I do not feel as if my day (or any day out here) is the same or ever boring in the least. I am much more driven by interest for the most part and, if my interest wanes, I simply go off and do something else. There is always something else. I am always busy. Mind you, I am half as busy as Sal. She is literally the Energizer Bunny. The woman never stops until she sleeps and then she sleeps like the dead.

I say this as an opening because one reader wanted to know what a typical OTG day is like. And so I thought about it and surprisingly, the most honest answer is that there really is no typical day. Every day is different. Over the course of a few years, there are patterns and repetitions of course, there are repeat chores and some obligations, there are some habits and behaviours that emerge as ‘typical’ but even they are not bound to any schedule. I build crap, fix crap, invent and experiment with crap but that is totally sporadic and almost kinda whimsically spontaneous at times.

I just built a small mushroom barn, for instance. Just a 2 x 3 x 6 frame covered in plastic housing some mushroom spore-plug impregnated logs I put in. I am hoping for Shiitakes. No biggy but something different from my previous 18 years. And I can be doing something like that all the time…..

I also just received a new electric winch that I bought to replace the gas-powered one I have been using. That decision required a ‘refresh’ of the old Wacker Nueson genset brought over years ago for that very purpose. And I have to weld up some brackets. Etc., etc., etc. That’s a slow ongoing project but it will get done.

And Sal’s outboard is also in that slo-mo chore line-up but that one is 90% done. And then I will install a newer and better water/fuel filter system on both boats. The filters have already been ordered.

But, if I continued in this vein, the blog would go on and on and on……and still go on.

Plus…….I have some ‘old work’ that comes back now and again – always in weird ways. Old clients, new problems, new clients, old problems. It is my old history coming back to haunt me now and again.

Sal and I generally wake up around 8:00. That has been as early as 6:00, often 7:00 lately because of the pups. They live by the sun and so we are pleased for heavy cloud cover and pouring rain – we get to sleep later. Then it is an hour of puppy love in all it’s magnificent peein’, pooin’, feedin’ and playing glory. We get in a shower, daily ablutions and start the fire and put on some water for tea/coffee and, by then, the first hour or so has already passed.

From then until 11:00 or even twelve, it is email, news feeds and internet crap that takes up our time.

Then it is ‘the chore-for-the-day’ that gets our attention. Usually for no more than four hours. That can literally be anything from logs to gardening, from repairs and maintenance to guests and visitors. Those hours could also be put to building something, but it is dog training and exercising these days. There is always some boat chore that needs attention – at least once per week. The other day, we had a tree fall on a neighbours house and they were not there so we took it down, chopped it up and put it on their wood pile. Oddly, a fallen tree is not all that unusual. I would say that at least once, but usually twice a year we have an unexpected windfall and the subsequent chore of dealing with it.

And do not forget, over the course of the year we also have to collect and process 600 lineal feet of logs for our firewood.

By four, four-thirty, the dogs and I are thinking about dinner, Sal is still busy ‘doin’ one of her thangs’ (she occasionally works at the post office, organizes and manages the local home care team, participates in the Book Club, president of the quilting guild and is involved in the community food getting and distribution) but at 5:00 her wine alarm goes off and then all hell breaks loose for the next bit. I am pouring wine, fixing dog dinner, helping with the people dinner and generally we are all ‘involved’ in dinner-making for about two hours (wine, prep, wine, cooking, wine, serving, cleaning up, doing the dishes, poopin’ the dogs). By 7 o’clock we are basically done for the day. A blog may also have been squeezed in, a few phone calls, laundry sometimes, food-shed organizing, workshop tidying, maybe a nap, too, is squeezed in.

And there is more, of course. No point in listing it all. But that should paint a picture for ya, John.

Is it productive? Yeah, in a personal, hands-on kinda way. Having gas piped in for heat, having electricity from the grid, elevators to carry you up and down, frequent vehicle use and lots and lots of services to ease one’s burden in the city makes urban life seem easier but, for some reason, I do not recall it that way. NOT having to fix things, build things, grow things, gather things, carry things and deal with everything yourself SOUNDS like more ease but, generally speaking, it doesn’t feel that way. This lifestyle feels like being more alive.

Of course, that ‘alive’ feeling is largely just due to being outside, having puppies and gardens, riding in small boats on the ocean, living with Sal and taking life-as-it-comes. And Mother Nature makes for very good company, too. We do not miss commuting, traffic, TV, appointments, schedules, radio, line-ups, purchasing, accumulating, bureaucracy, too-many-rules and all the urban constraints one tiny bit.

And I do not miss many of the people, either.

We call ’em Gus and Daisy but, of course, they do not answer. We may as well call ’em Ishmael (from Moby Dick). They ignore us about 1/3 of the time. And they do the opposite of what we say another third. But we are communicating pretty well about 1/3 of the time, too (Sal and I are much the same). But such is the attitude of a 14 week old puppy whose entire focus in life is eating, sleeping, frolicking, pooping and licking Sal’s face (kinda like me now that I think about it).

Gus is a pretty easy going dog. Chill. He is sorta thug-like, tho. A little broader and denser in all aspects, he tends to thud as he walks. Mind you, the little tyke is already 30 pounds! Daisy is much more of a lady and has a bit more Poodle in her genes. She tends to lift her feet higher and ‘step lightly’. She’s slimmer. She’s pretty. And she knows it.

The two siblings came from a litter of 11 puppies. Gus was the largest and Daisy was the runt. Today that runt is 26 pounds and gamboling over our rocky, moss-covered granite like a mountain goat. And good ol’ Gus just plods along behind her…..then they wrestle and tumble…. A month ago, they did not know how to deal with stairs. Today they bounce up and down the stairs well and have even added mountain climbing to their repertoire (fitting for BMD’s). It is steep around here. But they are handling it.

They are Bernedoodles, a cross between a Standard Poodle (top weight of males is 70 pounds) and a Bernese Mountain dog (top weight about 110 pounds). We are hoping they eventually total no more than 160 pounds of dog but it could be more. They came here a month ago at 14 and 17 pounds and have almost doubled in size. They are growing like weeds.

“What the hell, Dave? Are you mad? Two puppies! You are too old to have puppies. Hell, you are too old to even start a long novel!”

Yeah. You are right. This may be a Covid symptom. Long Covid. But, well, it felt like it was time. We lost Meg and Fid a few years back and it has taken awhile to heal from that. We may never completely get over them. But these guys also speed the healing…they seem to bring their fast metabolism to our very own grieving system. I am happier. And Sal is ecstatic. They are already well entrenched in the #2 position in the family. Sal is #1, then the two pups tied for silver, then (because there are two) the bronze medal is not awarded to third. Then we have any stray dog, friend, relative or even a nice stranger for the #4 position. I just cracked the top ten a few years back and just being on the top ten list is good enough for me. No complaints.

They came from a Bernese mother who resides in Qualicum. She had eleven puppies but only 8 nipples so she was busier than a short-staffed waitress in a popular greasy spoon at lunch time. And it was always lunchtime! Father was a rolling stone…but an obviously charming stone with great hair (think the canine version of Ted Danson). He gave them the hypo allergenic hair that doesn’t seem to shed even a little bit. Ol’ Gus has the same basic hair but it is a bit different than Daisy’s. Hers is shiny, silky, soft and could be featured in a shampoo ad. Gus is a bit thicker-haired (duh – everything about Gus is thicker) and it is not as shiny. They are both black and currently resemble Meg our past PWD. But they will be bigger than Meg and Daisy, at least, will have longer legs.

Sal has carried the load more than I have but we are both quite involved with them. Gus seems to prefer my company and Sal and Daisy already form the arf-arf sisterhood. But, overall, we all work like a non-oiled, rusty machine with broken parts – not quite yet a swiss watch. We’ll get there.

They are puppies and do not like cars. Motion sickness. Both pups puked three times coming up from Qualicum a month ago. Both pups puked three more times going into see the vet the other day (a check-up and shots) and both pups puked two times coming home. So, it is improving. The back seat in the old Pathfinder, on the other hand, is getting abused and more than a bit stinky.

They are not keen yet on the boat either. We need to lure then near the boat with treats and then strike like a rattler, grab ’em and then I hand ’em to Sal on the boat. That will work until they are heavier. Already Sal is sagging with Gus in her arms. The good news is that they are now sticking their heads up as we scoot along in the boat looking at the scenery whiz by. That bracing fresh-air ride will be the enduring lure for them we hope.

There is more, of course, much more….puppies are a source of never-ending chat amongst the locals whenever we meet up. Everyone loves puppies. But most people only get one. That may seem sensible but we find that two puppies (or even two older dogs) are happier if they have their own ‘buddy’ and do not have to rely on two old people for all their fun. Gus and Daisy love each other and get along all the time. We all love each other and we all get along all the time. It is just that Dave and Sal need a great deal more sleep and, of course, are busy sometimes with non-puppy oriented things. When that occurs, the pups just go off and play by themselves. I then nap. And Sal gets on with other things.

It all might work out……fingers crossed.

In other words: Russia invading Ukraine warrants a blog.

I feel for Ukraine but I think the invasion is more than just Ukraine. It is an invasion of the authoritarian regimes against the democratic ones. This bold move by Putin is basically a taunt, a posturing, a signal that he/Russia has power. P-O-W-E-R! But why would he do that when the rest of the world does not think or act as if Russia is a major threat much anymore? Why would he do that when Russia was ticking along like a lap dog for him? The answer, I believe, is now obvious: Putin still has imperious ambitions and he thinks China has his back. It is not just Russia threatening and it is not just Ukraine being threatened. It is the Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon not only flexing muscles but openly giving the West a loud raspberry and a middle finger all at the same time.

Ya gotta wonder……why do this? What is in it for Putin? I can see what is in it for China…..they get a ‘trusted’ oil supply, they get an ally at their back in case they need one* and they have a trapped customer for their goods. Without even making an insult to the increasingly self-absorbed USA and weakened NATO alliance, China gains immensely in resources, marketplace and defense.

*And if China takes Taiwan within the next year do not be too surprised. If Ukraine falls with just a whimper, China will be emboldened. They might invade. This is scary stuff.

Regardless of my ignorant view of international maneuvering and the greater evil that men continually do, my point is simply that the timing of this was no accident. It is all post Trump. Trump exposed the ugly underbelly of the United States over the past four years and divided the population. Trump sided with Putin and helped minimize the Putin threat perception. Trump was financed by Putin (follow the money from the Russia-backed VTB, through Deutsche Bank direct to Trump) . Trump has been an insidious insurrectionist from day one and it has all been in aid of Russia.

But, of course, it is ‘just business’, isn’t it?

So, what does this mean to me? Well, we have an unstable, divided nation just south of us. We have Covid-disrupted supply lines already. Trump also managed to drive wedges between the USA and Mexico and Canada. Trump also aggravated relations with NATO countries and the USA is increasingly irked with China on so many other levels. The big boys are getting testy. Everyone is in a bad mood.

And I live in a country that has fools in parliament, institutions that can barely cope with Covid and, on a day-to-day basis, could not even cope with a motley crew of alt-right protesters in pick-up trucks. None of the above is confidence inspiring. I do not feel safe.

Safe, for me, was distance, isolation and minimal needs to satisfy. Getting all that by living OTG turned out to be a bigger joy and reward and was a HUGE bonus personally. I mean, I had no idea that WW3 might play out right over my head but I did have a palpable feeling of dread about ‘the great unraveling’ (that feeling started circa 2001) and so I chose to live in a place where such an event would impact me the least. But, of course, a brand new, missile-launching, EMT, radioactive, planet-disrupting WW3 leaves no one unscathed. And, currently, we have all been scathed somewhat already. None of us are safe.

What’s more, it only seems to be getting darker.

Time to take a look back on this blog, time to take a hard look on it right now, too, and it is probably time to ponder the future of it as well. The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates). Or, more aptly put in this case, the unexamined blog is not worth writing.

And so, with that brief exercise in navel gazing being NOW over, I am going to take a break. I am off the air. No mo’ blog! I may start up again in 2022 but maybe not.

“Oh, God! What am I going to do? No blog OTG? Is this the beginning of TEOTWAWKI? Is this how it all ends?!”

No, dear readers, this is NOT the end of the world as you know it. Right now, it is just a ‘break’. I am on hiatus. Sabbatical. Vacation. I am going fallow. Well, more to the point: I am actually fallow. I have no burning issues right now – at least no issues that I have not already repeated ad nauseum.

Economics in 2022 might bring me back for a bit of ranting….we’ll see. And, as a sticky note, I am inclined-but-reluctant to try and write something in defense of men and their natural but less-than-PC tendencies. I have an issue with allegations destroying people, too. But, like I said, I have over-spent myself on my usual topics and I am not yet ready to ‘take on’ the topic of defending men’s societal behaviours (a daunting task, to be sure).

For those of you who might want to stay in touch, please do so by email. If you do not have my email address, just leave a comment on this blog and I will send my email to you. Or Sally’s. It is perfectly OK to prefer Sal’s email to mine. I do.

In closing – and that has not yet happened – I wish you all the best this season, a fabulous New Year and, of course, I really hope you all survive the apocalypse scheduled for later this century. No, really. All of you….seriously……

In fact, it is practically stuck around freezing these past few days and it has dropped below that during the nights. Today, the fire has raged all day and we have not gotten the house up past 67F yet. By dinner time, it might be 70 but that’s a cold day for us when it takes that long. We’ve been pounding through the wood for over a month and that, too, is unusual.

Been sloshing through the gasoline, too. I am burning ten gallons a week at least. The boat gets 2.5 gallons and the genset is getting the other 6.5. For us, that is fossil-fuel mania! Why so much for the genset (a gallon a day)? Mostly because of the heat tapes on our water system. No sun and freezing temps requires a genset to keep the pipes and pumps unfrozen.

Virtually no boat traffic now. This is the quiet time. We feel alone. Remote. Isolated. Even the wildlife are hunkered down and much less present. It’s nice. Three months from now, however, it will be a large part of feeling ‘bushed’. “Moderation in all things, grasshopper.”

The only reason I mention all this is because it is just the first week in December. We have had flowers blooming in December some years! January gets a bit chilly as a rule and February is always the worst month of all but already November was a very harsh month in BC and December is now showing up cold and ugly, too. We may have an especially long winter this year (for us).

Do I care? Not really. We are well stocked. We can burn more wood. I can eke out the fuel. The bed is warm. I have reading material, Netflix, Sal. What more could I want?

Yes, we have some scotch, too…….we are good.

But it kinda speaks to climate change, don’tcha think? I mean, all those nutbars denying climate change for years if not decades have largely shut up lately. And STILL our governments waffle on doing anything actually significant. Finally they have the mandate and they are still impotent. Oh, I know, they love ‘taxing’ carbon because they are so bloody money-oriented that is all they know how to do. And, while they are licking their chops over increased revenues, how do they reconcile those paltry revenues against the incredible expenses experienced from the fires, floods, mudslides and supply-chain disruptions? Shouldn’t we stop planning on ‘compensation’ for planet destruction and simply stop doing it?

The reality, folks, is that stopping the destruction of our planet is no longer enough. We need to husband, steward, protect and enhance the systems of the planet that we have almost destroyed completely. We have already done more than enough destruction, we need to make good on remediation, reconstitution, restitution and repair.

I spoke years ago to a guy with a huge vessel wondering what to do with it now that the fish stocks were depleted. “Uh, why not get a huge barge, tow it out to the middle of the pacific and start collecting all the plastic accumulating in the ocean vortex?” He declined but it seems others have now taken up the challenge……but even that kind of heroic effort is still not enough. The ocean needs more than a respite, it needs a major rehab. We need thousands of hatcheries. We need seaweed farms. We need to stop beating the patient and, instead, TREAT the patient with kindness and respect. Stopping the beating is NOT good enough – not anymore.

The option, of course, is to carry on carrying on.

I have more than a few long time friends. We like each other mutually and on long established and well understood terms. It’s all good. One of the qualities we all share is friendship-without-obligations. We make contact when we want to rather than by rote, schedule or obligation. That is so good for me. But it also means that long-time friends may not be in touch or call or email or even read the blog for years at a time. “Why bother? We like Dave and Sally and Dave and Sally like us……do we need a regular confirmation or ritual over that? Do we need a regular contact?”

And the answer, of course, is NO. Some of my best friends I have not seen or even heard from in years. But, should we ever BE in touch, it is as if we lived next door. It’s all intimate and close and natural from the very get-go. In fact, one of my best friends with whom I have been in touch lately, I hadn’t seen for over twenty years. ‘Cept for a little EXTRA reminiscing, it was the same old friendship from the start. Good ol’ Ted!

So, imagine my surprise getting an unexpected chit-chat call the other night from some very close friends who are usually infrequently in touch. “Jus’ checkin’ in……” ….and we talked for awhile. It was nice. Then, the next day, getting an email from a similar good-but-disconnected friend. He sent an email that was very oriented on ‘cheering people up’…ya know……? Pictures, jokes about aging, jokes about ‘the blues’ or ‘troubles’. All very uplifting. Put a smile on my face…….

Then it dawned on me…these were my friends checkin’ in with me because (and this is the funny-but-lovely part) they sensed from the last few blogs that I was depressed and they cared enough to make a ‘connection’ but it was one that very sensitively danced around the issue. They barely managed to ask, “You OK?” As soon as they knew that I was OK, then “Well, we’ll let you get on with your evening, then. Bye! Love to Sal.”

When I write this crap, it is usually about whatever is going on in my head at that moment. If I write the blues, it is very likely I was feeling blue in that moment but, after a cookie or a laugh with Sal or even a new log salvaged from the sea, the light-grey shadow is lifted and I am fine. I just have moods, ya know?

My moods are not dramatic highs and lows like bi-polars but they are noticeable. I have a Latino-type personality, I guess. And it is noticeable THROUGH the blog! Who knew?

So, today’s blog is just a reassurance for my six or seven readers that I am fine (thanks) and NOT depressed. Well, not today, anyway. But also be reassured, that I will definitely be bleak and blue somewhat over the next three months simply because EVERYONE out here gets a little ‘bushed’ in the winter. The lack of sunshine is a real influence on mood and more and more I am getting sensitive to the winter blahs. And I write the truth about it…..

Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I am going to the garden to eat a few worms……

It’s weird, but my thoughts, dreams and interests are shrinking, narrowing, even disappearing in a few instances. It could just be age; could come from living OTG, or it could just be the times they are so madly a-changing.  Bottom line: I am also changing.

Where once I was interested in everything everywhere, I am now interested in little except learning stuff, ‘my’ people and what is around me out here. Ravens and whales, cod and oysters, logs roaming freely and good ol’ Sal.  Lately, it has even included mushroom cultivation, fer Gawd’s sake!  In effect, I have been more dislodged from my head and forced to live and think more in the moment.  It was a slow progression.  And it has taken awhile.

Readers might think that I may be forgetting about all the goofy-politics I write about but really? Believe it or not, this is a severely reduced level of my previous interest in politics by at least 75%. Trump, of course, is so outrageous that I am still interested in him (sociologically and psychologically) but more for the incredible level of madness and dysfunction he creates in the world rather than any one political policy…..and, anyway, I have studiously avoided the T-word for some time now.  He’s bad for my ‘chi’.  

I am not really interested in prices, making a buck or ‘getting ahead’ at all either (get ahead of what?).  I am not interested in fashion or trendy things. I have almost stopped dreaming about boats (keyword: almost).  I have even felt the waning of my previously strong wanderlust. Travel is no longer a strong draw (mind you, January and February weather is still a very strong repellent so the end result might look much the same).

Living OTG has really changed me.  I do less but still feel busy…..well, busy enough anyway.  I think more and yet worry less.  I love Sal more and more but also see fewer others and don’t miss ’em as much (a bit) except for Leo and Eli, my grandkids.  And I personally hate routine just naturally but I am in a very nice routine now and it is surprisingly good.  Seriously, I am different.

I’d like to think it has changed me for the better but that’s a subjective call and I, personally, do not think the differences, while significant to me, makes this new Dave better or worse than the previous Dave. Just different.  Mind you, Sal is getting more and more reluctant to take me out in public so that suggests something…..

Sal may have an opinion on all this, too, but I am not gonna ask and invite that cat out of the bag.  I have not changed so much as to become stupid!

I still get my dander up over government stupidity, my own inadequacies and the direction in which we are headed as a planet but all those are issues way too large for me to address effectively, especially my own inadequacies (Sal’s on it, tho, still working for change).  It just may be time for me to ride the horse in the direction in which it is going.  Go with the flow, kinda-thing.   Resistance is futile.  However,  this current horse is deaf, dumb and blind and headed for an exterminating cliff-plunge so I am glad I am not fully committed to passively being on it’s back with the rest of the hoi polloi.  Or so laid back that rigor mortis is the next inevitable stage of modern-living sloth.  I do not want to go easily, ya know?  I am keeping some resiliency in reserve – just in case.  First step (for me) in resiliency was to go OTG.  Second step was to learn like hell.  I am still at stage two.

Probably the biggest change is my point of view.  I have always looked outwards (mirrors are always a nasty surprise for guys like me).  I always lived in the future.  I always had goals I was pursuing.  ‘Here’ and ‘now’ always needed improving.  But, these days, here and now is pretty damn good most of the time – if not all the time.

I might, just maybe, be content…..?

My window of ambition is, obviously, a function of energy, time and opportunity all of which are now greatly reduced to ‘low’, ‘short’ and ‘few’ respectively.  Thus, my ambitions are lower, too.  I now look forward to mostly dinner, scotch and a cheap B movie where all the cars blow up.

No!  That does not mean I have one-foot-in-the-grave but it has led to me having more feet in the garden.  So, that is a notable step in the direction of becoming loam and composting, I suppose.  I am standing on the banks of the River Styx.  It’s a slippery slope, gardening is……next thing you know, you are really into the  soil…..six feet under.

Apologies, dear readers. This blog is a bit bleak. I do not want it to be but, well, I write what I see and this is what I see. But, but, but…it is NOT as bleak as it sounds. There IS an answer! It may NOT be the one we all want but, in the fullness of time, there is always an answer and I can see one looming……..so, here goes.….(continuing from the title)

….but that is not news, not really….c’mon. Incompetence is the norm in politics (except in authoritarian regimes). Dysfunctional is likely the prevailing theme in all modern politics – especially democracies – and, of course, is especially manifest in all those we elect who do not really see their role as working to benefit the people. Their role is to support their party, big business, friends and cronies and, of course, to get re-elected. Put another way: Democracy is an ideal that has never been reached and is currently more corrupted than ever.

I honestly cannot recall a single selfless, honourable, decent politician in my lifetime and I am no spring chicken. Well, there was Emery Barnes back in the day.…….Old EB was a very good and decent egg who worked for the people but he was pretty much marginalized by the party (NDP) and, because of that, largely ineffective. I suspect that the good ones of our more recent era are ignored, too. Mind you, we have a local politician in our area for the Regional District who is quite exceptional – a really great frog in a way-too-small-pond. I suspect that many who are tarred (by the likes of me) with the incompetent brush were/are good people, uncorrupted and sincere but also excluded from the back rooms where the REAL decisions are made.

For example: I like Elizabeth May but, of course, she was never part of the ‘IN’ crowd and never would be. She was a Greenie. And then there are the NEW Greens – currently AWOL from environmental concerns when they are most needed – who have opted for ‘other priorities’ than their name would suggest and, for the time being, are basically done as a party. They are beyond incompetent, they are suicidal. Total nincompoops. Very sad.

But, let’s be fair for a minute. Could anyone be a good leader under our current conditions? John Horgan, battling throat cancer, has been in charge during the ongoing Covid years, the two worst wildfire seasons of all time and now the worst flooding since 1948. He’s got the plague of fentanyl, the all-but-unstoppable inflow of ‘dirty money’ from China being laundered, a veritable museum of fat and decadent institutions and, of course, a rapidly decaying society in an industrially altered environment. A legislature of Einsteins couldn’t deal with all that.

Trudeau needs no similar description even if the result is the same. Justin is basically just an elite removed from reality and simply gliding through his sense of the universe unfolding as it should.

And Biden is playing out typically American. The US is becoming even more selfish in more and more ways (hard to believe) and two of the three amigos no longer get even neighbourly consideration.

And then there is the worldwide looming climate Armageddon and a UN of countries that keep dropping that ball……

We do not have a leader for any of that. We do not even have a leader for any of that in our country or province. IRONY…….the biggest leader on the biggest threat is little Greta Thunberg!

I may be exaggerating a little but, at a cursory level, that is what it looks and feels like to me. Inadequacy, incompetence and evil rules the planet and the challenges continue to go unmet. There are no leaders.

Racism, political correct-necrosis, corruption, greed and a pantheon of ugliness abets and supports that omnipresent bleakness every day according to the news. The challenges we all face are now daunting if not impossible. They seem to be headed for the decidedly impossible – the point of no return.

Woe is me! …..but there is some good news!

The good news is that all the old, rotten bastards will soon die off. Even if they are NOT rotten and corrupt, they will die off if they are old enough. We all get old and then we die. Nature’s turnover and possible renewal. Composting on a larger scale. The good, the bad and the ugly all die eventually. Keep a happy thought.

The flaw in that universally natural solution is our legally created ZOMBIE-creeps or, as they are more commonly known as, corporations. Corporations don’t die. We can kill ’em but they wouldn’t die naturally from old age. In that sense, they are immortal. Like the church but now better funded and diversified, they go on and on while the people who started them are long past. That zombie-ism perpetuates the problems we created longer than Nature would but it does seem as if Nature is trying to catch up.

That is also true for all institutions and all legally created structures. The Red Cross, the Community Chest, The UN….the list is endless….’lifeless creatures’ conceived in love and lofty ideals eventually exist well beyond their ‘natural time’ and live primarily for their own sake even when the goals that their founders originally set have been achieved (or lost). It is an exceptional organization that truly renews it’s purpose every now and then. Most just get hoary, moribund and self-serving. And the status quo slowly petrifies.

And that just might be the diagnosis for our larger, all encompassing first-world way of doing things. Governments, institutions, corporations – all unsustainably self serving and getting longer-in-the-tooth, and heading for petrification. We may really be overdue for a cleansing, purifying, idealizing revolution of some kind.

An apocalyptical end-of-days scenario seems a bit extreme but it is pretty clear that the ‘old ways’ are not working very well anymore and may, in fact, be so rotten that renovation and patchwork is no longer an option. We may have to rebuild.

The problem with that (and, trust me, I know) a new build is less work than a renovation but there is more down-time ‘without’ as you start anew. A rebuild or new build starts with a tear down. Then there is clean-up and then we go to building the basic new foundations. Building usually ends well but costs a lot in money, comfort and time. A build is hard.

In fact, a new build is so hard and so expensive and so time consuming most people ‘put it off’. And the old building/constructs eventually gets passed on to the youth and they, maybe, have the energy….maybe not. And so the whole thing repeats and slowly rots until a fire or an earthquake or a drunk driving a big truck takes it all down. In other words, there is plenty of precedent that procrastination and catastrophe are the real leaders in the modern world. We can’t seem to lead ourselves out of dead-end alleyway so we need Mother Nature to start the process by destroying everything we are clinging to……TEOTWAWKI.

The little boat engine is now running but rough. Really rough. Plus, of course, it will not idle. And so off comes the carb for the umpteenth time. Into the sonic cleanser. Lots of buzzing. Sometime in the future this little Suzi outboard is gonna run and life will enter another era…the post Suzi-dunking era (PSDE – a close cousin to PTSD).

We will never get to a post Sally dunking era ’cause Sal goes in the chuck more often than the Canadian Forces Submarine division.

Here’s a lesson learned……there is a fuse in the system that I had no idea about. It had popped. Thus the loss of spark. Jus’ sayin’….

Anyway, it is a typical day in the neighbourhood. Light rain. Spurts of sunshine. Sal has to go up YET AGAIN to clear the water intake. Maybe tomorrow. This has been the most demanding intake maintenance year by far. A dozen or so times already. She’ll get wet again, of course. It’s all fun.

I have rekindled my interest in mushrooms and, this time, I have learned more. In fact, I have to start by dropping a few alder/birch trees so as to ‘season’ them for Shiitake implants in the early spring. And I have to get wood pellets and spawn and misters and all sorts of crap which is hard for me…..you see, I walk through little patches of ‘shrooms all over the damn place ’round this neck o’ the woods. All the time. Lots of different kinds. Some of them have to be safe to eat. Mind you, if I am wrong, I might enter the post David era and that would cramp my style considerably.

Almost every mushroom I have ever picked and brought home to the library, I could not identify by the pictures in the book. And the ones I thought I got close on, turned out to be the extra poisonous ones. So, current events and common sense suggests that Mother Nature is fighting back on all fronts and only a fool would roll the dice with her today. I am pretty sure she is really, really ticked with us as a species. I will start by growing my own ‘shrooms.

Speaking of the species……the three dumb Bubbas who killed the student jogger for running-while-black were convicted by a motly-white jury of murder in Georgia. Minimum sentence is life-in-prison. Seems as if the right thing was done…kinda….I mean, I am in no mood to defend the neighbourhood Klan but the story has the father and son McMichael doing the chasing and shooting and a neighbour followed up and took video footage. It just seems a smidge over the top that the third guy goes up for life……jus’ sayin’…

(PS – edit update). Umh…what seeeeeeeemed like the right decision was not, after all, the right decision regarding the Georgia State legal system. Mr. Ahmaud Arbery (the victim) was shot and killed in February. The Ga district attorney BURIED the crime and did not pursue it until the video was released in May. That means that, if you scratch a Bubba state, you will still find a Bubba world in which the law is perverted and corrupted. That means that the verdict may have been right but it was correct IN SPITE of the system.

I guess I am losing patience with the Bubba crowd and the Trumpists (not that I ever had any). I am just kinda fed up seeing that clown’s face all the time. And that includes all the dumb faces of all the Bubbas of which there seems an endless supply. How did mass stupidity become a celebrity? But what about poor Wim and the European hoi polloi? Those folks are getting a double dose – more Covid AND more Covid restrictions complete with restriction protests! It’s like the slow unraveling of sanity being played out everywhere and every day right before our eyes.

On the plus side, the Swift Fox has made a comeback from assumed extinction. That’s good. Problem: they chose southern Alberta in which to debut their return. Dumb fox will likely go extinct again.

In closing……BC burnt in the summer and flooded in the late Fall. Towns razed and highways washed out. Prior to and during that hellish time, we indulged the Covid pandemic and it appears we will continue to do so. Now even the deer carry Covid! Already disrupted supply chains and weak and ineffectual governments prevaricate but prevail as inflation rises. And a number of Conservative MPs lied to remain unvaccinated. The cost of living is going up while the chances of living are going down. Bubbas and Conservatives still make the front page every day in one stupid way or another and division and separation are spreading like another virus.

And the stock market is gangbusters.

Problems? Or opportunities?

I have the best partner in the world but that doesn’t mean mistakes can’t happen…..even regularly scheduled ones. ‘Cause they do.

When we lived in the city, I would stop every month to pick up a box of a dozen crystal wine glasses to supplement the always diminishing inventory in our cupboard. Living with Sal is a delight, a lot of fun…not unlike a Greek wedding, if you get my drift. Every day and evening, something crashed. She just drops things.

The other day we were hauling her admittedly heavy (100 pounds) Suzuki outboard up on the highline (like a kid’s zipline). It needed some servicing and it hadn’t been running for some time. She maneuvered her little boat into place, unbolted the motor and she sat down beside it. It just sat there safely on the transom awaiting me to lower the pulling line that rode on the fixed highline. Attached to the pulling line was the chainhoist. One would simply attach the hoist, haul the motor up off the back of the boat and I would take care of the rest. But before the pull line had finished lowering the hoist and with my back turned, I heard a splash and then more than just a few expletives. I turned to see the outboard lying on the bottom of the sea (shallow – about three or four feet under the boat).

Sal first looked around for help but there wasn’t any. I was 150 feet up the steep hill operating the winch. She cursed some more and then jumped in. Chest high. But then she bent at the waist so that she then had her face just breaking the surface of the water. With a Herculean grunt, she grabbed the outboard and lifted it on to a shallow rock. It was still wet but some of it was out. She grabbed the end of the chainhoist, connected it to the motor and hauled it up in the air. I winched it up. The motor, on the verge of being ruined, drained spitting and leaking as it came up the hill. Sal followed spitting, leaking and ruining the English language.

When the two of them were at the top, there stood Sal clad in shades of black and grey and soaking wet beside her similar hued black and grey outboard both showing the effects of an extremely recent complete immersion. Two drowned rats.

I got the motor over to the shop while Sal squidged and slopped her spongy self to the house to change. Then we did what we could to save the motor – drained all the water out. Dried everything off. Drained, flushed and changed the contaminated oil from the sump, dried the electrics (hair dryer) and drained the carb. Then I had to remove the starter motor but, of course, nothing is that simple. First you remove the top flywheel/pull-start assembly so that starter motor bolts are accessible and, of course, you have to first remove the carb, too….same reason.

Within a few hours, we had the motor dry, fluids changed and the big stuff largely disassembled. The cylinders had also been oiled (with some varsol first, new oil after) and the plugs removed so that the pistons could be pulled up and down to spit out what they might have drunk. By then it was dark.

A new motor is $4000 to $5,000. This could be a total loss. No matter what I did, I could not get electricity into the motor. Strong battery, cleaned, dried and well attached wires directly from the battery to the starter and it clicked over – a good sign for the starter (one of the more vulnerable parts) but, as soon as the starter was mounted onto the motor, nothing. It was as if the juice just disappeared. There may be a black box somewhere. I am gonna be on YouTube for a while.

“What happened down there?”

“Nothing! I swear. It just fell in. I did nothing. Honest.”

“So, you are saying that a 100 plus pound motor sitting on the transom and hooked on by it’s motor clamp just upped itself four inches and jumped in?”

“Well, I don’t know. But it must have. I just know I didn’t drop it.”

“Inanimate objects are not, generally speaking, suicidal. Right? And you do know how gravity works, right? I am pretty sure you know all-too-well how denial works. Now you just may have to learn how rowing works.”

“I hate you.”

PS. This is not an unusual dialogue for us. We’ve been together for over 50 years. We have gone through thousands of crystal glasses, and maybe millions of assorted other ‘fragiles’ no longer with us. This is simply the price paid for living with an angel suffering from Tourettes and Carpal Tunnel. I am a saint!