Hmmm, it seems that more raven pieces are, in fact, desired by at least 5% of my readership (Annette is one of the 17 and this blog is in answer to her request). So, a raven update:

Jack and Liz had four kids this season (we call them ‘raisins’ since we don’t know or care about the proper nomenclature). Wild ravens usually only have two offspring annualy. If they are doing well in their world, they might have three. Our spoiled rotten buddies had four!

One of them is a bit of a runt. His feathers are coming in a bit late, he is a bit smaller and he just looks a bit goofy in a ravenesque kind of way. A raven geek, if you will. But he’ll be fine.

Jack still feeds him direct sometimes and he is flying pretty well although a severe bank is not yet part of his aviation skills repertoire. When he attempts a quick turn, he falls from his loftier elevation and has to catch himself half-way down. It is hard to watch sometimes – especially the first few times. But he is still in the air and seems to be getting the hang of it.

The other three are ‘good to go’ and I suspect that they will be shown the door as soon as the geek is ready. The parents are quite egalitarian about that sort of thing. ‘When they go, they go together’ seems to be the rule. So, right now we have six raven and soon there will two. It is the way it is.

Sal and I harvested a small pail of clams from the lagoon this afternoon. She is going to make a pot of her should-be-famous clam chowder. OMYGAWD it is good!

She has been baking all day in anticipation of our first group of guests this summer. We’ve had one or two people come this year already but this is the first whole group (numbering four) of three students and their teacher – all from our ‘pet’ school in Hong Kong, CHMS. They come Thursday.

And so we got some prawns in. The clams and oysters keep nicely where they are and we have to do a big shop on Monday but, generally speaking, we are ready. It will be fun. Always is.

One thing is for sure – they will be quieter to live with than the ravens!

So, the ravens will leave, the students will come and we’ll have balance in the neighbourhood once again. And maybe a little peace.

Our neighbourood (all 500 square miles of ocean and separate islands) has a newsletter. It is called the SNOTRAG and it is published every month by the intrepid Judith-of-Calm-waters fame. (Judith undertands the Marshall McCluan premise that she who controls the media controls the world.)

And so it is that the SNOTRAG defines our world. World? Think: ‘POND’. But it can be a good read.

If you wonder about my version of life Off-The-Grid you can always subscribe to the SNOTRAG and read the news unabridged from the viewpoint of J-of-CW. She has good sources. Mine aren’t so good (just me). The challenge: to get a subscription. Rags are issued on a need-to-know basis. Those not connected by history or family to the area are not usually eligible.

“They don’t need to know!”

Put another way: the SNOTRAG is an underground publication.

I find all this ironic in a ‘marketing-by-playing-hard-to-get’ kind of way. Lots of people want on the S-rag subscription list and are refused. The SnotRag is very exclusive. Ergo, more want on.

I, on the other hand, virtually beg a readership. I am embarrassed to say I even let out an involuntary ‘whoop’ of delight when I noticed my followers had increased from 16 to 17 a couple of weeks ago. I am the opposite to exclusive. I am for sale cheap.

Well, for free, actually (I am even willing to subsidize for hardship cases. Bribe, if you must.).

Price, however, doesn’t seem to matter. The Rag has an irresistible cachet. For me, fame is an elusive specter.

Of course, It (Dispatches from Off-the-Grid) is/are primarily just about me. And, admittedly, I am biased/focused/occupied and writing in my own favour. On most things, anyway. In fact, I am completely and totally swayed by my own point of view most of the time. I am helpless in front of me and almost always side with myself. But, it’s a turn-off it seems. Who woulda known?

But it is not all my fault. Sally can (and does) make necessary changes to our things mostly whenever she wants, so I am not totally responsible for the complete and total me and/or the opinion and point of view of me you see in this blog. I am sure you understand (if you are male, anyway).

In other words: We can all blame Sal for much of this nonsense.

Put another way: I am not totally responsible for me or for what I do anymore. I need to be vetted. Believe it or not, this blog was edited and great swathes of content were deemed ‘unpublishable’.

“You can’t say that! Are you crazy? Stick with the squirrels and the logging stuff. A little on the garden, perhaps. Keep politics, people and any sensitive subjects for publishing later when it has all blown over! Do a raven piece. Everybody likes raven pieces.”

If you are still not clear about this form of censorship, contact my power-of-attorney/official rep: SJT Davies at SallyD@Hughes.net for further information/and/or permission for………whatever.

Just be careful.

Remember: resistance is futile!

So, anyway, for balanced news off the grid, subscribe to the SNOTRAG. I can’t give you the address. Nor will I pass on your name. You have to have ‘connections’ and mine aren’t influential enough.

(Hint: one of the Victoria CBC news-readers may be able to get you on.)

It costs $10.00 annually to be an official ‘SNOT’ member (the ‘A’ list) and, although many of you may qualify in every other respect of snottiness, money-on-the-barrelhead is required for admission to the newsletter-receiving club. Just write to: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com and she’ll sign you up.

Maybe.

I doubt it.

Me? I am already in trouble just for telling you this!

Another day on the job site. Things are progressing. All is good.

When the day was over I went down to the dock to get my boat and go home. René, postmistress numero uno was there. Since we are both part of the ‘vintage working class’, we stopped to hobnob about our day.

“Howzit going?”

“No. Really! There are two other stops on the float plane’s route and we are, by far, the biggest receiver and sender of mail amongst the three of us. Honest!”

So – there you have it! On our biggest day we sell $40.00 worth of stamps and we are #1 on the mail plane’s route for volume. A pilot gets in a plane and flies around a few hundred square miles for six or so hours and, when it is all said and done, Canada Post may have made $100.00 gross sales on a big, big day.

It would appear that the days of the ‘postie’ are numbered.

Which, in a way, is ironic. A recent poll (Vanity Fair) found that over 63% of people polled would prefer to ‘live out their days’ in the country. Less than 7% preferred to spend their remaining years in the city. How does that square with the fact that the cities are growing and rural populations are still shrinking?

Seems men are currently outliving women these days, too. Can’t remember where I read it but men are (in some context) outliving women for the first time. I guess it has something to do with wars being conducted by cruise missiles, terrorists and hackers (thus saving young men) and the workforce now employing more women than men (something like 55/45 I believe). So, the ladies are getting the heart attacks these days, I guess.

Having touched on the big topics of our day, I leave René and head home. I see the local prawn fisherman out on the water and stop by. We kibbitz for a bit. Decide to do a proper visit in a day or so. He’s hauling traps while I motor along slowly. We finish up and I head toward home.

The sun is shining, the wind is at my back and I literally fly over the waves for the few minutes necessary to get home. As I drag my weary and sack-o-potatoes-like body up to the house, the dogs run to greet me and I see Sally tending the garden.

“Hi, sweetie! Come look at the Kale! Wow, it is coming along nicely, eh? I’ll come in and make you a nice cuppa tea, shall I?”

“Yeah. Whew. Tough day on the ol’ chain gang, ya know. Need a good cup of tea. Brought you some eggs. Picked ém up at the market. Had no money so we owe Sandy. Will you remember?”

“Yeah. No worries.”

She’s absolutely right about that.

Sal is second alternate to the postmistress. She was called in today.

The post office is a floating one. Literally. One of only two in Canada. It is a little ‘shed’ on the main government dock and it has no electricity, plumbing, phone or even other staff. You go to work by boat, sit in a little 120 square foot room and sell stamps until the mail-plane arrives. Then you sort the mail and go home. Hours: 11:00 to 5:00, three days a week.

After the school, the post office is the ‘hub’ of the region. It is where one might ‘bump into’ a neighbour. Especially on Wednesdays when the dock shares space with the local market, a short three hour affair where all minor social intercourse is conducted. Major issues are referred to the more formal setting of the bunkhouse.

I was at the computer when my walkie talkie ‘toodled’ for my attention,
“Hi, sweetie, I’m home!” It was Sally. She was out front and I usually go to the front deck to meet her. And so I did. There she was in her little 11 foot whaler slowly heading round the point while thunder and lightning rumbled overhead. “I may just tie this up here so I don’t get soaked!”

She was talking about a log. Seems ol’ Sal had spied a nice ‘floater’ on the way home and, after pounding in a log dog and tying it to her stern, she towed it home for the firewood supply.

“Well, tide is high. Easy to get ér in the lagoon. May as well.”

“We are supposed to be there at 6:00. Plenty of time to tie your log.”

‘Course, as she disappears around the point, the skies open up. It`s a deluge.

So, there you have it. My wife goes to work and brings home a log. Not just the bacon but a whole log to go with it (and gets soaked to the skin in the process). Some people remember to bring home a loaf of bread or a litre of milk. Maybe a pizza or a movie.

Sal brings home logs.

Probably just a matter of time before she brings home a stray seal or dolphin, I guess.

I may be losing it…………..

I bought another winch!

It’s embarrassing. I really should know better. I have to stop. No one needs all the winches I now have. I am sick. I need help.

I am going into the winch selling business!

You know how I got the last two winches, right? Not really my fault. Not really. OK. My fault. But I put a stop to it and I am basically sane and so no more flim-flam men were going to sell me another winch. I was strong. I was resolute.

But then I saw a winch that was inexpensive and perfectly suited to the job for which I had bought the previous two winches. I had to buy it! Man, oh man, it looks good.

You see, a winch is not a solution. It is just part of a solution that includes cables, hooks, power, snatch blocks and all sorts of ancillary stuff. The winch may be the heart of the system but we also need brains and legs and eyes and hands, etc. My first two winches were just ‘hearts’.

I need some brains.

Then I found a winch that came with legs and arms and brains as well as a heart. So, I had to buy it. I had to. Surely you understand? Shirley? Do you understand?

So now, I am selling winches. Anyone want a good Marpole Bulldog 5-ton winch? I can throw in a nice 125 foot 1/2″ cable to go with it? Well, throw may be the wrong word. I can heft a cable into the back of my truck with some help from a strong man or two to go with it.

I have yet to see the other winch I now have for sale. Won’t lay eyes on it for another week. It’s a Braden winch and it is big. Bigger than I thought. (Note to self: don’t buy a winch from a picture unless there is a ruler or something in the picture to give a sense of scale.)

Note to self#2: DON’T BUY ANOTHER WINCH!

Oh what a tangled web we weave, eh?

Bert and I got the rafters up yesterday. There are only 16 or 17 but each one started out at about 18 feet and they were rough sawn, meaning that they were thicker than most lumber people are used to from Home Depot. Some of these were a full two inches thick.

Just so you know: a 2×6, twelve feet long from Home Depot weighs maybe 20-25 pounds (I am guessing). A 2×6 out here is either Hemlock or Fir and weighs at least twice that. The local boards are much, much stronger and much, much more attractive than the paste-and-soap boards at the local building supply store.

Bert, like many locals, has his own mill to make the boards he needed to build his house. If he needs lumber, he just cuts up a fallen tree. I have never seen the process from start to finish but it is easy enough to imagine. Carry, drag, cajole a ‘cut’ piece from a fallen tree (at least one foot longer than the pieces you need) and lever the damn thing up onto the bed of the mill. Typically these ‘beds’ look like rails and, of course, they are off the ground a few feet so there’s a bit o’ heavy lifting right there.

And trees never fall conveniently close to the mill, either.

After they take off slightly rounded slabs that include the bark (which pretty much ‘squares the log’), they begin to cut ‘for real’. The first two inch slab is carefully cut up to ‘set’ the depth of cut and put aside. Then, after all the two inch slabs are done, they are run through again to make 2×4’s, 2×6’s and more – up to 2x 12’s. I’ve seen wider, even. Most of the guys do this work alone. Bert cut some 8 x 12’s at least 16 feet long!

Then, after they have their rough lumber cut, they stack it and start again on the next log piece. I swear a 2×12 wet Hemlock 16 feet long weighs in at about 80 pounds. It certainly feels that heavy! The majority of our rafters were 16+ and some were recent cuts so they were still wet and pretty damn heavy.

Bert is virtually the same age as I am (a few weeks apart) and both of us have more than a few creaky parts. So, for the most part, we carry these boards together but once in awhile, when it is necessary, I’ll pick one up and carry it myself. 80 pounds. No big deal.

But they do seem to ‘add up’ over the course of a day.

After the rafters are cut to length and ‘notched’ expertly by Bert (birds-mouthed), we have to get them up on the roof of the bunkhouse. A little lifting, a little ladder climbing and maybe a sliver or two and voila!, one board is on the roof. “Only 16 or so more!”

Of course, I made the mistake of yawning.

“Hey! We’ve got a few of the boards on the cutting table already. I can manage. Why don’t you go inside, maybe put on a movie? Take it easy, old man. You are looking a bit tired.”

“Fuggedaboutit! I’m good. C’mon, let ér rip!“

“Hey, you can’t fool me. Sal would kill me if I let you die out here! Go on, now. Go in and watch something nice on the DVD. Disney’s Bambi is in there. You’ll like that. Watch Bambi! That’ll put you to sleep. Go on. Have a little nap, eh?”

It is embarrassing how tempted I was.

“No way, you old bastard. That is all I need. ‘Dave watched Bambi while I cut rafters!’. Ya think I’m stupid? Just cut!”

Bert cackled away to himself for a bit. But he began to move slower as the rafters accumulated. We got ém all up. Covered them with a tarp and put the tools away. By the end of the day, we were happy to quit. Very happy indeed.

Plans go agly……road to hell is paved with good intentions…………no good deed goes unpunished……..Murphy’s laws………he said, she said…….mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa

I thought I’d write a piece today that is a bit unusual for me – up here. It is still real, tho. Very real. Everyday life in a small community. It is still ‘good’ as they say, but it is not just another snapshot of paradise. Because into every paradise a little bird-poop must fall and I am currently feeling somewhat splattered.

Bird-poop happens.

Or, put another way: in any group of two or more, disputes are inevitable and the likelihood of more disputes increases exponentially with extra members. More birds, more bird poop.

Of course, some human endeavours are more inclined to disputes than others and, after marriage, construction projects are probably the second most likely to cause bad feelings – temporary as they may be.

We just may have some of that going on right now. We have a bit of Construction opera. Thought you’d like to know about the ‘dark side’ of a small community.

But before I say anything about our ‘project’ or community, this story all has to be held in perspective: it is just a small ripple in a small pond.

Especially so when compared to big ripples in big ponds. I recall attending the completion celebration for the then-new Victoria General Hospital some years back and the CEO toasting the crowd by saying, “We did great! The consultants did great! And the construction crew did great! This is a wonderful day! Only seven lawsuits!!”

I asked my friend, who was the architect on the project, what was so great about seven lawsuits! “Dave, Dave, Dave……….Jim is right. This is good. Typically the project grinds to a halt with lawsuits and typically there are dozens if not hundreds of lawsuits on a project this large. This job got completed before the lawsuits. That is what is so great! I am ecstatic and I am named in all seven suits!”

I have never filed a lawsuit nor have I been the respondent to one but I don’t feel as if I am missing anything. I think bird-poop is bad enough. Call me crazy.

Which brings me to our community project. Sometimes it is crazy up there. No lawsuits, tho. No punch-ups. No real disagreements. Not really. Just opinions and feelings for the most part. But we have had our tense moments. Construction does that to people. Today we had a few tense moments.

Old guys with old habits are working with other old guys with equally as old habits. I’m one of them and I have a few. And they/we are not always compatible. Sometimes the antlers get squared and the moose snort and paw the ground a bit. Moose-poop hits the fan! It is a primal thing.

And, of course, our ‘clients’ have opinions and wants and needs which don’t always seem do-able by the crew.

And yet we are all trying hard to build 400 square feet of building and almost as much again in deck as a ‘community’ project. And we are just human…..

Or moose.

Or birds.

Whatever.

The really interesting thing is something that might bother me, bothers no one else and vice versa. Some guys ‘float above’ the whole thing, others get immersed. You just never know what is going to set someone off. Put another way: no one is bad. It is all inadvertent.

The hard-of-hearing seem to handle it best.

When I get wrapped up in a little tempest like this, I dislike it. When I step back and survey the scene, I still dislike it. But when I think about it in the bigger picture, I realize that it is all part of people working together and it has a place. Like bird-pooping has a place. Kinda.

I have no idea exactly what function all this drama serves but I am guessing that it is for the greater good. It has to be. We all seem do it so often.

For us, today, it was simply a mis-phrased question, and later another verbal short-cut (mine) that caused someone stress, and a third-hand conversation misinterpreted. It all combined to take the fun out of the day. Frowns and feelings ensued. A few terse exchanges. But work carried on. And we will be back at it again tomorrow.

And I’ll be there. I sure hope the air has cleared.

Epilogue: The next day things were back to normal. Work progressed. Life carries on.

Since the ‘beastly’ piece, we have been shopping to Campbell River and I did a day at the bunkhouse renovations. Between those two events, I began the unraveling of the cable from my new, old winch. Sheesh!

As you know it is a Marpole Bulldog, 5-ton winch with what seems like 100′ of 1/2″ cable wound tightly around the spool. The winch has not been in use for years and I am pretty sure the cable was never fully unwound even when it was used – which was very little judging from the old paint still on the gears and the generally good overall condition of the old pig. That cable is tight, thick and inflexible.

Bear in mind that a 5-ton winch with gears does not ‘roll out’ the cable like fishing line from your salmon rod at the best of times. This not the best of times.

To get an inch of cable, you turn 22 inches of gearing; gearing that has not turned in a long, long while. It is like pulling teeth from a dead hippo (OK, I am only guessing at what that is like, to be honest but it must be hard, eh? I mean; first you have to fnd a dead hippo and that was what it was like for me to find this winch. I could go on….).

So, anyway, I tipped up one corner of the winch so that I could insert the long handle and I began to turn. And turn. And turn. After what seemed like an hour, I had five feet of cable off the drum!

There has to be a better way.

So, I got out the greases and the oils and applied same vigorously and generously in all the appropriate orifices which was nowhere near as much fun as it sounds. I finally got the old girl well-oiled and tried once again to have my way with her. But she did not not do any free-wheeling easily and, let’s face it, I need a little encouragement at my age and so I was thinking of giving up. It would not be the first time.

Instead, I got out the drill, attached a pulley to it and I jury-rigged another one to the drive shaft of the winch. By leaning into it, I could add tension to the fan belt I retrieved from my box o’junk and installed on both pulleys. Then I turned on the drill and the winch began to undress as it should.

Then the battery died (and you thought the metaphor had petered out!)

That was OK. I know it will work now so the pressure is off. Knowing my schedule as I do, I’ll try again in a week.

The island is gorgeous right now! Garden is growing. Birds everywhere. The Hummingbirds are back in droves. Even the Orcas have been around more often. And, of course, we have our Ravens!

OMYGAWD!

They’ve had their offspring, fledglings now. Everyone is in the air. And the instructions delivered to the young are unbelievably ear-shattering. Some teen-aged doofus sits in a tree and his mom and dad sit nearby just a-hollerin’ and squawking as loud as they can until the youngster ‘does as he is told’.

You can call that anthropomorphizing if you like but the sounds, the delivery and the resultant reactions pretty much proves it. Raven parenting! They are pretty funny. And not just a little loud!

The Ravens have trained us as well. Normally we feed them as we see fit. On our own time. On our little square feeding platform. At our discretion. Not so at hatching and fledgling time. When the new family is present and accounted for, Liz and Jack come flying over and just bloody squawk until they are given something for the babies. Then, when the chicks fledge, they bring them over to our house to show the young úns how it is done.

“Just yell at them and stand on that little square. Do it loud now! Louder! That’s it. They’ll come. Bloody slow sometimes but just keep it up. You’ll see. After them, we hit up the neighbours. Come on now!”.

Sometime in the near future the elder Raven delivers the hard news: “OK, now about that little square – that square is mine. NOT yours. You have go get your own little square. So, get off the square. Now! And stay off all the little squares in this immediate neighbourhood. I am not telling you twice!”

Sorta like me and my chair!

And that is the beginning of the end for the family. By late June, it is back to Liz and Jack only. The kids have flown the nest.

And it is quiet again.

But still active. This is the year of the ant! Quiet, yes. But the ants are still thriving and multiplying like, well, ants. We’ve had big ants, medium ants and itty-bitty, teeny-weeny ants (I didn’t even know they came in that size!). We’ve had red ants, black ants and I am pretty sure I even saw a red and black ant, some kind of ‘play-it-both-sides’ colouring.

And they are all over. We have managed to keep them out of the house but that is due more to the good weather than good security. They prefer the outdoors but, in a pinch, our kitchen is a reasonable alternative. For them.

Not for me.

I confess that I have softened my revulsion for bugs over the past few years. Somewhat. They used to make my skin crawl. Especially when they crawled on my skin! But, as I have aged, I have become more tolerant (plus my skin is less sensitive and so I don’t always feel them – which is pretty horrible in itself). I still kill ém, of course. Mans gotta do……..But now I feel a bit of regret – like maybe I should have carried each one outside and ‘set ’em free’ or something incredibly time-consuming, difficult, pointless and likely to result in killing them anyway.

So now I just kill ém with guilt rather than pleasureful revenge for crimes unknown but strongly suspected.

That new-age respect for life does not extend to mosquitoes, of course. We know their crimes. They deserve to die. No doubt about that.

Other than the above-described mayhem, murder, infant abuse, threatening behaviour, house invasion and blood-sucking, things are great out here these days!

We had done our daily chores. Dinner was over. It was about 7:00pm.

“You ready?”

“Let’s get her done!”

The tide was a high one. Now was the time to get the really heavy stuff up the hill but, of course, we still had to load that stuff on to the boat back at the dock. Which we promptly proceeded to do. 10 minutes later, we were in position, in the boat, loaded with a huge winch and three huge batteries.

The boat floated gently along from the dock, through the lagoon and eventually nudged up against the beach directly below the highline and the ‘pull-line’ (that line which rides on the highline and is attached to the old Xmas winch at the top of the hill). The tide level was perfect.

We were in position.

Sally retrieved the old cargo net and we spread it wide across the bow of the boat and then loaded into it two of the 150-pound batteries. Using the attached block and taykle, we lifted them up off the boat and high enough (we thought) to ride up the hill without hitting outcroppings.

It was dusk by the time I climbed the hill and fired up the Xmas winch. But up the load came. Slowly. Carefully. 20 minutes later, we had two batteries up to the top of the hill. 300 pounds of heavy, dead weight and only a little lifting and shifting on our part. Waiting a few days to let the tide lift us into place saved a lot of effort not to mention making the whole exercise safer.

We repeated the process and took out the two other weights, the third battery and the winch but, as it was getting on, we just lifted them to a high part of the beach and made them stable. Sally took the boat back to the dock and then we went home. It was 9:00 pm. We’ll get the other two pieces later today.

It’s a funny thing: I’ve had the batteries for almost a month. The winch came a week or so later. The whole schmozzle sat on the dock all that time awaiting the right tide. It finally came and the chore got done…..at just before 9:00 pm on a Friday night! But the batteries had been ordered 10 weeks before that and the winch had been part of an obsession for at least three months prior.

First there was the long-distance shopping. Then we had to wait for the shipping and the barging. Then we had to wait for the tide. Finally, we had to wait until we were ready with the equipment. But it got done.

“Good job! Efficient. No one got hurt. Rather quick, don’t you think, all things considered? Only about three months!”

“Yeah, really, eh? Go, go go. We gotta take it easy. Slow down some. Those things coulda waited a bit. Next time let’s not rush it.”

“Deal!”