I met our urban and Eastern guest last week at the ‘other island’ ferry terminus.  When he got off, he was a bit agitated.  “Geez!  Is there a bank machine on this island, Dave?  I gotta get some money.”

“Sure.  The credit union.  I’ll stop but, ya know………..there is no place to spend any money ’round here.  I don’t got no money.  You don’t need no money.  We’ll feed ya.  You just don’t need any.  None.  Hell, I haven’t carried my wallet in a month and, when I do, it is just for the day when we go to town.”

“Huh?!  Waddabout ID?  Don’t ya need ID?”

“Nah.  I know who I am.  No one else is interested.  Even if they are interested, ‘Dave’ will usually do for the moment.  Know lots of people only by their first name.  If I can remember even that!”

“No watch?”

“Nope!  Rarely know what the day of the week it is.  Don’t care.  Sometimes forget the month.  Kinda live by the sun and the amount of food in the fridge, ya know?  If the fridge is getting empty, it must be close to two weeks since my last trip to town….whenever that was.”

And therein lies another difference in off-the-grid living.  We don’t live by the watch  at all anymore and we barely manage to live by the calendar.  We don’t live by the wallet either.  It costs money, of course, but the expenditures go out in a few large chunks every so often.  There is virtually no ‘disecretionary dribbling away’ like when living in the city.  Of course, there are doctor’s appointments, property taxes day, income taxes day, Christmas and our family member’s birthdays but, really, the rest of the days blur into pleasant memory.

Honestly?  The hardest ‘time’ to get a handle on is when we have someone coming who booked two months ago.  It is like ‘so far in the future’ I don’t even think about it.  Then – all of a sudden – whoa!  Guests!  What ferry they on?    Given that we have to prepare for them, that is the hardest time-challenge we face.

I don’t have appointments in the same way as I used to – like five a day!  I doubt that I have five appointments a year!  I don’t have my traffic routes timed to the minute anymore…..mostly ’cause I no longer have traffic routes!  I only drive about 200 kms a month on average.  So many of the ‘pulses’ and rhythms of yesterlife have changed so completely that I no longer even think about it.  After eight years out here, I have gone over to island time.

“Is it better?  Like, less stress and all?”

Well, yes.  And no.  Mostly yes.  But on those few occasions when I have to keep watch on the clock, it is more stressful than it has ever been before.  I am out of practice with marching to the collective beat and I am worried that I might miss my timing.  Makes me nervous now.  So, on less frequent occasions I get more stressed than I used to.  Weird, eh?

Don’t misunderstand me.  My internal clock is pretty close.  I am usually ‘on time’.  15 minutes, give or take.  If I say I will be up at the Q-hut at ten, I will generally be there within five minutes of ten.  If anything, a bit early.  I am still punctual by nature.  But nothing is precise anymore.  I don’t even look at the clock (tho sometimes Sal tells me what time it is).  It just is ‘about time I left’ and that seems to be sufficient for most of what we do out here.

And Wednesdays are the ‘anchor day’ from which all other days are unconsciously marked.  Wednesday is community day, yoga, Q-hut day and the main-flight, mail-comes-in day.  We can generally frame our perspective around that once-a-week reorientation reminder.  “Hmmmmm, Wednesday was two days ago so it must be Friday, eh?”

Einstein said that time speeds up and slows down depending on your perspective so long as the light is turned on……or something like that………..whatever.  But if he meant that time is relative, he’s got that right.  Now that my time is my own, it has changed completely from when it belonged to others.

And I like that.

Jus’ keepin’ it real………..

Guest left Friday.  It was a good visit.  Really good.  Guests arrive today.  Inlaws.  They’re good too. Should be all good.  Woofers called.  They wanted in, too.  Turned them down.  “Sorry, no room at the inn!”

Tís the season.  August.

It’s funny, really.  All guests are good.  Some ‘gooder’ than others but they are all good.  Really.  But there definitely is a way to be a guest.  And it is different from what you’d think.  In fact, it is different from what I would have thought prior to being a ‘remote-host’.

Visiting off the grid means a shift-in-thinking, kinda, including but not limited to packing light and properly, bringing special personal requirements and, well…………..the list could go on forever.

Visiting off-the-grid properly requires an awareness of what living off-the-grid means (generating your own electricity, etc.) and who really has that?  ‘Cept for others who live off the grid and they are rarely the ones who visit overnight. 

Off-the-grid visiting is like going to a different culture of sorts and guests regularly (like any foreigner visiting a different culture) put their foot in it.  Let me give you an example:

We know that when guests come they have to catch ferries and make connections and so we anticipate that and make scheduling commitments to accommodate.  From advance shopping-in-town (one full day) to laundry and cleaning and baking and arranging for kayaks, we usually have a list of things to do to get ready (not unusual for hosts but, out here, a much greater logistical challenge).  ‘Course we can’t always anticipate correctly but we really want to.  Guests simply don’t know that there is so much preparation, planning and organizing.

One loved family member made two promises to come and each time decided at the last minute NOT to do it.  Which is fine.  Life happens.  But a bit irritating after having made two unnecessary trips to town in anticipation.  She didn’t know.  Still doesn’t.  Probably never will.

Another comes out and says casually just before Sal was about to serve a giant Paella made from gathered-from-the-wild, “Oh, seafood?  I never eat seafood.  Or white bread.  Got gluten-free tofu?”

Usually it is a much smaller, trifling matter. If a guest is arriving by the 12:30 ferry then it is to be expected that they will end up at the ‘pick up’ point one hour later.  And so it is arranged.  I leave a half hour in advance.  I am now incommunicado.  But should they decide to stop for lunch or ‘sight-see’ along the way there is no way to let us know and so we sit at the end of the road waiting.  Not knowing.  Worrying.  There is no phone service.  There is no way to ‘call Sal and let her know’ because – even if she knows, she can’t tell me.  Something as simple as stopping for lunch can be inconsiderate.

Who knew?

And so it goes.  Some guests leave the lights on.  Some leave the shower fan on.  Some try and download movies.   None of those things work-like-at-home out here and the repercussions of simply ‘not knowing’ can be annoying at the very least.  Download a long You-tube and the satellite service may shut down for a 24 hour period.  That kind of thing.

“Why not just give everyone a set of rules?”

Well, that is officious and mildly impolite to them.  Not our style.  We try to keep it to nothing more than a couple of suggestions as a rule.  “Feel free to take a shower.  If you hear the pump come on, don’t worry.  If you hear the pump come on twice, you are in big trouble!” . Some guests ‘get it’ right from the start and behave better than I do (well, in a social context, they all behave better than I do.)  But I am talking ‘off-the-grid’ behaviours here.  Some are really great, they even take their garbage home with them!

Truth is: there are no easy answers to this.  Some of the people most loved are complete doofuses once they leave the norms of the city.  Hint #1: do not wear flip flops when going off-the-grid up the BC coast.  But they are still friends, they are still worth it and their visit is still to be cherished.

OK, I have to buy a new kayak paddle to replace the lost one, I have to sit at the end of the road while they wander the back roads of the neighbouring island, I have to run the generator set twice as much…….but………….well, it’s OK.

Really.  It’s good.

Really.

OK……..a rant………………..c’mon!  You know I am overdue.

The world has suffered intense drought.  Most of it, anyway.  Especially the wheat, grain and corn fields of the US, Russia and western Europe.  And that drought is killing crops.  The news reports that grain cereal prices may rise.  Damn, eh?

The bigger story, of course, than prices is that much of the world relies on grain cereals for their basic sustenance.  Look for more reports on mass starvation (but you’ll have to look hard ’cause our media doesn’t like that stuff and they don’t report it.  Not good for business).  An even bigger story is that this latest dilemma is likely a further indication of climate change.

Our headline?  Kellogs Special K will go up in price by 17%.

A CBC interviewer calls a CBC reporter in London to get the ‘latest’ on the Olympics.  They don’t call an Olympian.  They don’t call an Olympic official.  Instead, they call their own reporter.  Staff talking to staff. ‘Easier, don’t ya know?  And a helluva lot cheaper!‘

And what does our intrepid, in-the-field reporter tell us?  Well, he reports from a pub that the publican is satisfied with the level of increased business.  Later he reports from another pub where a drunk Canadian girl shrieks, “We’re number 1!” and gushes about getting bronze in the synchronized mixed-pair pillow fight.

Edward R Murrow, he ain’t.

It is reported that Stephen Harper flies out to BC to announce that parents whose child is deemed sufficiently ill will get an extension on their unemployment benefits for up to six months!  Waddarwe talking here?  About the same amount of money as it cost for Harper to fly out, stay at a fancy hotel with his tag-along staff and make the announcement?

One hundred and eight-five thousand Syrians are already refugees in Jordan.  Our guy flies over there and announces $6 million in Canadian Aid.  About the price of a house in West Vancouver.  Good news!  shouts the CBC.  Good photo op, too.  Wounded, traumatized and starving Syrians will, of course, remain in Jordan in tents.

Some complete doofus in a Canadian Petroleum propaganda organ (Calgary based Canadian Energy Research Institute – completely funded by government and Big Oil!!) reports that BC will fare better than thought money-wise from the Enbridge Tarsands pipeline.  She got front page of the Province newspaper and prominent positioning in the Times Colonist and National Post.  And all she said was ‘in her opinion’.  Front page!  Dozens of intelligent, qualified people have done in-detailed analysis and concluded just the opposite and no one hears of that. Young, masters degree holder, researcher, Dinara Millington, gets front page coverage.

The point: Don’t believe the news.  Not a whit of it.  It is lies.  It is all lies.  And where it isn’t lies, it is error.  And where it isn’t error, it is ‘fluff’ and ‘celebreties’.  And, nowadays, where it isn’t any of the above, it is paid-for propaganda. The news is worse than no news because – with no news – you are at least NOT lied to.

The rallying cry of the anarchist used to be, “First, we kill all the lawyers!”

I think we should consider the news industry as a possible first-strike option.

I promise to do ravens every now and then but, honestly, as great as they are, they are somewhat predictable.  I know them.  They know me.  That should be, as they say, ’nuff said’.

But a guest arrived today who knows photography.  R is a professional photographer.  And he is getting into movie-making.  He wanted ravens.

Getting some footage of a raven is good camera practice and so we undertook to get his portfolio/library enriched by expoiting our relationship with Jack and Liz.

It took cheese.  It took ravens.  And it took camouflage.  We dressed the camera (on a tripod) with a jacket and it then seemed (I guess) just like another person.  The ravens came.  The ravens went.  And he captured them on film!

This is no easy feat with ravens.  They seem to ‘sense’ the presence of a camera and we have had little to no luck getting pics of them over the years.  A few.  But mostly they see the camera and just won’t come in.  This time was different! 

Hello, Sundance!

I mention all this because Randy (WideAngleMan) Cole will likely ‘produce’ a small segment of Raven film and embed it on the blog some time in the near future.  I am pretty sure he will add it to his portfolio of You-Tubes as well.  Randy also plans to ‘produce’ a couple of minutes of Sal and me being Sal and me.  You know…..rugged, outdoorsy, adventuresome?

Frankly, I think it is career suicide for him but he thinks he can make make us into scintilating stuff.  “There is no budget for special effects, Randy!”

“Trust me.  When I am done with you, you’ll look great!”   Of course, he then concentrated the rest of his camera time on Sal.  I think he is going to splice in some stock footage of Tom Sellek to play the lead.

Anyway, that is how the last couple of days went…….eating, talking, touring in boat, filming, faking, lying-with-the-camera.  Pretty silly stuff.  Randy wanted some ‘film’ on the logs and wood-getting but, as you know, that chore is done for the year.  But film directors are pretty demanding-artist types.  So, we faked it!

I climbed down the hill with my chainsaw and started it up and waved it around a bit while the camera rolled and then I stopped and climbed back up the hill.  After we had caught our breath, I fired it up again and cut a round off a log that was already up here (the stage crew is good).  Then, with that one round, I whacked out some firewood.  Like four or five pieces.

The camera will lie.  The film will smack of Paul Bunyan.

Fame, eh?  So sweet but so fleeting.  Worse, I won’t even get fifteen minutes.  Seems a long You-tube is 6 minutes and Randy is pretty sure he can capture the essence of our life in 45 seconds.  Which says a lot.

To be kind to us, he will stretch it out to 3 minutes, I think, but we expect a lot of repeat shots of the round splitting.  You know, slo-mo-type stuff.  Cheap B Action-hero…..sequences….different angles……..like a speeding car chase ending with a crash but………….like………….in wood!

Building stuff from upside down steel that is floating sometimes and sitting on the mud at other times is a pretty challenging chore.  And that will turn out to be just the beginnig of it.  This is a big project.  I am thinking……..a year….?

And having some doofus record your every move for his blog makes it significantly less pleasant.  So, out of common decency, I have to leave the story of the floats for a bit.

I will tell it, of course.  In it’s entirety.  I promise.  The truth will out!  But friendship, good neighbourliness and fear of physical reprucussions requires me ‘cutting the guy some slack’ for the time being.  I am sure you understand.  The camera will be turned off for awhile.  The pen will rest.  We’ll return to our story sometime in the furture.  Don’t worry, there will be progress (I am sure) but I don’t know the schedule.  Nobody does.

I’ll report when I can.

“Move along folks…………..nothing to see here now……………..just go about your business…………..c’mon………move along now………..”

Further to the last post regarding recycling fish-pens………

Each intact-square fish-pen weighs in at about 4 tons……give or take.  Maybe more.  When J had finished cutting them into useable chunks (as per his design specs), the cut pieces weighed about a ton each.  And each piece was 30 feet long……..give or take……depending on precisely where he cut.

Each piece also had two floats attached.  Or, more accurately, they would have if the pens were obtained in fully functional shape.  But they were not.  These were ‘salvaged’ pens bought for the scrap metal value and that means that they did not always include the requisite two floats-per-side.  Some side pieces had only one float.  One piece had none.

Where five or six floats will keep a 30/40-foot non-working, square pen afloat, things change radically when you cut the square into four separate lengths.  The missing floats are conspicuous in their absence!

Well, not as conspicuous as you might think since J had two such pens in the constrained killing field and the enveloping sea tended to obscure the count of some ‘sections’ at times…….

When the tide comes in and floats up the pieces with still-attached-and-bouyant floats, it leaves the other ones lying on the bottom.  And it is hard to work on a steel deck when it is under water.  It makes the pieces harder to move around at the very least.

J was undaunted.

I was somewhat daunted.

Sally and J2 just looked bemused, mumbled things about ‘boys’ and shook their heads in a manner all too familiar to both J and me.

It is funny how you sometimes have to re-learn simple truths……here’s one: a pen with floats sits with the steel walk-way lengths on top of the water – just as you’d expect a pen to do.  But a cut-off section with two floats that is only 3 or so feet wide turns turtle when separated from it’s 3 (conjoined) siblings.  Even though it is floating, the damn thing is now completely upside down!

More daunting to me………

But J……God bless his perpetual-motion self………..had that problem already solved…….in his head, anyway.  “No problem.  I’ll just get two of the floating lengths bolted together (presumaby right side up) and then use the newly assembled double deck as a barge with which to float the sunken ones!”

Quick aside: I do not want to give the impression that I am very much involved in this.  I am not.  This is J’s dream and J’s nightmare.  Not mine.  I am just the ‘reporter’.  I would have changed the names but no one is innocent.   

You have to bear in mind, too, that J prefers to do his thing alone.  It’s not that he doesn’t like company (he doesn’t) and it is not like he doesn’t need help (he doesn’t), it is rather that he works at a pace that no one helping can keep up with.  So we (potential so-called helpers) are more of a burden, really.  When J accepts ‘helpers’ it is because he is also bringing lunch and has decided to call it a picnic rather than a work day.

Worse, some of us talk when we are helping.  J doesn’t talk when he works.  He just does.  If he has to talk, he has to stop working and, since he rarely stops working, he has to minimize the talking.  Since I prefer talking to working, we are usually a bit out of synch from the get-go.

He also does his thing without the aid of heavy machinery.  J uses levers, come-alongs, hammers, ropes, axes, sledges, wedges, flotsam, barrels, junk and jury-rigs to do just about anything he has to do.  Trust me, McIver could learn a few things about jury-rigging from J.

And, yes, he has a lot of duct tape in his shop.

Monday night – at the BBQ we had with our other neighbours – J said,  “This is great!  The plan is coming together……………”

But, as you may recall from the previous post, J also has a full-time life back in town. So he left today.  And that is where ‘the plan’ sits right now……pieces…some floating, some half-floating, some laying heavy on the bottom.

Me?  I am going to take some more pictures to satisfy my editor.

This is going to be a saga.  I can just feel it………

My neighbour, J, had his work cut out for him………………well, the other way around, actually.  He had his cuts worked out for him.

We had bought two old fish farm pens and J had designs on them.  In order to get those designs happening he had to first cut up the steel structures.  To cut them up he needed a cut-off saw. And, so he managed to get hold of one.  If he had needed a bulldozer, I have no doubt……..

A cut-off saw is a big chainsaw motor attached to a large whirling 12 inch cut-off (natch) blade like the 5 inch, so-called razor-blades I use on my mini-grinder.  But even a seven-inch grinder wasn’t good enough.  J was going BIG.

He was also going hot.  It was pushing 30C when he stepped into the ring (the dry lagoon bed) dressed to the nines in heavy protective clothing.  Sal and I and J2 went down to witness the destruction.  We hoped sincerely that it would be restricted to the steel.

I levered a temporary wooden leg in position to hold the steel rails for him and J fired up the monster.  The engine screamed, the sparks flew and the six inches of steel was cut through like a hot knife through butter.  J was encouraged.  I was impressed.  No stopping him now.

We left him and went about our business.  That would have been about noon or so.  As we worked on our funicular project we heard the scream of blades on steel throughout most of the afternoon.  Around four the pit of hell-fire and steel fell silent.  I guessed that J was done.

Well, he was.  Kinda.

We had arranged to meet up at high tide at nine o’clock in the evening to take a large piece of log furniture over to the point by boat and up to the viewpoint. That required carrying a heavy bench and climbing up a rocky cliff with it.  As it turned out, J had finished chopping pen #1 that afternoon and had gone to fetch pen #2.  He was still at ‘the pens’ so Sal, his partner J2, and I hustled the bench around ourselves and placed it.  When we got back and light was beginning to fade, J was in the lagoon tying up pen #2.

But it was time to call it a day.

“Right.  See ya tomorrow.  J2 and I will just move the dozen buckets of dirt we collected and we’ll call it a day, too!”

So, we helped them take the dirt to where it had to be packed up the cliffside and then hiked home.  Sal had a shower and went to bed.  While I waited my turn I almost fell asleep in the chair.  We were done.

J’s day had been longer and harder than ours by a factor of five.  By the time he’d quit cutting steel, he was overheated to the point of being delerious.  But he just took a cold shower and went back to work.  Took him a few cold showers to get through the day.

J has to work hard when he is here ’cause he lives part time in town.  He has less time to get ‘cabin’ things done.  And he has to work hard in town, too.  He’s building a garage behind his house and holds down a full-time job at one of the fishing lodges.

J is 67.

He looks 47.  A very fit 47 at that.  That 60 year old Swede from Participaction?  A creampuff by comparison.  Not an ounce of fat.  More energy than an NFL football team.  Always on the go.  I didn’t have that kind of energy when I was 19 years old (and it has only tapered off since then)!  And we are not talking pushing-paper busy.  This guy lifts, carries and works with heavy stuff all day, every day.  He is a bloody marvel.

The only explanation besides Godzilla genes is that he has been physically active all his life.  And there doesn’t seem to be any let-up in sight.

Excuse me.  Just writing about him has tired me out.  I am going for a nap.

I don’t like classroom learning much.  Almost doesn’t matter what the subject is, just being in a classroom is an excruciating experience for me.  Too hot.  Too ordered.  Too boring.  But still, I like learning.

I don’t much care for the topics that inhabit classrooms either.  I prefer learning-by-doing or even better, learning-when-you-have-to.  Learning on-the-job is good.  Learning because you are out-of-your-element is even better.  I think learning is the staff of life, really.  And I love it.

Learning about history when you are traveling Europe makes it all make sense.  Learning culture when you are living in an Asian country makes it come alive.  Learning Spanish when in Mexico is good.  Sal and I bought a sailboat and went sailing.  Then we started to learn about sailing!  Talk about getting your feet wet! But we learned and we learned quickly. Doing is the fun way to learn.

I have no doubt that even learning particle physics while at the Hadron Accelerator in Bern, Switzerland could be fascinating.  A lecture on the subject?  Not so much.

And, I think, the desire for learning was very much the motivation for leaving the cul-de-sac.  To a large extent, that way of living was becoming boring (for me, anyway).  No challenge (except financial, of course).  I suppose I could have ‘gotten into’ my lawn-care regimen or become a BBQ expert or something.  I could have learned how to coach baseball properly so that I didn’t offend the other parents (fat chance!) or I could have learned about retirement planning or something.  But I had no interest.  The milieu offered me little.  And I offered it even less.

I needed a new venue.  I needed a new playground.  I needed a new challenge.  And I really needed new neighbours. We had a bad peer group.

Two of our neighbours – a bit older than us – sold their house when he retired and moved to a planned community in which all the houses were painted the same, looked the same and had rules about keeping the same colour curtains on the windows.  Cars had to be garaged.  No washing lines.  No gnomes or flamingos (not a deal breaker for us!).  No dogs.  The idea was extreme conformity.  And they were über strict about it, too.

Penitentiaries have more variation and, surprisingly, more colour.  The planned community chose shades of grey for everything.  Prisons at least have the residents dressed in colourful orange.  Well, at least they do in the movies, my main source of information.  Splashes of crimson red here and there when disputes break out.  Contrast at the very least.

No, we needed to get back into learning somehow……..and leaping-before-looking is definitely one way.  It’s called ‘immersion’.  We went for off-the-grid immersion.  Wade into it hip-deep and start from there.  Learn or die! 

Fun, eh?

Seriously……..I don’t mean to make it sound flip.  I don’t always advise leaping before looking, taking the plunge or rushing in where angels fear to tread but, really, if the script has been written, you know the story and you have done it to the point that you can do it again and again in your sleep, hasn’t some of the fun been lost?

Been there, done that.  Needed fun again.

We really weren’t as spontaneous as it may seem.  It took a few years to get to the jumping off spot.  Hell, I found myself day-dreaming and reading up on things well in advance of even thinking about leaving much of which eventually stood us in good stead.  I must have had some inkling as to where we were headed.  I mean – I bought junk, didn’t I?  I was preparing for something wasn’t I?  Of course.

But, still, we had no idea what.  Not really.  And that, I think, was the truly essential ingredient in moving to a remote island – a desire for the unknown.  The mystery.  The challenge.  The only thing we really knew was that we would be learning again.  And the curve would be steep.

Hey!  Even First Aid is more interesting when you need first aid!

And, instead of being bored, we were excited.  Neat eh?  I was 56, Sal 52 and we were excited.  Looking forward.  And feeling excited made both of us feel younger.  Facing a new challenge, learning a new way of life, developing new skills, doing something we didn’t know how to do………it was like a sip at the fountain of youth.

Still is……………….

I don’t like the heat.  I prefer cool.  I like the wind.  I like the rain (if it is light and there is sun at the same time) and I am rarely cold – and I am often too warm.  Why the hell I ever go south is a question I can only answer with, “Well, Sal likes it…….”

My idea of a good temperature indoors is 16C and colder at night.  Living more outdoors has only reinforced that feeling.  For Sal, too (tho not so much).  Cool is good.  Admittedly not everyone agrees with me but I am somewhat bemused by the radio guy describing the weather as “…..sunny and bright, a balmy, perfect 37C.”

Is there a law or something that says: the hotter it gets the happier the people are supposed to be?  I don’t get it.  If 20C is the ideal temperature for most people, why is 37C better?  37C is almost twice as hot as the ideal 20.  What is wrong with those people?

OK, I know………….“Dave, this not blog material!”

But it is.  Kinda.  It’s what is called a segué.  I am leading somewhere………….

I am leading to: giving advice on picking the building location.  Do it carefully.  With thought.  Choose wisely, little butterfly, you’ll have to live with your decision for a long time. 

Many people locate their cabins in a sheltered area, a nook-in-the-rock, a protected spot.  I get that.  Makes sense.  IF YOU WERE LIVING ON THE PRAIRIES IN THE 1800’s!  With modern insulation and a good woodstove, we don’t have to duck and hide from the weather anymore.  We can cope.  Sure, it gets cold.  But not THAT cold.  And even when it gets THAT cold the stove and insulation keep us warm and toasty.  Hunkering is not necessary.

But OHMYGAWD is getting a nice breeze necessary when it is hot out.  And today was hot!  30C.  And therein lies my point: we situated our homesite for the breeze.  We built to catch the wind.  Call it the mariner in our blood (we’ve done a lot of sailing), call it a hearkening back to my Celtic, rain-soaked roots.  Whatever.  I like the wind and I like the cool.  And it was windy and cool for us today even tho it was 30C everywhere else.  Thank God!

But, interestingly, it was not cool everywhere on our site.  Down at the water’s edge it was hot as blazes.  Same for the backside where the haul-out, high-line is.  Where we built, it is always a bit breezy and the greatest breeze is right on the front porch, right beside the raven’s feeding table.  You can melt at the beach and cool off at the porch.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

I guess what I am saying is this: there is a natural tendency to find a sheltered spot on which to build.  Seems right.  Must be a carry-over from when we were hunter-gatherers.  I dunno.  But most people with cabins use them in the summer more than the winter.  Locating for the season during which you use the place makes more sense.

Just sayin’.

As I have mentioned before, people out here build things.  And one of the things we seem to build somewhat frequently is outdoor furniture.  The style employed is what I call Beachwood Amalgam. It’s a fusion, kinda.

Basically, BA is made from natural driftwood such as trees and branches and logs.  Some of it is made from what was formerly finished lumber that has returned to its roots, as it were.  Gone awol.  Made a break for it.  Awol lumber was originally used in docks, old buildings that fell into the water, flotsam, jetsam, dunnage and various other sources from man-made structures all over the coast.  Awol lumber is the best of the free-floating selection as it usually comes with the attractive patina provided by washed out painted surfaces and irregular thicknesses.  It also has the added convenience of a relatively flat surface.

You would be surprised at how much of that latter category there is.  Of course, much of the wood is ‘somewhat natural’ as in trees-with-roots-and-branches-attached and some of it is processed in the sense that a lumber company cut it, boomed it and then lost it. But it would seem that a small percentage of the wood in the water is the stuff that was once used by others for some kind of construction.

Judging from the sea-wear and rounded edges, from the faded paint and the bent nails, this stuff has history.  Lots of it. It definitely has character and it often smacks of the distant past.  Much of it consists of pieces of a size that are not even milled these days.  And some of it is even ‘rough-cut’, meaning that it is milled by some guy with a chainsaw or a rudimentary mill.  This is the stuff that furniture-maker salvagers prize highly.

Processed logs are next on the most sought-after list with bent ones being the best. The big ones (over 12″ in diameter) are of little use to us, though.  They are too big and too heavy and we don’t have the equipment required for ‘wrangling’ them. The medium sized ones are good for winter heat if they are straight, but some of the severely bent ones may have an attractive section to cut out and utilize in a roof-line or something needing an aesthetic touch.

We prize most highly the slim, so-called ‘pecker-pole’.  These are the thin poles and the bent branches that are not much bigger than thick arms and legs.  These and the old lumber are the raw material for furniture-making.

Of course the most common effort at furniture is a bench of sorts.  They range from the simple to the marvelously intricate and can be found all over the coast.  Many of them are built using nails and lag screws but I am a bit partial to the ones fastened together from coarse dowels carved and used as spikes.  Thumb-thick, hand-carved dowels with a tapered end roughly one-inch in diameter will, when coated in glue, hammer in and tighten a join nicely.

Carried away, a guy can furnish a whole house with this stuff and, if finished nicely, it looks fantastic.  But that is not common.  Most people make a foot-stool or a side table to go with a bench.  Next on the list might be a beach table to accompany a fire pit or a barbecue.  I’ve seen quite a few garden arbors made in this style as well.

Island Improv

Personally, I think the best use – other than the odd bench and table – is a small building like an outhouse or garden shed.  Seems to fit nicely with the surroundings and, despite it’s unusual structural style, will likely last a long time.

I’ve made a few small pieces.  A bench or three, a side table or two, an arch…….kinda.  My wood shed is partly Beachwood Amalgam, too, but not enough to qualify.  It’s a mongrel, actually.  I bought most of the wood.  But I am considering enhancing the BA style for the next outbuilding.

I am really just thinkin’ about it…………….mulling it over…….‘just how funky can I get?’