February 2020 - bc-bog-trotter.com

Whores And Mechanics

“Pull up a stump. Something’s gonna happen any minute now.”

It is said all too often that there is no rest for the wicked and that idle hands do the devil’s work. This week I’ve removed a grotty old carpet in a bedroom and replaced it with laminate flooring. After a couple of days of constant kneeling I am remembering old wisdoms and old injuries. (I know, a professional about forty years younger, would have done this job in a day.) Damn, this getting old is definitely not for the faint-hearted! Another old blue collar witticism says that both whores and mechanics earn their living the same way: on their knees or their backs. I’ll let the reader work out all the possible metaphors. I’ll just say that some kinds of dirt wash off at the end of the day and I’ve never minded getting my hands dirty, although my knees sure hurt at the moment. And now I’ve gone and taken a real job, as a mechanic.

Nearing completion. Note the grain and texture in the flooring including saw marks and knots. Clever people those Chinese.

Mmmmmmm. Up? Me? Walk? In a minute….maybe.

So it’s back to work for me. I confess to a sense of humility of having to do this at my age but such is life. There are all kinds of folks with a similar number of rings on their stump working at menial jobs and seem content to have found any sort of employment. I regard the usually personable employees in places like the big box stores with respect and awe. Some are seniors who have known glory and some degree of good income are now reduced to the horrid lighting and vacuous din of those consumer edifices selling products from China. Many others are single moms, not even earning enough to be able to shop where they work and I wonder how the hell they do it day after day, then go home to care for their children. There are types of courage I do not possess or begin to comprehend.

Distracted driver? A policeman with two VHF radios, a cell phone, at least one computer and perhaps a fistful of donuts has to make a subjective decision.

I’ve spent months looking for a suitable job, then finally any job, and have gotten used to being chucked out on the rubbish heap of competent senior folks with good experience and skills and yet some sparks of vitality. Unless you are already wealthy it seems no-one wants to hire an old fart. They don’t seem to understand that you don’t become an old bull by being frail or stupid. I once described being a didiot (disposable idiot) in a previous work environment and it seems that is what a lot of employers want. Incredibly, in this enlightened age there are still plenty of job ads for automatons. The pre-qualified candidate must be no more than twenty years of age, hold three master’s degrees, two trade certificates, be fully computer-literate, have transgender first aid certificates, a forklift training certificate, a dangerous goods certificate, be fluent with English as well as Swahili and Mongolian, be willing to work flexible hours for minimum wage in a “fast-paced” environment, have no criminal record and be able to accept dna, drug and alcohol testing and…preferably have some medical training with a willingness to make a lifetime commitment. “We are an equal-opportunity employer.” Uh huh? Please provide references.

So I am taking pride in being found employable at something where I can use my experience. It’s a boat shop, one for all those little plastic buckets which I hate so much but I’ll be under a roof out of the rain and hot sun and the folks I’ll be spending my days with seem quite nice. I’ll be rigging boats. (Installing engines and accessories) There’ll be none of the romance of filthy old fishing boats and the stench of bilgewater. I’ve been told that I’ll be training other junior employees. It should be interesting and maybe even fun. These people seem to see the value in their employees and working there will be a very nice change from other situations I have known. It beats hell out of working as a night watchman at a glue factory (Vat #9) which I’d feared would be my fate. “Where’d that old geezer go?” It seems odd that I will be travelling back and forth in my rut-mobile in the parade of daily grinders just like a regular guy. “What, me normal?”

Crystal pond moment. The rope swings will hang idle for a few months yet.

I won’t be out throwing hammers at invading bears, or hearing wolves howl while tramping home in the rain and mud to the boat where I live, heading deep into the wilderness on days off but I’ll cope. I still have my down-south dreams with plenty to tinker away at in preparation. I’ve written often that you can’t steer a steady course by looking back and so onward I go. Adventure or ordeal, it is all up to each of us. Let’s see what I can blog about now.

Ocean view family home available. Handyman special, beat the rush.

The fungal stick. Not frost, but a type of fungus…yeah, like a toad stool. It appears suddenly and then vanishes as mysteriously.

My solar roof defroster. It’s nice to feel the radiation.

I am the humble subject of an act of love for which I am deeply grateful and overwhelmed. My annual subscription fees to WordPress for hosting this blog site were due. Because I post so many images and use up goggles of giggle bites I must pay a business rate which I could not raise this year. My financial woes have me painted into a corner. Due in part to the kindness of the nice folks at WordPress and the benevolence of Jill, here I am, still. Thank you, thank you! I had my teary goodbye blog written but happily it now languishes in the back of the archives. And to all my loyal subscribers with your many thoughtful criticisms and kind remarks through the years and around the planet, much gratitude as well. My interaction with all of you folks means very much and has carried me through some very dark days indeed. Namasté.

…The odd grumpy old man at large as well.

Life is a series of windows. We must choose which one to pass through all the while knowing there will more windows ahead leading in turn to ever more and that there is never any open windows behind. Often a good choice leads to more happy windows and poor choices tend to lead to more of those. So, the window on the left or the one on the right? Curse or blessing, there’s only one way to find out. Phew! Look out for that hooooooooooole.

Race ya to the mast. The calm after dawn.

A bouquet of fingers to ungracious employers. “It’s Ok. I was looking for a job when I found this one.”

“I now have anti-bodies to assholes after working for so many.”
― Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading

Stairway To Spring

Well there’s not much to say. Spring is flirting with us. Flowers and buds are appearing but the wind can be wild, wet and cold. When the skies clear, snow coats the glistening mountains nearly all the way to the bottom. Certainly, you can smell it in the wind. But there’s not much point in analyzing something we can’t change. This fellow for one, is so weary of all the fear-mongering and perverted information about Global Warming, that I don’t really want to add anything to the babble. It’s what we’ve got, enjoy it or not, that’s up to you.

Slowly grows the fungi. Nature’s way of recycling old wood back to the earth from which it came.

Booger! 100% natural. More winter fungus.

YES AGAIN! Another one sank here about two weeks ago. This time one went down and dragged its buddy boat down with it. The owners will be long gone by now. The price of freedom is responsibility and living off-grid demands avoiding attention. Sadly, this helps build the case against everyone living freely.

Same old view, ever-changing scene. Four deep-seas wait out of ballast ready to take on their cargos.

The evening weather person can’t seem to interpret their scattered bones and pebbles without mumbling some bloody thing about Global Warming or Climate Change. It is just too trendy to avoid. “Wow this is the coldest moment on record….since 1941.” Yes, it is occurring. No we are not helping matters and need to stop talking about it and simply do our best in our own personal patch but… we are not the prime cause of this natural phenomenon. Yes, warming and cooling is a natural occurrence and is part of climatic fluctuations which have been going on for millions of years, up and down, over and over… despite the hard evidence that the paranoia profiteers choose to ignore. We have to learn to adjust and change or we will disappear like the dinosaurs. They could not evolve quickly enough to assimilate a naturally changing environment. Whom will we blame should some asteroid or monster hemorrhoid (Well, I dare say there are plenty of grand assholes out there) slam into the planet and make drastic changes.

Or was it some yuppy SUV back then which brought that change on? And, by the way, why do you actually need a hybrid SUV (Stupid Urban Vanity) at all? Will it ever actually be off-pavement? Most folks still can’t get where they want when there is only an inch of snow. Then, if you do get moving, there is the trick of stopping… something they don’t show you in the TV ads. When I was a kid we all got where were going without SUVs or AWD. Radial tires for any season were unheard of. We filled the back seat with children. They provided the weight for traction and could get out and push if necessary. And of course, many folks knew how to install tire chains. And, often as not, we walked.

A greening beneath the mountain. It’s coming.

I harp on about how there is one life form on this planet which does not fit in anywhere. NIO (Non-indigenous Organism.) We can’t even get along with each other let alone in our adopted environment or with other species. We just don’t fit…although we could. When a parasite begins to overwhelm its host, nature has a way of applying checks. Once, the Bubonic Plague did a great job of culling our numbers. A century ago, The Spanish Flu once again reduced the infection that we had become. There have since been a few viruses which have not really done much to teach us anything or thin our overwhelming presence on this planet.

Now we face the nio-terror of the Coronavirus. In consideration of political correctness, it is being re-named COVID – 19 which will still offend folks, especially if it’s killing them. Frankly, if it is Corona which is the cause of all of this then perhaps we should try drinking another brand of beer. It is NOT a laughing matter. But what is it that we refuse to get? If people are determined to live like a spreading disease then guess what!? For the moment, all trans-continental travel should stop until the pandemic is completely ended. So long as folks can travel anywhere on the planet within a single day, the problem will spread. But, we don’t want to mess with anyone’s commerce. There is no expert intervention which will prevent that. Over-simplification? Nasty cough you’ve got there! Just a bit of snyphlis? OK. When two Boeing Max 8 737s killed far less folks than this virus has already, every one of them was pulled out of service. What happened to that logic?

One final consideration. If the Chinese can build and open a 1000-bed hospital in ten days, what genius maintains housing shortages here or anywhere else?

A mossy peek. Spring is soon to burst out.

We have to consider our lifestyles, population densities, diets, food sources and how all of that is unimportant to someone else’s profits. Last night I tried to cook two salmon fillets which came frozen in a bag marked as wild-caught pink salmon. Only after I opened the bag did I notice the inscription “Product of China.” WOT? That country has never been know as a salmon-producing nation and I can raise several obvious questions. The pieces of mushy, stale-fish-smelling protein came out of the bag appearing to have seen service perhaps as mud flaps on a rickshaw, possibly as far inland as Wuhan. I don’t really want to speculate on where this slop came from but I have seen much better product from fish farms. I am NOT making any Asian slurs here, but damnit! I live in British Columbia, one of the world’s great commercial fishing centres. WAZZUP? Why is finding affordable fresh fish here such a challenge? Is it the paranoia of profits or the profit of paranoia…or both? Why do we live like chicken farmers who go to town to buy eggs?

And here I was determined to provide no more than one paragraph of text and a few spring photos. But some things need to said.

“I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.”
William Shakespeare

“Wot Part Of Woof Don’tcha Get?”

(Definitely NOT barking mad.)

As my beloved pal Jack advances further into his dotage he continues to learn new things. Or perhaps he teaches himself; and me. Over the past several weeks he has begun employing an extension of his vocabulary of grunts, sighs, groans, growls and barks. Now he regularly emits a special short, sharp bark. Standing beside the door it means he wants out, or back in. By the pantry door the bark means a treat is expected. Coming from the middle of the living room it means he’d like some petting and general attention. In one of his three beds the same demand is a request to be tucked in with a blanket over him.

This morning, while laying on “his” living room couch the demanding bark rang out. It meant, I think, “I need to go out but I’m not standing by that door like some sort of common dog. Hop to it doorman!” So I did; and so did he. Spoiled? Oh yeah! But I hasten to say that he can never be out-given. He manages to put back far more than he takes. I cannot imagine life without a dog. For those who don’t understand that, you have my sympathy for missing out on one of man’s highest achievements. Yes, the dog.

I’ve always thought that Oyster Catchers were first drawn by a child. They’re slightly out of proportion. Yet, they are perfectly designed for a life in the inter-tidal zone and are a delight to watch and hear.

On that note, while I’ve promised to pare down on my political/ social comments (Because opinions based on media conjectures are simply irresponsible) I’ve decided to share a simple analogy I’ve recently heard.

I’ll admit to being a member of a capitalist culture. Even Jack is. He hides his bones, keeps a watchful eye on his toys and dishes, guards and marks his territory. At times he even demonstrates a sense of ownership of his human units. Wolves, spiders, birds, fish, all creatures can be possessive about a territory necessary for the needs of their survival. There are some sound reasons for a sense of propriety. However, we humans have a compulsion to acquire for the simple sake of our own insecurity and a false sense of adequacy which comes from amassing far more than we need. It is what we have been taught and in conforming to that premise we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved far more than ever before in our entire earthly history. Yes, you ,me, all of us.

Gotcha! That was MY treat! Jack was always a street-fighter but he really doesn’t mind sharing treats and toys. This scuffle was all play.

Always a consummate sea dog. I think he misses the boat as much as I do. He is always wanting to head down any dock we come to.

All you really need. The ocean and a dog.

The analogy I mentioned describes capitalism as cancer. The body is finite and limits its growth within parameters. Cancer is unlimited growth within a finite host. Unless that growth is checked and controlled it will destroy the body and ultimately itself. If the body is our planet and all the symptoms of unsustainable economic development are simply for its own sake then the sad conclusion is obvious and imminent. It is over-simplified perhaps with plenty of possible “Yeah-buts” but I like simple. This is a concept even I can grasp. I’ll keep my opinions to myself.

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.” – Mark Twain

Shucks

In summer, Jack can barely find enough water to swim here. This is the Chemainus River a few hours after it had subsided enough to re-open the highway.

After two days of “Biblical” (That’s the weatherman’s description) rainfall, yesterday broke out sunny with semi-clear skies and a drying northern wind. A lot of folks were out and about to enjoy the respite, their dogs seemed to be especially happy. Jack was away visiting and I was free to stop as often as I wanted to take photos. I pulled over by the Chemainus River bridge to record an image of the river after it had subsided enough to allow the re-opening of the highway. Clunk! The little plastic adjusting device on my camera strap had allowed the whole thing to slip through. The camera landed on the face of the lense. “Shucks! Golly! Oh Goldangit!” Yup that’s what I said. Uhuh! The thousand dollar camera is OK, the lens is screwed, gronched, toast. It is not a hopelessly expensive lens although it is the one which is my standard work horse; but, there’s no use in crying over dropped lenses.

Hmmm? Lefty loosey, righty tighty. But …I’m giving this up as spare parts. As a kid I used to do this. Mechanical things don’t need to be big to be impressive. That teeny screwdriver is also another marvel which has allowed me to repair many things.

I took it apart today to see what I could. My career as a camera mechanic concluded briefly. I amassed a mysterious pile of tiny screws and clips which I doubted my banana fingers could ever re-install. However it was the little curly plastic whiskers and chunks which spelled truly “broken” beyond hope. There’s only so much I can do with crazy glue. I settled to see inside a sample of modern mass-production wizardry. The engineering is amazing, the assembly is impossibly delicate and accurate. That the whole little zoom lens can be sold affordably to work reliably for capturing crisp, clear images is stunning. And this is just a simple camera lens. I remember a jocular mission statement I coined for a friend’s repair business. “If it ain’t broke, we can fix that too.” I ought to know. You can’t take photos with a hammer and you can’t pound gravel with a camera. Well, maybe once.

I’ve complained to these guys about soaking their produce! Sadly, they’ve suffered expensive damage. The flood level was much higher a few hours earlier. Several homes had to be evacuated.

This road is open again. Many have been closed due to flooding.

I am always amazed at how water runs out of the top of hills. There’s a house up there somewhere. I hope that’s not water from the basement.

Water ran everywhere. Dry feet were a luxury.

This afternoon the skies are again overcast and lowering as another “Atmospheric River” approaches. That’s more weatherperson jargon. In times past, these warm winter North Pacific systems were called “Pineapple Expresses” but I suppose that is just not sophisticated enough. So here we go again, back into our comfort zone. It’s what we’re used to.

The confluence. A favourite wading spot for Jack…but not today. The water had been over the path a while earlier.

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”

– Les Brown

Doggone it! Arf Arf Awooooh!

Into the mystic. Ho-hum perhaps to the land lubber but a thrill to this old salt. Blue sky, sun-dappled waves, what bliss after all the rain and low cloud. You know where I ached to be. Mom and the kids log some quality time.

Oh good grief, here he goes again, another lament about life on the West Coast in mid-winter. No more please! We get that it’s winter. Low grey skies, penetrating dampness, pizzling dripping precipitation, foggy wind in your face from all directions. E-mails from friends in Mexico to ice the cake. This morning a golden sunlight beams down through the eternal rain. There must be rainbows out there.

I remember when poor folk lived by the sea.

The Wind Troll. Wind boarders took advantage of strong winds and calm water along the shore near Victoria. One guy was 20′ in the air for flights of over a 100′. He’s the spec in the welter of foam at five o’clock beneath the parasail. Not for old farts. Sigh! All that open horizon. Sigh!

I’ve been looking for a dog. No, no old Jack is fine but my daughter needs a full-time friend. She and Jack adore each other and they spend some quality time together, but in his dotage he needs a canine companion and she needs to have a home-body and travel partner. It sounds easy. Just go pick one out. Right! There must be plenty of local dogs who need homes and among those there will be that one special heart throb who somehow finds you. There are certainly several folks within short radius who describe themselves as being dog rescue centers but almost invariably, the beautiful creatures pictured are from as far away as Texas, California, Mexico, Florida, even Kuwait. Shipping a dog in a crate tossed by uncaring baggage people into the dark belly of an airplane to travel half-way around the planet is not a trauma I want to impose on any creature; well maybe a few people. But anyway, where the hell are our local needy canines?

There is a surplus of pitbull-type dogs. I know they are often lovely characters but the stigma about them is far-reaching and many folks pucker up just at the sight of one, which is where the problems begin. There are many places with succinct laws against the breed. So, mutts are us. I saw one lovely-looking young female described as a black-lipped cur. That puts a new meaning on the term cur-b appeal. “C’mere my little black-lipped cur.” As it turns out, I found the perfect puppy, or he found me, but the stars are not aligned correctly and Jack remains a solo act for now.

Jack and Shaman. An old photo that can get me misty-eyed. Shaman is long dead now. Like Jack, he was a fantastic dog rescued from a sad beginning. I can’t imagine life without dogs.

Does anyone know what these are called? Avens is the name I’ve come up with and I am in doubt. They’re delicate yet very hardy and they herald the distant but coming spring.

While this has been going on another local canine story has been unfolding. The archipelago along the Southern Coast of Vancouver Island is known as the Gulf Islands. Further southward the islands become smaller and more arid. Just forty miles to windward, on the outer coast of Vancouver Island, some of the highest rainfalls in Canada are recorded. In the rain shadow of the leeward side these small islands are dry enough to have cacti growing. The most southerly group of these are Discovery and Chatham Islands and the weather station on Discovery records the least annual precipitation anywhere in Canada. Struth! They lay across Baynes Channel a mile away from the Community of Oak Bay, which is annexed to Victoria and helps form the largest urban area on Vancouver Island with over 400,000 people.

The anchorage between Discovery and Chatham Islands. Jack was much younger then. We were there before the wolf arrived. That’s our boat ‘Pax’ in the anchorage.

Discovery Island beneath a full moon and the old boathouse all aglow. It is hard to believe a city is only a mile away.

Inching carefully through the kelp beds there is a way through the rock-studded waters of this small archipelago to a secure and peaceful anchorage. But don’t go too far, there are more rocks. It is well within ear shot of the sirens in the city. Yet despite the ruins of a lightkeeper’s boat house there is a sense of the pristine. You must trespass across First Nations reserve land to walk the trails and open meadows of cactus-studded Discovery Island and then dinghy or kayak around the outside in dangerous open waters. The original owner was a retired sea-captain who worked ardently to develop the island. The remains of his roadways and little stone bridges among the arid landscape can conjure a Mediterranean sense to the place. Along its southern shore there are spectacular views of the Strait Of Juan de Fuca and the towering Olympic Mountains beyond in Washington State. All of the surrounding waters are a swirling maelstrom of treacherous ever-changing tides and currents. Overfalls and whirlpools are constant, the tidal sea is seldom still. It seems at times that all of the open Pacific is trying to crowd through these narrows. Many a mariner has a yarn about their experiences in Baynes Channel sneaking past the fang-like rocks lurking helter-skelter while surging swirls of sea try to throw your boat upon them. Now imagine swimming across this bitterly-cold gauntlet.

So, with this stage set, I must admit with chagrin I did not know about ‘Takaya’ the sea wolf who has lived alone on these island for the past several years. I’ve been up the coast for a while so maybe that’s how I missed learning about this character. CBC has archived an incredibly beautiful film about Takaya The Lone Wolf of Discovery Island. Here’s the link to 44 minutes of excellent video work and editing by Cheryl Alexander as posted on You Tube:

Take the time to watch this, it will enrich you. Hopefully it is not blocked in your area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICiuHibGgr8

This splendid, award-worthy effort helps dispel some of the ridiculous myths about wolves and other mystical creatures of the wild. This woman’s incredible work leaves me humbly wanting to chuck all of my photo gear into the sea. WOW! Her videos reveal a bond and trust that she established with this fellow. Some of the clips are stunning. I have lived a good part of my life in wolf country, I’ve listened to them howl many wonderful times but I have only ever had fleeting glimpses of their beauty and I consider myself to be observant above average. This is an eight-year long story which had eluded me until a television news item appeared a week ago about wolf sightings in downtown Victoria. At first I was skeptical of the blurry photos I saw on the news, thinking that this was probably someone’s large dog. This magnificent creature has now been captured alive and relocated to a distant and remote area of Vancouver Island. Kudus to our conservation officers who, for once, did not shoot the wolf. That is often their solution to situations where humans have imposed themselves on the natural world.

How the wolf first found the islands and swam to them, then back years later, is an amazing mystery to me. I am not quite content to accept the explanation despite some solid evidence that he actually meandered through the city until arriving at the sea. That he survived there on his own, and thrived, is an incredible fact. Wolves hunt in packs yet this character perfected techniques which clearly worked well for him on his own. Finding drinking water on these arid rocks was another skill he taught himself. I am convinced that wild canines and domestic dogs all possess an intelligence, and intuitive spirit, much higher than we credit them with. They are often in tune with things we chose to abandon. Some folks on the city shore claim to have heard his howls at times. That’s certainly possible. Wolf howls are a communication and he was probably checking to see if there was any of his kin out there somewhere, anywhere. All wild canines are naturally very social. That’s how we successfully interfaced with dogs. I wonder if this alpha male was not at times, in abject solitude, trying to somehow communicate with the sirens. We all know how town dogs react to the wail and hoot of emergency vehicles.

This archipelago is one of my two favourite anchorages on the South Coast and has a special place in my heart. I remember magic times through the years on various boats while being nestled into this place, distant sirens aside. (God, I miss my boat!) However, my faith in a few things is slightly restored after watching this video. I’ll never go near that island again, or hear sirens, without thinking of him. Happy trails Takaya.

The Block Busterds are back. I don’t know what this scrap lumber was but I could see a funky cartoon bird. I added the eye.

A foggy dawn. Getting up in the morning can be sooo hard. Not a bad grab shot for a mobile phone.

Meanwhile another movie company invaded downtown Ladysmith, changed the face of main street to be somewhereville in Colorado, liberally distributed faux snowdrifts and filmed their hearts out for three days in the pouring rain. Is there a movie set somewhere in Colorado that represents Vancouver Island? I photographed the sets and some of their fabulous video equipment then came home and promptly deleted everything while downloading it. I know, “smart as he looks.” That’s how the pickle squirts some days. Oh darn, the wolf ate my camera!

The invading force. The movie folks came along and overran the town. This is their mobile accommodations set up at the local boat ramp. They’ve moved on.

“The tiger and the lion may be more powerful but the wolf does not perform in the circus.” Anonymous