W’fer’s here! Sal’s went to get ér. Lina is 20, from Switzerland and is traveling around the west coast with a back-pack, a thin wallet and eyes wide open. Oh, to be young again, eh?

“Why, I remember when I, too, was a back-packer, Lina. Went to Switzerland amongst other places. Yes, siree Bob, I did!”

“Eh? (already losing the train of thought) Well, now….that would be a long time before you were born, Lina (turns out she was born in 1991!). I was there in 1968. Went to Geneva. I remember the cute little trams. Oh, never mind….”

I sound like a geezer just talkin’ to a young ‘un now.

She flew direct from Zurich and landed in Alaska, w’fed a bit and then headed down the coast by coastal ferries, first from Kechikan to Prince Rupert and then from there to Port Hardy. This morning she jumped on the bus in Hardy and got to Campbell River where she slipped onto the ferry and Sal received her at the other side. It all worked like a Swiss watch/w’fer.

“My, it is so much more expensive in Canada! Even the ferries. Alaska was a lot less expensive than I expected. Flying and the ferries in Alaska are cheap.”

Interesting. Alaska is cheaper than BC. And the Yukon (right next door to Alaska) is twice as expensive as BC. Go figure.

Oh, well, I am sure our government is looking out for our best interests. It’s just that, well, Sarah Palin used to be the governor of Alaska and well, she’s certifiable, didn’t like her job and didn’t go to work much when she had the job. I wonder what that says about our politicians when Alaska has a cheaper cost of living, eh? And the Alaskan ferries are run by the state instead of an American CEO?

“Hell boy! We ain’t stupid up here. We can’t afford one of them fancy-pants CEOs. Ol’ Madge runs the ferry system up here. Has done for years. Makes a mighty fine apple-pie, too, if ya ask her reeeeeaaal nice!”

Oh well, mine is not to reason why, mine is just to pay and sigh.

It costs a lot to be a Canadian.

On the way out to get Lina, Sal and I packed the boat with the year’s recycling and a bag or two of just-plain-garbage. The garbage was about 20 pounds, the recycling, about 150. Not a bad ratio when I think back to our cul-de-sac days. When we ‘add it up’ the composting (that stays home in the compost bin and rots) makes up the highest percentage of waste and I would guess that we generate about 10-15 pounds a week in bio-degradables with the bulk of that stuff composted. Cooked un-eatens and off-cuts go to the sea for the sea-gulls or onto the ‘perch’ for the ravens. Not much of that goes to waste.

We are getting more efficient in our ways. Well, in some ways, anyway.

Sal and Lina are going walkabout to familiarize her with the territory. Lina will stay in the boathouse. She’ll be with us for about a week. Give or take. Her chores (as a w’fer) will be to assist us in our spring cleaning. Don’t say it! Spring just arrived late this year. Better late than never.

I must confess that having a guest is not my greatest desire right now but spring cleaning falls far below that feeling so she is more than welcome. And young people seem to have a bit more ‘spring’ in their step and w’fers, anyway, are keen to please as well. She’ll be good.

Should be a nice few days.

I am pleased to announce the formal appointment of Ms S.J. Davies to the DOG firm (Dispatches Off Grid). She will head the photography department as well as continue in her unofficial capacity as editor-at-large and general critic-of-everything as well as the-boss-of-me. Ms Davies brings a wealth of experience and talent to the position not to mention cuteness in the extreme. Her title will be Grand Poobah or Pooh for short.

The old affectionate term ‘Pudding’ is likely to still be in use as well. Here at the office, anyway.

Sally joins our team at an auspicious time. We need pictures. And she has ’em. Negotiations for her services began two years ago but, alas, the discussions were interrupted by her other outside demands which included the aforementioned editor, critic and boss duties as well as book-club, kayaking, community-organization board member, yoga and running-with-dogs which occupied her talents full-time. Oh yeah……there were dinner parties and Chinese students, logging operations, oyster-gathering and traveling abroad to add to her duties.

Fortunately, her husband is wonderfully supportive and needs very little attention.

Of course she has her unofficial duties as well. Cooking, reading, more dog-playing, gardening and extended chit-chatting-with-everyone but today, we are pleased to state that her energies have focused and her DOG editorial duties are now uppermost on her agenda. I think I can say with confidence that we will see a picture now and then. Maybe. Who knows?

Let’s hope so.

There is no denying that business has dropped off these past few months. We need a little ‘fresh blood’. Readership seems maxed out and our resources are strained. Cash flow has been maintained, however, but zero is still zero no matter how you dress it up. Indeed the long term prospects for the firm are not clear. It is management’s hope that colourful visuals will draw a bigger crowd. A lot rests on Ms Davies’ shoulders.

Actually, despite the dismal numbers, I am considering taking the operation public. A new domain name has been researched and purchased and the DOG firm may soon move to a new location. You know what they say, “Go BIG or go home!”

We are going to do both – get bigger and stay home!

The new blog (once the consulting team of Ben & Ryan Extremely Limited) is finished, I may be adding some advertising to the pages. An income stream, as it were. I am limiting the merchandising to only those products I have personal knowledge and experience with but heresay and gossip will be considered.

My readership will have to expand or else the 22 of you will have to start investing heavily in diesel gensets and solar panels if this project is gonna pay off.

Don’t worry, there is new line of very quiet diesel gensets designed especially for balcony placement in high rise apartment towers and solar panels that affix to wrought-iron balcony railings. From UrbanOffTheGrid.com. Of course, you can start small with a chainsaw or inflatable boat, both of which store conveniently and are at-the-ready in your condo-unit storage unit. And we’ll have a complete line of water filters, eco-friendly washers and dryers and a catalogue of heritage seeds on offer.

Look to a bigger and better Off-the-grid site supplying all your eccentric needs soon.

Man, the weather changed like a politician’s promises. One day it was sunny and warm, the next few felt like winter had already set in. Sheesh.

I am OK with that, as a rule. Being a bit on the portly side, I am disinclined to hot weather and prefer a cool breeze at all times. Keeps the sweat down. Sitting in a cool breeze is even better. Spring and Fall are my favourite times of the year and reclining is my favourite position. It is hard to beat the combination of the two. Add a mint julep and I am there!

But such a weather change as we have just experienced prompts thoughts of a change in winter whereabouts. Are we going somewhere this winter? And ‘do I have to get up?’

Sally and I travel. Not a lot. Mostly in the winter. But a bit more than average, I think. And we don’t really care where we go so long as it is inexpensive, warm-ish (for Sally) and interesting. I require only a breeze and a low bug count. I won’t go to Australia or the far north in the summer for that very reason. Bugs. I am a natural, green, outdoorsy-kinda-guy but I don’t think a lot of bugs is natural so, if the bug count is high, I am not there.

We usually go to some place for 6 weeks or two months after Christmas. Give or take. Every once in awhile, we stay home and ‘enjoy’ the winter season here but, to be frank, it is an experience that should not be repeated two years in a row. In fact, as much as I like our place, I think 3 winters out of four should be spent elsewhere. It is not that it is too cold, too wet, or even too much of the same setting. It is the lack of light. By mid winter, it seems, the sun barely makes a showing. It isn’t really bright ever and it is dark by 4:00.

By the way, can anyone explain to me how it is that a mosquito can show up in the Canadian winter? They are rare, to be sure, but I would estimate that I encounter and kill at least a half dozen mosquitoes in the dead of winter. How is this possible? Is this a species that is evolving to year-around presence? Is this what global warming really means?

Sorry. I have a bug fixation and I am obsessed with mosquitoes. If there is one in the house, I am tracking it.

I am pretty sane otherwise.

So, this blog is not so much about me………….well, of course it is.………..but, what I mean is this: anyone got a recommendation for a cheap two months in an interesting place?

Been all over Mexico. Know Europe pretty well. Got a good sense of the Far East but there is some room to explore still. Know the US like I know Vancouver except for the Southeast.

I am thinking Portugal. Sally is thinking Turkey. Greece comes to mind even though we’ve been there. Any country going bankrupt has some appeal. We can relate.

Thought about Cuba. Thinking about Argentina…………..

Anyone got strong opinions on the Bahamas or Bermuda?

Waddya got?

September 13. Overcast. Chilly. Feels like Fall is approaching. It was a short but hectic summer. All in all, I give it a 6.5 out of ten.

For me to give a higher rating requires more projects and chores to be ‘done’. And they weren’t. “I’m sorry, but production was down, folks. No bonuses this year!” Of course, the Catch 22 in all this is that, for the most part, I am the single largest variable in the project schedule so I am really just grading myself. And I am not completely happy. “I see a lot of wine being drunk. I see a lot of food being eaten. I don’t see much in the way of progress, Mr. Cox!”

I stopped grading Sal after forty straight years of 10’s out of ten. In fact, most years she scored in the low to mid twenties despite 10 being the scale. Production counts!

But I still called her in for her annual review.

“Well, Sally, I note from your record that you’ve been with us for quite a long time now. I am glad to see you are fitting in so well.”

“Good. That’s it then for another year. Keep up the good work.”

That conversation was confirmation that this year was not one of my most productive ones. I blame the back-stop! If that damn backstop hadn’t gotten in my way, I would have had an extra month to further procrastinate on some of the issues on my plate.

I confess that the lower funicular – tho not dead – has not progressed as much as I would have liked. The log sort is 3/4 done but I still have some fine tuning to do. And the woodshed, tho for all intents and purposes full, is not. We still have 3/4 of a row to chop and stack.

And I am really going to have to address my winch problem. Hey! A plethora of winches is still an inventory problem if nothing else.

A Woofer, however, is coming in a week. She will be here for as long as ten days. I am gonna work her like a rented mule!

Ever heard of Bute Grease?

Me neither. Not til yesterday. Yesterday was our end-of-project construction crew get-together billed as a ‘beer and burgers’ affair. RSVP, don’t you know? It was a perfect day, sunny, windy and warm. Everyone (approximately 15) gathered on the covered portion of our deck and began to make an impression on the gallon or so of Sally’s Sangria and the assorted beers and hors douvres as I fired up the BBQ. Chit chat ensued.

You have to understand that our chit chat is not like most chit chat. We don’t usually do sex, religion and/or politics.

Religion is universally panned and there is no one to take the other side in the give and take of it. No practicing Muslims, Seventh day Adventists or Catholics here. So religion is not a hot topic. It is way below sex and sex is largely discussed only in a historical context if at all these days.

Sex, I gather, was a raging hormone of a subject at one time but not so much anymore.

We – out here – have, for the most part eschewed the political as well. Sometime exceptions: micro-political and macro-political. Everyday political is just not very high on the conversational top ten. Some people don’t even know who the current premier is or care (mind you, she is laying low and trying very hard to put time and distance between her and Campbell, don’t you think?).

BC politics is, for us, either largely uninteresting or unworthy or both. If we ‘do’ politics out here it is at the micro/local level in the extreme (bunkhouse, Steamboat trail, Q-hut, etc.) or very macro (Gaia, climate change, conspiracy theories and the like).

I’m cool with that. Anyway, I was worrying burgers so couldn’t really participate in the conversation anyway.

All that above was to introduce you to the ‘usual’ topics of conversation out here. Number one is construction. Of any kind. Construction is king out here. We can talk old-time log and pole construction to new ‘composites’ and carbon fiber. We can talk plastics, steels, bronzes and wood in every sense of the word (except sexually, of course). We can talk logs, rocks, cement and even the more basic building influences of water, earth, sun and wind. People out here know construction.

Honest to God – take the worst builder out here….ME!…..and take me to a room full of architects and contractors in the city and I will undoubtedly make a complete fool of myself but at least it will be in on a myriad of topics. I will cover it all. I can get embarrassed with the plumbers, the architects, the engineers and the carpenters. I have just enough knowledge for that. Our best people out here could teach the city professionals something.

So building is big.

But second is weather and, because we were having such a delightful time in the breeze and the sunshine, the topic turned to our weather. Amongst a lot of aspects of wind, weather, temperature and, of course, geology, I learned that the waters between Haida Gwai and the mainland are extremely shallow. I should have known that. I also learned all about how and when the glaciers altered our coastline and how the earthquakes added to it.

One of the most interesting subjects shared was the water spouts we used to get.

“Yeah. I was heading to work one day and it was windy and the weather was ominous. I looked ahead and saw well over ten or so waterspouts just a-zippin’ about and all of them on my intended route. I decided to head back home”.

“What’s Bute Grease?”

“Well, the Bute can blow pretty hard. When it gets over 100 miles an hour it whips the surface of the water and the little plankton-like creatures caught up get churned and boiled into a frothy mass. The frothy mass will get blown and tossed until hard balls of Bute grease end up on the beach. The stuff is a fabulous lubricant and the old guys used to prize Bute grease as the best grease there was!”

My jaw was open. Bute Grease! Wadda concept! Waterspouts 300 feet tall! And lots of ’em. And we were just scratching the surface of weird stuff out here.

Just when you start to think you know a neighbourhood, eh?

We were at Save-on (aisle 7) when the ‘little one’ hit. There was an old guy in front of me trying to figure out his credit card while trying to answer the cashier’s question about his Save-on ‘points’. Nothing was happening too quickly.

“Hey! Did you feel that?” the cashier asked.

That was way too much stimulus for our guy. The wallet, the credit card machine, his PIN number, the Save-on ‘points’. Then a question? He was simply stunned. He looked up at her, “Huh!?”

“We just had an earthquake! Wow! Just now! Did you feel it?”

“Huh?”

I was somewhat amused by this bumbling old fool and was justly condescending towards him when I realized that we had just experienced an earthquake and that I hadn’t noticed it either.

Well I did. Kinda.

I felt a bit of a shift in the time-space continuum but, of course, at 64 and not doing my yoga regularly, I just wrote the feeling off as another ‘woozy’ moment. I get those now and then. Feels a bit like an earthquake now that I think about it……

I rose to his defense.

“Hey! At our age, the earth moves all the time. It’s called gettin’ old’.”

Anyway, the poor ol’ git finally managed to enter his PIN and get his cans of dogfood into his ‘green’ satchel. He left in a confused state. Our turn to face the cashier was at hand.

“Wow! Did you guys feel it?”

“Yes!” I said. I left out the part that explained that I was simply confused as to what was happening – vertigo, wooziness, balance, sugar deficit or, as a distant possibility, earthquake. I was still processing.

And she was on a need-to-know basis. ‘Yes’ was good enough.

Sally, who suffers from intermittent vertigo asked innocently, “What are you two talking about?” She hadn’t noticed a 6.4 on the Richter scale either.

“We just had an earthquake! The whole building moved. It was incredible. Didn’t you feel it?”

Sal looked at her blankly. Then she looked at me………….

“Hey!”, I said, “You should be pretty familiar by now with what the earth moving feels like sweetie-pie”. I leaned forward and offered up a slight leer and twisted smile.

Sal and the cashier looked at me, assessed the possibility and…………burst out laughing.

OK. I am no San Andreas fault. I admit it. So, sue me!

I can’t help but think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket but I know that such feelings have been the stock-in-talk of all older generations since the dawn of time. It can’t be that this time the old worrywarts (us, this time) will be proven right, can it?

I’ve never been right before.

I won’t bore you by citing all the reasons I feel this way. I am sure that you have a sense of it on your own. The main one, as I just confessed, is my age. Hormones must be part of it, eh?

But I am thinking that it is not so much my age that is important, rather it is the age of the society in which we are living. Our systems are old. Our institutions are on life-support. Our governments are dinosaurs. Even the infrastructure is decaying. The problem isn’t me getting old – it is that everything we rely on is getting way-too-long-in-the-tooth.

Especially for this uber-fast-changing world.

Our generation’s ideas are now too old to work as well as they once did. The institutions we spawned are boring, unimaginative and too concerned with self-preservation. They are too arthritic to move with the fast times.

The programs we rely on are inefficient and ‘in-the-way’. They are not part of the solution but part of the problem (germ ridden hospitals, for example, DFO for another). And they resist change (the RCMP for example). They are corrupt (our political/corporate/financial institutions for example). Our industries are so old they died collectively as the Sunset Group. Those that survived moved offshore (patriotism is not built into the corporate DNA). The generations that energized the world in the fifties, sixties and seventies, are too old to keep it up without Viagra. And the societal structures we created and supported are hoary and decrepit.

Face it, we just can’t ‘do the job’ anymore.

So, I look to the younger generation. And I see Christy Clark, our very own Sarah Palin. I see Stephen ‘Suckhole‘ Harper, our ambassador to the corporate world. And, sadly, I see an increasingly weakened Obama fighting an extremely uphill battle and not gaining much ground.

I am not encouraged.

To be fair, the next generation has been ‘on hold’ for awhile. The ‘turnover’ of conventional jobs just wasn’t there for them. We baby-boomers not only kept all those jobs but we held on tightly to what we could as the ‘old-time’ jobs went offshore. It is hard to get your father’s job at the mill when he was let go himself at 50 and has been unemployed ever since.

That generation ‘on-hold’ is starting to make inroads, however. Our Federal Public Service hasn’t had as young a ‘profile’ since the second world war. Same for Worksafe BC and the Provincial government sector. Sadly, those are the three areas that young people should avoid like the plague. But, I digress…..

In theory, that new blood should help invigorate. But I am not so sure it will. You can put a younger jockey on an older horse but it is not going to run any faster because of that. Some kind of revolution is long overdue. We need more than young blood, we need fundamental changes.

Could the world really be going to hell in a handbasket after all? Or will we revolt in time?

Wednesday. Yoga. Market. People. Sunny day. Nice lunch served at the dock. Sal’s right now on her way up there with three other women from the neighbourhod. Lots of socializing, smiling, chit-chatting. Oh, what fun!

I am here. Alone. Gonna work on the log path. Alone. No one around ‘cept dogs……….and, if they are smart, they’ll be scarce……

(Alone!!! Thank God!)

Poor Sal.

I am not really anti-social. I like people just fine. Especially from a distance and/or if they read my blog. Readers are loved. Commentators are adored. It is just that we have had enough already with people in our ‘personal’ space. Which, as I write this, now extends out to the 200 mile off-shore International boundary. It’s been a busy summer, ya know?

But, I’ll get better. Have to. Twenty or so are dropping by for burgers and beer on Saturday. Lots of smiling, chit-chat and socializing in store. WooHoo!

Local folks. Good eggs. The group involved in our community work. Builders, mostly. And partners. Of course, the timing couldn’t possibly be worse. I am just cobbling my log run together and tinkering and adjusting as I go. I can hear the guys already,

“Oh! I see you are building a log run. Something like ol’ Jack’s, ‘cept he used old-growth 12 x 12 Cedar timbers with one-inch galvanized bolts on cement columns. Ya think those scrap boards of yours will last?”

Should be good.

I am not 100% sure all 20 or so will show up. They’ve had a busy summer, too. We all did. Our island is like a leper colony after November and until March first and then; ‘we are remembered’. People start calling in April for a possible visit in August.

“Hey, Dave! Long time no see. We gotta get together, man! Hey! I am getting my relatives from Uganda again this summer. Grandma and all the cousins! It would be such fun to show them your cabin. Can you fit us in sometime in August?”

“Who is this?”

“Dave, it’s me. Charlie! Howzit goin’? Got room at the inn?”

Quickly adopting a Russian accent, “I am very sorry but you have the wrong phone number. Had a few such calls over the last few weeks. Your guy must have changed phone numbers, da?”

Truth is – it’s all left in Sal’s court mostly. Oh, I occassionally suggest a visit or an invitation (once every five years or so) but she has the calendar and the pen, ya know? It’s better that I just refer such matters to her and then go along with it – whatever it is.

Grumbling the whole time, of course.

Tuesday. Sunny and hot. Most of the wasps are dead. Corpses float in orange pop bottles like confetti in the rain. No one cares. Life is brutal on Read Island and you have to be lucky to have even that. Those unlucky enough to be drawn into the bottle have been released from their pain by their own desires and weaknesses. We are all weak and nature always wins.

That is one of the reasons I claim for not listening. I am trying to survive out here and I can only safely do one thing at a time now. I can’t listen to Sal natter on while I am rolling a log or I’ll crush my fingers. Well, that is what I tell her, anyway.

“Are you listening?”

“No. What did you say? No! Wait! I am rolling a log and need to concentrate. Tell me whatever later!”

You think I am kidding? Well, I am. Kinda. But I have noticed that as I age, my ability to multi-task has been reduced somewhat. In fact, I can’t do it. For me to do anything these days requires me to focus on the task-at-hand. It was never thus. I used to juggle the world while driving and eating a burger at the same time but not anymore. I am now limited. Handicapped. First Nations people would call me ‘Mr. Challenged-by-two-things’.

To be fair, I think I can do two things at once if I concentrate and care about it. I think, actually, that I could do three things at once if I was concentrating, cared and was curious. But, honestly, at 64 how often are you gonna find something that you are interested in and that you care about? At the same time?

Except for things like your own fingers.

Survival still gets my undivided attention.

Oh, wait! ‘So does dinner’…………and that is what Sally was on about……gotta go……

We pull the logs up the hill using a pull-line running on the highline. The highline is anchored to a rock at the bottom of the hill and to a steel tripod I mocked up fixed at the top. The highline is about 150 feet long. The pull-line is 125 feet.

For pulling-angle reasons, the tripod is right at the top – not set back. For the same pulling-angle reasons applied to the winch, the logs can only get pulled up to within ten or fifteen feet of the top and so that is where I ‘drop’ them when they have come up.

The logs I have pulled up sit on a 20 degree sloped ledge just in front of the winch and tripod but, ideally, they would end up about 50 feet to the south where I buck and chop them into firewood. That 50 feet, the first few feet of which are at a steep angle, is the hardest part of the log hauling business for us.

Until recently, Sally and I have used a log carrier (like giant ice tongs) to grab the log, scramble for footing, dodge the tripod and various cables and anchors to drag the heavy pig of a log (each log weighs between 400 and 450 pounds) to the working area. We are both strong and healthy and we could do it. .

But it is getting harder. And I am starting to whine.

I needed to figure out a way to drag the log 50 feet south without breaking a sweat or a disc in my back.

For once, Sally agreed with me right away.

So, while Peter was here to give valuable aid and advice, I set about to lay my own skid road. It is not as easy as it seems.

I jammed some support beams between some trees and affixed some heavy, rough cut 2×6’s to them making a two foot wide wooden ‘slide’ for the inclined portion of the haul. Think of a small narrow ‘deck’ laying on the ground but not able to move around. That 16 foot long narrow wooden slide dealt with the worst of the ‘drag’.

But the rest of it is no piece o’cake. Once the log is ‘winched’ along and up the skid row/deck it is then teetering at the top. Still aiming up at the same 20 degrees as the inclined ramp it is on. At the top of the hill the ground slopes away at about 15 degrees so the log now has to ‘head down-hill’ with a 35 degree change in direction. The first one just tipped and proceeded to bury it’s nose in the dirt.

That is not good.

So now I am planning on extending the ‘skid deck’ to allow an easier slide for the next 35 or so feet. All this is being done, of course, with scrap wood, log ends, big spikes and an engineering plan drawn up from watching it fail a few times before going on.

Peter was here for the fun part. But, once all the frivolity and fun had passed, he and Sarah set sail for points south and I am left alone with the ‘failure-method’ of getting on with things. Sal will deign to join me when we test-pull another log. She isn’t as keen on the ‘scraps-and-cobble-method’ of engineering as I am so she is baking muffins.

And I am not as keen on it as you might think. Oh, it’s all fun and all. No denying the enjoyment in winching logs through dirt. But all this stuff weighs a ton. I am constantly moving heavy things in and out of the way. And that is the point of this off-the-grid vignette: irony. Irony in spades! You always have to work like a pig to make something work so that you don’t have to work like a pig.

There doesn’t seem to be another way.