We are now entering our third day of dead calm!  Can you believe it?  The wind turbine from hell was conquered and we have been denied the deserved spoils of victory – wind!  Oh what fickle fiends of the forces of Nature are they that torture us so? (sorry, had a Shakesperian spasm, there).  But, really!  No wind out here is like no rain in North Vancouver.  It’s not right!  Climate bloody change! (breathe, Dave, breathe).

It is Wednesday.  Sally to Yoga.  I to the old school Quonset hut to resume our community renovation efforts with Hugh, Dan and Bruce.  We bashed and nailed, hung heavy roofing paper and covered some walls til about noon and then headed down the hill with the yoga crowd to the dock for lunch.  Must have been over thirty people there!  A quick scan of the crowd revealed a few new faces (a kayaking group had infiltrated us) and a huge yacht hung at anchor a few yards off the too-crowded dock.  Goulash on noodles, pizza and baked goods were exchanged and some garden produce was traded.  Youngest was little Ruby-Mae (three or so months) and the oldest was well into their 70’s.  Quite a group.  Mail plane came in later that day and gossip was caught up.  A few summer people were saying their goodbyes.  And I bought a few more pieces of lumber from Doug.

After lunch we went back to work on the Q-hut, Sal gossiped up a storm for a bit longer and then came to collect me for the return home.  Left home at 9:30.  Returned by four.  When we got back, I sat down in the chair outside and almost fell asleep.  Pretty hectic day out there in paradise.

The gossip revealed the reason our dogs were restless these past few nights.  Seems there are two wolf packs nearby and a whole lot of howlin’ is going on.  Our poor, mostly mute mutts can’t really participate in the choir of the wild but they try, rasping out a few dog whispers and the occasional half-bark from Fiddich.  It is just as well.  The wolves call to hear the domestic dogs reply which they then lure to the pack with a female in heat and then have their guest for lunch.  Literally.  Since they can’t hear our dogs, they don’t come this way.  Wolves: natural born liars. 

Which reminds me: last year no sockeye salmon returned to the Fraser.  The 50,000 DFO employees got together in Ottawa (of course) to ponder the problem and decided (after pooling their doctorates in marine biology) that an answer was more likely forthcoming from a BC judge who, from all accounts, likes fish as much the rest of us, but with no other qualifications except being a judge.  Makes sense, really.  “We obviously know nothing about what we are doing so let us appoint a lawyer to figure it out.  Maybe we can sue someone.”

And so Bruce Cohen was appointed by PM Harper to investigate the absence of fish in the Fraser.  But his terms of reference said, “Find no blame.  Find the reason for this massive screw-up but, if anybody’s name comes up, don’t tell us.  We don’t want to know.”  Politicians: natural born liars. 

So, Bruce, this icon of justice, appoints an advisory board made up of DFO experts.  Bruce, can you say, perception of bias?   And, uh, if they are going to go to the DFO anyway, why did they need Bruce? 

So, it seems Bruce’s advisers are going to help him investigate themselves but they are OK with this because no one can be blamed.  This blatant violation of all things right and just notwithstanding, Bruce undertakes this chore at the same time a hundred year record run of Sockeye show up for this years return!  Not only did DFO NOT know where last years salmon went, they had no idea this years salmon would be so plentiful.

But, somehow, using the same fools for advice, Bruce will find out.  DFO: natural born liars.  

Do you have any idea how much money we spend on DFO?  For 1% of that cost, I guarantee I can do as well………..let’s see, 100% wrong the first time.  100% wrong the second.  When in doubt, hire a lawyer.  How hard can that be?

Question: Which bunch of wolves do I prefer?      

Turbine is up!

‘Course, not a breath of wind all day.  Which, in the beginning was a good thing as Sal was up there next to knife-sharp blades and a sudden gust would have cut off her nose!

Well, that is not really true, but that is what I told her.  Helped keep her amused at the top of a 40 foot tower working with allen wrenches and yelled-from-the ground instructions.  Moved the pace along, too.  I’m a good supervisor.

The blades are sharp, tho.  Approach them too close when they are spinning in a good breeze and you will, if the limb is small, become a practicing amputee in no time at all.  They can be quite dangerous at speed.

The job isn’t done completely but she had had enough yesterday.  Putting the actual turbine on the top required Sal to stand on a small platform 8″ by 10″ (bit larger than a shoebox) and, with a personal tether to the tower, stand up above the tower so as to be able to affix the turbine on top.  The cables securing the tower are below her.  The tower is below her too and the only thing protruding up is a 2″ pipe on which the turbine sits and it is at belly-button level.  That means that she is standing in the sky with nothing in front of her but space and looking forward to heaving a turbine up onto the pole.  She did it with aplomb.

But aplomb is not necessarily long lasting so once it was secured, it was time to get her down.  And we did.  But there is still some wire ‘tidying up’ to do and a few bolts to work on.  We are 97% of the way there and I, for one, am glad to see the end of this chore!  Standing on the ground with one’s thumb in a dark and awkward place is frustrating and tiresome.  I think I have a crook in my neck.  I’ll ask Sal for a massage.

The tower chore has been all-consuming these past few days.  Crazy, really.  The brochure said that, with their special kit (which we didn’t have), the whole thing could be up in as little as two hours.  Not counting the year we ‘took off’ due to the trauma of dropping the first turbine, I would estimate that this effort has consumed about 50-60 hours of time over 10-15 days.

Part of it, of course, is that we declined to use the inadequate pipe they originally spec’d and that had failed us the first time.  We went with a proper tower (ex HAM radio tower thanks to John Robilliard) this time.  Then, we had to get custom length cables attached.  And wire the thing into the electrical panel.  Some custom fabricating (another thanks to John Robilliard) was also required to be able to affix the turbine to the top and the tower to the ground.  Add in ‘stripping bolts’, dropping or losing tools, electrical connections, painting, rigging and platform-making just to name some of the bigger efforts and I categorically deny the possibility of erecting that tower in two hours.  In fact, I’d say an experienced crew would take more than two days and they would have to be really good to be able to do that!  I may be a little over-sensitive about this but ours is not the first turbine to be erected out here and no one has done it easily.  In fact, ours was not the first one to come crashing down either.  One neighbour had a really big one come down. 

This little turbine is a South West Winpower Air-X model making 400 watts at 48 volts.  It is the size of a football with a big fishtail added at the back and 3 sharp 20″ blades mounted on a hub at the front.  In a light breeze, it makes nothing.  Ten miles an hour is req’d to make it turn but then that is all it does.  By the time you are  getting any kind of significant juice out of it, the wind is making the trees bend.  At least 20 mph.  And yet, when the wind is blowing up here, one can expect hours, even days of it.  I am optimistic.  We’ll see.

Too wet for the tower so we decided to mess about in boats.  Makes sense when you think about it. 

The idea was to get my boat to the ‘grid’.  We wanted to get it ‘on the grid’ (never satisfied, eh? On?  Off? There’s no pleasing these two!).  This marine grid, however, is in the lagoon and about two feet higher than the drying beach.  ‘Getting it on the hard’ is the proper expression but political correctness has diminished that term’s common usage.  So, now we are just trying to ‘get it on’, utilizing an old hippy phrase that has legs.  So to speak.

If you put the boat ‘over’ the grid and you do it early, you just have to sit there waiting for the tide.  But this man waits for no tide.  So, I planned it perfectly: wait till the tide is just a smidge higher than what the boat needs to float, position it just over the grid and then wait for a mere three or four minutes while it settles on the retreating waters.  Efficient, what?

Like so many of my lazy-bone plans, I missed the right level by a minute or two.  Timing is everything if you are lazy.  But I had missed the tide by just enough that I thought I could make it still.  So I revved up the motor and, with the bow lifting under the thrust, I tried to straddle the prone and horizontal legs of the barely submerged grid.  Got stuck half way.  Bow in the air, transom sinking and me not knowing what to do next (feelings: all too familiar), I watched in horror as my precious liquid (seawater) drained away.  Sal, of course, was nice and dry in her boat giving me advice and admonishment for being a doofus.  Timing is everything.  A safe distance doesn’t hurt, either.

She is always there at times like these.  It’s uncanny.   If she didn’t forewarn me and have ‘I told you so’ at her disposal, she is there at the time of the calamity and has, “What a doofus!” to use instead.  It’s comforting, in a way.  You know, someone there to witness your humiliation and to console you? Make you feel better.  Ya know?   

So, I did what any man would do – admitted my error and jumped in the water.  With my weight out of the boat and a few well placed shoulder-heaves (nudge, nudge), it slipped back to it’s floating position and, I sensed, it was not just a little amused at our reversal of roles.  We were both wet from the plimsoll line down, but it was a feeling I had tried to avoid.

“Never mind,” I said to my grinning nautical critic in the boat nearby filled to the brim with dogs, “I’ll do it tomorrow.  Should be a peace of cake then.  This was just a practice run, really.”

“Practicing wading, are we?” she said.  She is not that good at consoling.   

Eddy and Tensing were faster climbing Everest than we are getting the turbine up.  But up it is going.  One small step at a time.  I am giving odds on any bets.  Mind you, for the sake of disclosure I have to add that Sal said, “We’ll have to bring the whole thing down to put the turbine on.  I am NOT going up any further!” 

Of course we have already decided on the forty foot height versus the 5-section 50-foot height.  I compromised, if you know what I mean?  So, from my point of view (staring up into the sun listening to Sally swear) it is already a bit short.  But, hey!  It’s not the size that counts.  It’s how it……………never mind.

The garden passed muster.  A few comments here and there but the basic evaluation was, ‘we done good!’  Everyone is in agreement that the squash has to go (it is either it or us) but, otherwise, it was an encouraging inspection.   And we learned some things.  Seems planting peas is good for the garden.  Who knew?  And we can cut back the tomato foliage earlier to accelerate the ripening process somewhat.  Wahoo!  Does it get any better?  “Don’t underestimate the value of good compost!” 

Duly noted.

But, by then my attention was on Aayla (3) and Ruby Mae (1), the two little cuties from the homestead just south.  Aayla wanted to play so Sal got out some toys we keep around for visiting children and husbands waiting for their wives at bookclub.  Poker chips are always well-received by both groups and Aayla took to them like Maverick in a Tombstone saloon. 

After we had played with them…….. (two white chips in the eye sockets make Aayla look exactly like Little Orphan Annie.  Seems I look like a hairy freak so I stopped doing it but she kept it up making some kind of fashion statement.  Effectively, I might add.  She looked good.)………anyway, afterwards Aayla got to putting the chips away.  “We have to clean these up.  C’mon.  Let’s do it!”    Ruby Mae remained unimpressed but I got to it.  After a bit, I slowed down.  “Hey!  C’mon.  These have to be put away!”

“You are three!” I said.  “You  are not the boss of me!” She just looked at me the way Sally (and, it seems, all women do.  You know…….?  That look!? ) and said, “Just do it!”

So, I cleaned them up.  Quickly.

What the hell is that?  How do those ‘the look’ genes get passed on?

No climb today.  Things have changed.  We got guests.  Garden guests.  Sally mentioned at Yoga her need for more gardening advice and two of the best gardeners in the area are on their way over to cluck, pluck and scratch at the garden. 

But three actual people will arrive because little Ayla, Kelly’s daughter, is also coming.  She’s 3.  And she likes me.  Thinks I am Santa Claus or grandfather, depending on her mood.  Pretty cute.  Unruly rolls of strawberry blond hair topping a cherubic, smile-prone face radiating innocence and beauty like an angel.  Whatta doll.  Did I mention she likes me?

Not everyone does, you know.  I know, I know, “How can that be?  What’s not to like?  Dave, you are as sweet as little Ayla.  Fer sure!”  Not so.  I am not as cute.  Really.  But it is OK.  Not to worry.  It is only natural.  Normal, really.  Animosity is a natural consequence of people getting to know me.  Usually those who have never met me are neutral but not always (I once had a perfect stranger ask if I knew David Cox, the bastard getting rich off the liveaboard community.  She wasn’t even embarrassed to learn she was talking to me and that all her facts were wrong.  I think she was even angrier when we parted). 

Once they get to know me, some go screaming to the left, some go dashing and scrambling to the right but a few are left still walking with me.  Ayla is currently one of them.  We are buds.  She likes me.  She really likes me.  It’s mutual. 

But back to those who don’t.  One of the ways I alienate people is by talking.  I suppose my relentless commitment to breathing for these past 62 years has bugged a few of the more extremely disapproving people, too.  But, for the most part it is by expressing myself that I have gotten into the most trouble.  And, of course, expressing one’s self in public is guaranteed to divide.  And I do that.  I write letters to the editor mostly.  The occasional article.  That can tick off quite a few in one fell swoop.  Sometimes I speak up at a meeting and that is virtually guaranteed to irritate.  Though I am sure it is the delivery style more than the content.  Who listens?   Hell, sometimes I can just stand there and somebody gets all riled up. 

It’s a gift.

Our latest example is over the parking lot and the road attached.  The one we (as a community) re-surfaced last year.  Seems people are using it and some of those people aren’t ‘our’ people.  Strangers.  Outsiders.  Some have even used the road for (gasp) commercial purposes.  That is against the law.  Egads! 

I have to confess to empathizing with the complainers somewhat.  It feels like our road.  The parking spots feel like our parking spots.  And the dock at the end of the road feels like it belongs to us as well.  The problem is: it isn’t ours.  It is some kind of public access and whether we feel it is ours or not, it isn’t.  So, people can use it and they do.  We have to be grown up about this.  That is what I said.  Yikes!  

Of course, someone using our road is not really the problem.  The problem is when we see them using our road and seeing them churn it up or hog the parking spaces.  We all get a bit territorial.  You know that feeling when you can’t find a parking space at the mall or on your own street!?  Well, it’s like that, only much worse because we are so far out, we need to park more desperately than does a mall shopper and because we are the ones who made the spaces and the road in the first place.

But that doesn’t make them ours.  The land is the government’s.  They own it.

So, we are all a bit ‘concerned’ (what a loaded word that one is, eh?) about the topic and the natives get a bit restless in the process.  Lines get drawn.  Voices get a bit shrill.  And, because I was at the centre of the repair process last year, I am sucked in like the Starship Enterprise is to a black hole.  Resistance is futile.  Irritating others is my destiny.

Lucky I am good at it. 

Wednesday Sal went to Yoga and a community meeting.  I went back to messing with the tower fitting.  It was a strategic division of interests and it worked.  We both seem to be collaborating nicely on planning today’s ascent of the tower and what is going to go where.  Mind you, we are still both in the house and breakfast is still standing in the way of any action but I am optimistic.  This turbine-thing may happen.

Relationships are funny things.  Clearly Sally and I are not alike (and thank God for that!) and that includes all sorts of things like attitude, thinking, interests and, of course, the big ones: gender and power imbalance. So the relationship is, for all intents and purposes, a study in compromise.  Find the place where the differences don’t matter and the similarities can prevail.  “Seek harmony in all things, little butterfly”.  In other words: do it her way.  So, I spent yesterday making sure everything fit and the assembly of the turbine will be easy and simple.

And then I did the dishes.  Can’t hurt?  Right? 

Actually, making a relationship work is more than just capitulation.  It is more than surrender.  It is more than acquiescence.  It is also about learning.  It is about learning what more there is other than surrender.  That’s what makes it so challenging.  I am still learning.  I have no idea what else it is yet but I will be sure to pass it on if Sal let’s me.  She edits this, you know. 

It is easy to get along if you remain prone in the door-mat position.  I learned that at Yoga.  It was at a special males-only class. 

Oh, I am only kidding.  You know that.  I am allowed to sit up.  Hell, I even have my own chair.  At first I thought it conveyed some kind of special status having my  ‘favourite’ chair and all until I saw the same principle at work with the dogs.  “Here you go, Fiddich.  Your own special house, sweetie.  Your own special little dog-house.  Just for you.  And here’s your own special bone.  Just for you.”  So now I know that the chair is where I am supposed to be and it is a subtle limitation rather than a perk.  Still, the chair is nice and Sal throws me the odd figurative bone now and then.  The part I really hate is that she insists we go for a walk all the time.  Says it’s ‘good for the pack’.  Mind you, me and the dogs are bonding more these days………….

Trying to fit the damn wind turbine.  Been at it for a few days (not too hard at it, tho).  I am faced with the curse of the measuring tape in the hands of an idiot.  Me.  I measured the lower end of the tower section and got 9.5 inches.  And then had the fitting made up for that.  Got the fitting and it was perfect – just a tad over 9.5 inches.  Just big enough to fit snugly over the top of the tower.  Or, so I thought.

You see, the tower sections are tapered a smidgen (so that each one fits inside the section below it.  I should have known that.) and I hadn’t measured the proper end.  Shoulda measured the top end.  The fitting is 9.65 inches and so is the top of the section where it is supposed to go!  Damn. 

So, I bashed for awhile (‘persuaded’ the fitting in the local vernacular) and it remained resolute.  So, then I tried to bend the top of the tower but it, too, stayed firm.  So, I finally decided to ‘fab’ an adapter piece. 

First step: ‘rip’ steel strips using mini grinder on scraps of steel angle laying about for just such purposes.  Then drill out fastening holes, fasten and mark ‘bolt-on’ holes.  Drill ‘bolt-on’ holes.  Then (the worst part) explain mods to Sal. 

“Now you see, sweetie, this fitting didn’t quite fit so……..” “DOESN’T FIT!!  DIDN’T YOU MEASURE IT???  I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO FIT SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T FIT ON TOP OF THAT…………:” 

“Now, Sweetie-pie, I have an answer for this problem.  All you have to do is……..” “ME!  ALL I HAVE TO DO!!  FORTY FEET IN THE AIR AND I HAVE TO WHAT!!??  ARE YOU MAD!!??

” I am sensing a bad attitude, here, Sal.  It is just………”  “BAD ATTITUDE!!!  YOU SAY I HAVE A BAD ATTITUDE AND YOU EXPECT ME TO CLIMB………..”

So, that is where we left it.  I’ll have another go tomorrow.  Try a different approach.  Use different words.  Or else go get a new fitting.  Might be easier.  More on that…………….later.

Did I mention that I live in heaven with an angel……………………?

We certainly know how to entertain.  Jan and Pat joined us for dinner and we had an unexpected arrival at the same time, the propane barge.  It is quite a sight.  150 feet of diesel, gas and propane charging up the dusk enveloped channel and heading for our beachfront with a bone in it’s teeth (frothy bow wave to all you landlubbers).  Captain Tom and crew were coming and were ready to pump!  It was time for our semi annual fill and top-up.  With his usual deft touch, Tom droped the thirty foot wide steel ramp and ran it up the inclined rocks to within a foot of our deck stairs and then left the helm to the GPS and stepped out to greet us while Lorne and Bob dragged the heavy hoses to our waiting tanks. 

Jan and Pat arrived yesterday.  Great to see them again even tho they are our counter-culturalists nemesis – the urban, on-the-gridder who lives more feral than their neighbourhood raccoons.

Both Jan and Pat work for the government and have done so for years (Pat just retired).  Prima facie, they are urbanites.  They have a house not far off a bus route, a school at the end of their road and all the modern convenience of being ON the grid only a few miles from a Home Depot.  Mod con bliss, eh?

‘Cept for one thing: they live off their considerable piece of land!  And I mean like Dan’l Boone lived off the land.  They grow stuff, raise stuff and hunt and forage for stuff.  All the live long day!  These guys could live well for two years – entertaining others as they go – without ever having to go to the grocery store!  They have venison, crabmeat, prawns, salmon, chickens, oysters, clams, berries and that is just the frozen stuff.  They can and preserve as well.  And, of course, they grow everything – some of it from their greenhouse, others from their outdoor garden.  These guys are good – real good.  And, should they need a fancy bakery for some once-in-a-hundred-year freak event, they are a five minute commute away.

It is hard to crow about one’s rural lifestyle compared to them.  And it is even harder to put down the cul-de-sac.  They are doing both well and are experts at it all.  When Jan or Pat talks, we listen.

On another matter: a couple of years ago, a few trees blew down and fell on the local parking lot skewering and squishing a few cars in the process.  Ours was one of them.  Since replaced.  But the experience has left a mental car scar.  I now look at trees near parking lots and try to predict where they might fall.  And then park elsewhere.  It’s an odd mini phobia but I can’t deny it.

And there is one threatening at the parking lot again.  To be fair, it was there two years ago but it has only loomed into my consciousness lately.  It has to come down.  The local community is heating up their satellite connections discussing the matter and we are just a few e-mails away from striking a committee.  Then, after a few meetings where liability will be discussed ad nauseam (without the faintest idea of what the liability really is) we’ll ‘move’ to contact the various ‘authorities’ asking them to do the right thing but will lose patience waiting for a reply.  They never reply except to say No, anyway.  Eventually, some poor sap will take his chain saw and do it in the rain in December.  No official will ever know.  Or care.  It’s how we do things out here.  Ironically, it is a pretty efficient process.  We rarely wait longer than six months and, as we all know, six months is a blink in time when committees and government are involved.  Ours is a can-and-will-do community.

Guests coming tomorrow.  Where would we be without ém, eh?  But, like all who came before, they are a treat and a gift.  We are lucky to have such friends.  Now, if only we could spread them out a little…………….

We have a habit of checking in with others when we go to town.  And they do likewise.  It is the neighbourly thing to do.  “Sal and I will be in CR tomorrow.  Need anything?” If the neighbour has any sense, they say, “Oh yes, we need a liter of milk, please.” And all is fine.  Sometimes a neighbour is tempted to say, “Yes, ten bags of reddi mix, four ten-foot 6″x6″s and would it be convenient to pick up my outboard at Boatland?”

These neighbours have been weeded out over the years.  We are good neighbours but we have weight limits.  Interestingly, we also have money limits.  A litre of milk is under $5.00 and to wait in the rain for it while the current is pulling you and you are tired and freezing from a long day away seems silly.  No one carries money with them in the forest so the obliging neighbour has to trek back to their cabin and ferret about looking for, what amounts to, loose change.  So, under $5.00 is free.  We just drop the litre of milk and go.  It will all work out over time.  Logical, don’t you think?

‘Course, nothing is actually $5.00 so you ‘stretch’ that sum to as much as $10 depending on the weather and how late it is.  “It is pouring, just drop the meat and potatoes and let’s go!” Mostly any amount that seems significant is settled later whenever we neighbours encounter one another again.  Or, sometimes it is forgotten altogether.  I’m the worst.  I forget to collect and I forget to pay.  My only saving grace is twice a year I ask everyone, “Do I owe you anything?  Or, do you owe me anything?”  I think the sum has to reach about $50.00 to become unforgettable.  What a weird world.  These arbitrary ‘set points’.  Oh well, it works out just fine.

For those of you wanting an update on the mice……………….we have prevailed.  Mouse-no-more.  Bait levels untouched.  No tell-tale droppings.  Rodent free.  Tís a bitter-sweet victory but a victory, nevertheless.  They aren’t so bad, really.  Kinda cute in a disgustingly non hygienic way.  They stay in the outer buildings and never show up in the house.  I suppose we should live and let live but you know how it is, ‘give them an inch and they’ll take over your house’.  So, I kill them.  Guests and mice, eh?  A fine line.