and records but, in something like deck-building, well, there isn’t much to compare to.  It is essentially a personal thing.  Subjective.  And, when you are deck-building with your wife (an unholy challenge, if ever there was one – on a par with raising children) you can add the litmus tests of cooperation, partnership, rhythmn and efficiency all of which are hard to measure on anything but a subjective sliding scale of relational growth.

But I know progress when I see it.

And I am seeing it.  We are baaaaaack!

Sal and I have been ‘workin’ on the deck the last few days and we are doin’ good.  She’s doin’ extra good.  I am still somewhat limited in my movements from the latest health faux pas last month with ambulation somewhere between stiff and awkward to pathetic and crippled but, with this work, the stiff and clumsy parts are starting to work out just fine.  It’s been good.

Sidebar: here’s a thing………wood freezes!  Who knew?  I stacked a bunch of joists-to-be and the next day I had a large lump of ice-laminated wood to deal with!?  Sheesh.

Store bought lumber doesn’t do that.  They cook out the moisture content in the processing in the quasi chop-sticks you buy at Home Depot.  But local-made lumber is wetter and denser.  You are expected to air-dry it first as there is a higher water content.  And we did that.  But, I guess, not enough.  Ergo – Fir popsicle sticks.  (Not especially tasty and hard and heavy, too.  Each 16 foot 2×6 weighs about thirty to 35 pounds).  I had to seperate what I could with a large rubber mallet.  The sun finished the job as the day progressed but even the spacer-separated cedar decking was frozen to the spacers!

Never mind.  It was fun.  We measured and stacked, straightened and cut, screwed and scarfed and generally acted like accomplished deck-builders.  And it went pretty smoothly with the hundreds of inevitable disagreements settled quickly at the calm and polite stage.  In those conversations, only the bass tones were employed.  Maybe a couple went into the treble zone.  But they were brief. We did good.

We are going back at it today.  It is decking time.  This is the fun part.  You can see the progress as each plank is put in place.  This is the high-satisfaction stage.  It is kind of pathetic – not to mention surprising – how much I enjoy this.  But it is way better than watching TV, that’s for sure. This is the kind of thing that will stick with us both.  I will enjoy this new deck quite noticeably for at least a few years, probably longer.  I will remember the work, marvel at the magic of it all and, of course, walk on it.

We still marvel and appreciate the hot shower.  Same kinda thing. 

TV doesn’t quite impress like that.

I think that is growth.  I really do.  Sally agrees.  She likes it, too.  She even likes working with me.  And that is definitely growth of the most important kind!  Total magic!

Sal has bird feeders.  Cute birds come and Sal watches them flitting about and pecking.  She likes it.  They are pretty.   It’s nice.

The feeders are by the kitchen window.  The squirrel also comes.  It, too, is cute.  It flits about and feeds as well.  But it is not the right kind of cute and so Sal tries to wave the squirrel off.

Waving from behind the window doesn’t work even tho the feeders are just a foot away.  So Sal tried opening the window and employing a water pistol which was effective for a few squirts but the little rat simply adjusted after awhile and took to eating while showering.  So Sal started getting Fiddich involved.

Fid’s not too bright.

With a shriek and a scramble, Sal and Fid would race from the front of the house to the back where the kitchen window had revealed yet another rodent trespass and the chase was on!  Except Fid doesn’t have a natural ‘chase’ instinct.  He has a fetch instinct.  Apparently there is a big difference.

Fid does not know from squirrels.  I am not so sure he even sees the squirrel but by the time the two of our domestic security team have closed the gap on the perp, he is pretty excited and is pretty much ready for anything.

He hasn’t the faintest clue as to what that might be.

So Sal makes ch-ch-ch sounds and points at the squirrel.  Unconsciously, I am sure, she kind of hops in place while doing that.  The squirrel sits on the feeder and makes ch-ch-ch sounds back at her and Fid, now worked up into a frenzy, streaks by to do his duty.  Past the squirrel.  He races off into the forest.  Barking.  Looking fierce.  And not just a bit stupid.

The squirrel continues to dine and watches Fid run around.  He occasionally glares at Sally as if to say “Now look what you’ve gone and done!  Poor ol’ Fid is all worked up and confused.  Not good!  Why not just leave well enough alone”.

After having been suitably embarrassed a few times Sal eventually decided to face her foe head on.  She went at him with a light wand, like a chop stick or something.  That worked.  For a minute or two.  But he came back.  Then Sal lost her cool.  And she rushed out the last time without her wand and, caught up in the excitement of the hunt, as it were, she actually reached out and gave the little sucker a finger-tap on the squirrel-bum.  That surprised him.  And Sal.  And me, I must admit.  And off he ran.

But he’s come back again.  Of course.  And I swear he is now eating the bird seed with his butt purposefully aimed at the window.  I think he is wiggling it.  In fact I know he is wiggling it.  And he is looking over his shoulder to see if Sal is there!

Sal is tempted to go out again but doesn’t like to encourage that kind of behaviour in the wildlife.  She doesn’t like to even think where it may lead.  She is quite horrified at the possibilities.

This whole fiasco began because Sal likes to watch the wildlife.  I thought it was a bit silly in the beginning, to be honest.  But I was wrong.  NOW it is getting really interesting.

Over the past few decades, maybe a bit longer, boats have evolved to become power boats.  We don’t row so much anymore.  Too hard.  Too slow.  Can’t carry enough.

Of course, we have also evolved some pretty efficient sailing vessels but 99% of them are powered by an auxiliary and when the boat has to keep to a schedule, the motor is often employed.   Wind is not dependable.   In effect, these motoring sailors are very often used as inefficient power boats especially in the general area of the Salish Sea.

Bottom line: we are now dependent on powered boats.  Especially if the boat is employed in work rather than recreation.  And powered boats are dependent on oil.

The writing is on the wall.

We coastal off-the-gridders are even more dependent on powered boats and, for a variety of logical reasons, we choose outboard powered boats most often.  Altho today’s outboards are much more reliable than previous iterations, they are also a great deal more complicated.  Your basic off-the-gridder, so handy in so many ways, hasn’t got a clue how to fix a modern outboard.  We are not only dependent on outboard motors but we are also now dependent on the outboard mechanics.  And they live and work on-the-grid in the city!  

This is an Achilles heal of the first water, so to speak.  And we are going to have to address it.  If not now, then not long from now.

The kinda guy who thinks along these lines is the creative (or, in my case, the fearful) type.  He or she wonders how to design a boat that will be more useful when oil becomes too expensive.  Something efficient, something that can do work and carry people, something that is safe in a nasty sea and, if possible, something requiring as little maintenance as possible.  Such people are, by the nature of the challenge, more likely to be found in either marine design studios or out here living the life.  And the ones out here not only design their creations but they also build them.

Our little community is a veritable hotbed of marine design on a per capita basis.  We have a sleek little proa-type slipping around.  White, fast and beautiful.  It is also odd and somewhat restricted in function but it is very easily driven and quite adaptable to sail.  We have an admirable effort at a light weight aluminum power cat that has yet to make a successful debut – but the idea is good.  We have more than a few long, narrow, skinny boats that seem like cousins of canoes and they are very efficient, very fast and quite rowable in a pinch.  For practical reasons (they are cheap to build) they are the current leader in the practical boat stakes.

And there are more including old tradional designs, a reverse hull design, a modified, older-style displacement design and any number of modified runabouts.

The ideal boat would, of course, be efficiently functional under all means of power – motoring, rowing, sailing and/or any combination of the above.  But functional includes – first and foremost – weight carrying.  Bulk.  People and stuff.  And that requirement limits rowing.  It also limits the design in so many other ways.  In fact, there is no design that does the job as desired.  Such a vessel is the holy grail of boat design.

“Shouldn’t sea-worthy be first and foremost?”

I suppose.  But our area is usually traversable in small, cheap, less-than-great boats and the people just pick their weather.  You’d be surprised how many light, tippy, car-top type boats are in use.  Sea-worthy is a close second but getting the job done is the whole point of getting in the boat in the first place so the work is likely deemed more important (until a heavy sea is encountered, of course).

“Why tell me?”

Because if you are ever to consider getting off the grid and moving up the coast, choosing the right boat is a much bigger decision than you might first think.  In fact, it is a HUGE decision if you also include the future ‘oil’ factor.  Just as I have come to know about the giving and taking, the balancing of components, the better-way-to-do-it when it comes to alternative energy, I am also learning more and more about something as simple as ‘the boat’.

There has to be a better way to do it than we have been doing.  And we have been doing designs based very much on cheap oil.  Time for something new.

And all of us out here are trying to figure that one out.

I made a small promise to myself and to you that I wouldn’t rant and rave about political issues anymore and I intend to keep that promise.  But I don’t consider the following observation a breach of that trust.  I think I am just pointing out the obvious, callin’ it as I see it.  Still, fair warning – there is a hint of politics about it.  I admit that.

Even tho Sal and I left for the outback primarily as a way of seeking to ‘feel alive’ again and to have-to-learn once more and to have adventure, there has always been a sense (for me, anyway) that eventually there would be some kind of revolution.  I am a child of the 60’s after all.  A romantic.  In retrospect, I think that such an expectation or vision of revolt is overly romantic in nature, though, and not likely at all so long as gas flows and there is food in the fridge.  Nobody is going to be running rioting through the streets – not anytime soon, anyway.

One can only hope.

I am always encouraged by the ‘Battles in Seatle’, the Occupy Movement, Idle No More and other forms of demonstration that puts the spotlight on world powers, institutions and corporations.  Although I can see why they were created in the first place and I can even see some merit in them at times, I tend to believe that, by the time the organization has become the establishment, it is time to tear it down and renew it.  To me, life is constant change and institutions are not.  Ergo – change them.  All the time.

Even better, tear ém down and build new ones.

Imagine my surprise when I read that Chairman Mao said the same thing!

Anyway………the Occupy movement isn’t dead but they no longer have momentum on their side.  Not media momentum, anyway.  The Arab Spring is still alive but not doing anyone much good at the moment.  And the common people’s rebellion is no more potent at this writing than it has ever been.  Or so it seems to me.

Possible exception: First Nations.  We currently have chief Spence on a hunger strike and she seems to be winning – whatever that means in a hunger strike situation.  For me, it would be weight loss.  For her, who knows?  But her dispute with the Feds is over her particular reserve at Attawapiskat in northern Ontario and she is clearly rebelling and getting somewhere.

Add to that the recent court decision of the Metis and off-reserve natives being  included as First Nations.  Whatever that comes to mean, it is a unifying decision.  First Nations just got bigger.

And then we have the First Nations-of-the-North resisting the Northern Gateway project.  While that is a non-united front of resistance, the majority of the reserves are speaking as one.  And so is much of the mainstream community. That is another ‘front’ in the rebellion.  And yesterday, some group self-described as ‘grass roots’ Indians threatened to “shut down the Canadian economy” if they don’t get what they want.

Of course, we have had the ‘at-the-trough’ chiefs of the Assembly Of First Nations (AFN) for years demanding more and getting some of it.  They would have to be seen as standing on the other side of the line even if they are taking as much as they can while standing there.

Bottom line: the natives are restless, getting more so and getting some support from mainstream Canadians.  Could it possibly be that – given the majority of Canadian’s dislike for Harper and his way of doing things – that resistance will grow beyond the First Nations?  And could those resistors – given that it was First Nations who stood up first and loudest – become the leaders of a larger Canadian revolution?  Are we seeing the people who have been dealt the harshest hand historically leading those whose middle class lives have been also thoroughly disrupted into some kind of political conflict with a very vulnerable government?  Could the Indians manage to recruit the cavalry to battle against Custer?

Frankly, I doubt it.  People, it seems, vote and act entirely with their wallets. See HST.  Long term vision, morality, common cause and decent human values don’t seem to move us enough to act.  Not usually.  Harper first has to tax us a few more bucks to get our juices flowing and, even then, we simply complain.  Rebellions just aren’t us.

But if there ever is one……….?  Well, I am thinking it might be the First Nations who lead it.  Do you see anyone else?

Sal and I worked yesterday.  It was good.  Did some deck stuff.  Swung boards, operated saws, measured, cut and stacked.  Cracked silly jokes at each other (she is getting funnier all the time and, for the last few years, it has been on purpose!).

You know the drill.  Weather was cool, a smidge drizzly.  We were bundled.  Gloves and hair got wet. Took tea half way through, changed gloves.  Then went back.  We’ll resume again today.  Still have about 50 rough boards to process.  We are both looking forward to it.

Weird, eh?

I mean, I’ll soon be officially old at 65.  The ol’ Puddin’ is only trailing me by a few years and yet, we entertain ourselves by building a deck extension in the forest in January.  Who woulda thunk it?

“Don’t be a dickhead!” 

I broke up.  I had just made a minor error and Sal promptly reprimanded me with a typical (male) worksite jab.  And I was laughing.

“Well, that is what worker-guys say, isn’t it?”  she said with a lovely smile accompanying.

“Yep!  You’ve got it.  Goofy man-at-work-talk.  The stupider the better.  You’re learnin’ fast.”

“What’s to learn?  You screw up.  I cus. And then I call you rude names.  It’s easy.  The hard part is watching you screw up!” 

“Now, now.  The art of goofy man-talk is somehow finding a way to make it funny.”

“Oh.  Sorry.  …………You dickhead!”

I crack up again.  Somehow she made it funny.  I dunno.  Hard to explain.  Maybe you had to be there.

We are not the best team when working.  Not as a rule.  We prefer to do our own job rather than assist or cooperate with the other.  But as we get older, we need an extra pair of hands or a bit of extra strength now and then.  We seem to need each other more.  And so we are having to learn teamwork.

Sometimes it is hell.

Sal likes to ask a lot of questions.  She likes to plan the work.  She likes to know what we are doing and what comes next.  I hate that.  ‘Cause I am wingin’ it as a rule and I don’t really know what the hell is going to happen next.

But necessity is the mother and I have been doing more ‘splainin’ to my Lucy.  Of course, to ‘splain, I have to think it all out.  I have to plan.  And to plan, I often have to talk it over with her and so, reluctantly, slowly, inexorably, tortuously we are starting to work as a team.

Good timing, eh?  Eight years late.  Oh well.

Sal makes a mistake measuring.  We cut the board wrong.  I say with a grin, “Well, you wanna measure it again Hawkeye and I’ll re-cut it?”   She looks at me with eyes like a doe.  I think I see a tear.  “You don’t have to be so mean!”

I am thinking, ‘Geez.  Dickhead was considered funny’?  I guess these work-site jabs just go one way.

Like I said, we are both still learning to be a team.

I don’t think there is any doubt that the world is heading for some kind of crisis.  Probably a combination of climate-change meets peak oil kinda thing.  We’ll run out of energy, oil, water and/or civility at much the same time as billions try to migrate away from the ever-hotter sunbelt.  I mean, you can see that happening already, can’t you?

And it will get more complicated by food shortages and currency earthquakes, economic shifts and increased national and cultural tensions not to mention the weird inclination of governments all around the world to be more oppressive. 

The times, they are a’changing, eh?  And FAST!

But some things are good, right?  I mean, we have Green consciousness now.  We have eco-movements.  We have blue-box.  We save whales.  We are (the righteous and pure of heart) at least shouting the right message from our Prius.  We are trying do to the right thing.  Right?

Not according to Elizabeth Nickson in her book Eco-fascists.  Lizzie doesn’t like the green movement.  She doesn’t like the organized, institutionalized efforts being made.  She hates ’em.  And she makes a few good points in her criticisms.

Basically, Liz says that BIG GREEN is like BIG PHARMA or BIG BROTHER.  BIG GREEN is elitist, bureaucratic, Machiavellian, corrupt and gets the opposite results from what people and the planet want.  She debunks BIG GREEN as corrupt, myopic and rolling in dough (spending 10’s of billions each year just on propaganda). Worse, they are driving people from the land!

One of her examples is the Island Trust.  She was, of course, a victim of it because she lives on Saltspring and wanted to subdivide but that doesn’t negate her points.

She claims that the unelected trust and it’s required ‘hoops’ is slow, expensive and sports a staff of 45 bureaucrats whose main focus for the southern Gulf Islands is to ensure that nothing can happen.  She states that a landowner with waterfront can’t plant a garden within 100 feet of the ocean (or any body of water) without getting a $2500 environmental study filed.  And she goes on and on about that kind of madness not only in little political fiefdoms like the Islands Trust but also in Green Peace, the Sierra Club and other champions of our planet.  She really doesn’t like land trusts and she especially criticizes the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States.

But, then again…….is that news?  I am not so sure.  I confess that I have always attributed good motives to those organizations even if they were a little over zealous or bureaucratic at times.  But the truth is, just as power corrupts in the usual sense so can Green power.  There is no greater enemy to reason than the righteous and the pure-of-heart and, as a member of the Greenies I, too, have cloaked myself in righteousness and purity now and then.  And I felt more powerful as a result of it.  And I am capable of making mistakes with that power, too.

She claims that is exactly what is happening throughout the environmental movement and worse, they are exercising that power in ways that are destructive and prejudicial to rural life.

And, I admit that I see that there is an erosion of the ability of people to live rurally.  I see an invisible hand guiding most people to the cities.  Stack ’em and pack ’em is the plan it seems.  She claims it is not only the plan but that the plan negatively impacts the planet!

I find it hard to like this author.  She tends to write in a fast and loose manner and she draws negative conclusions everywhere she looks.  Worse, she is debunking some of my favourite entities.  To be fair, though, she has looked in a lot of places.  She has done her research.

I will think about what she has written.  It is definitely a different message.

Our neighbours came back from their Xmas vacation overseas.  And they practically dropped to their knees to kiss the ground they were on when they returned to the island.  They really missed being here.  It is a feeling I know well.

I used to love traveling.  I no longer do.  Not as much, anyway.  I am losing my wanderlust.  I am even losing my ‘Indiana Jones’ gene.   Real adventure is not as attractive to me anymore.  I prefer to be here.

Mind you, my island life seems to be adequately satisfying my waning need for any adventure albeit usually with more painful outcomes, I must admit.  This is enough for me – sometimes a smidge too much.  I have to be careful but I am content.  I guess it is just age.  But I think it is partly about having found a place I truly feel is home.

(I guess anyplace with a large, fully equipped first-aid kit would do for me but I prefer this one).

My neighbour said, “I just looked at my cabin and marveled at the beauty and, surprisingly, the size of it.  It seemed huge!  I think it was the stunning view rather than the cabin itself but it felt vast and open after a few weeks of smallish hotels and planes. I just love the feeling of freedom and space.  Ya don’t get that in cities and certainly not in the Asian ones we went to.  Ohmygawd!  This is great!” 

“Would you go back?”

They both looked stunned.  The question just hung in the air.  They answered slowly….. “Well, yeah.  It was good.  Interesting.  I’d go back.  I think.  But, I dunno……..”  

I know that feeling, too.  Even tho the trip was good, it was NOT as good as the feeling of returning to the cabin.  At least not at the time of the question.  Maybe later…………..

We all, of course, still feel a bit of the travel-bug and the lure of greener grass on the other side of the planet.  Marketers are good at what they do.  We succumb.  And it is hard to admit a simple preference for home.  Feels dopey.  But I can feel it coming.  So could they.

We are very close to quitting the hostel, the chicken bus and the cheap air-fare searches.  I never really liked backpacks, anyway.  And I doubt that we’d last very long at the resorts and the luxury insults to the local communities that are the next most logical travel choice.  Or cruises.  Nor can we afford the experiment to find out.  I don’t think I could do that for more than a week anyway and, even at that, only once.  Maybe twice.  Mint juleps served at the infinity pool was never my thing.

Sal, of course, is keeping an open mind.

This is all coming from the fact that we are into January and the dead of winter.  If it was as bleak and cold and dreary as it can be, I wouldn’t be talkin’ so big.  I’d be scanning the ads for a way out.  I know that, too.  Easy to talk big when the weather is mild and we can still play (or hurt ourselves) outside.  But, that is the point, really.  Right now, we can still be outside.

Partly it is because the weather is relatively mild but it is equally because we have acclimated somewhat.  We are accustomed and set up for winter.  We have adjusted.  Part of living out here is adjusting and winter is the last obstacle to overcome and we are getting there.

Don’t get me wrong.  I haven’t gone all Jack London on you.  I can’t play in sub-zero, arctic conditions unless there is a ski chalet nearby with hot chocolate and a flight home on the schedule.  Blizzards are not us.   But we are not facing blizzards.  We are not cold.  We are comfortable.  Maybe it is global warming?  Maybe it is just getting our systems in order?  I dunno.  All I do know is that winter is easier to handle this year.  And I like it more.

So do my neighbours.