April 2025 - bc-bog-trotter.com

Dang it! I Was posting my latest blog when old stumble-thumbs hit a wrong button. Yep, gone!

I guess I shouldn’t complain, it could have been an entire novel. So…where was I? Trying to remember verbatim would be like hiding my own Easter eggs. Haven’t found one yet and I’m not really sure I hid them in the first place.

The fence between our place and the neighbour immediately below is very tired. There’s a space between the garden shed and the fence which is perfect for a lawnmower shed or what I’ve come to call the “Donkey Shack.” I leaned slightly on that section of fence to see how rotten it really was. There was a crack. Then came the crash! Suddenly this Rubenesque geezer found his beak planted in the remains of the fence, ten feet lower in altitude. I cautiously checked my appurtenances. I shut off the fuel and electricals and then wiggled all my extremities. Then I began to laugh. Dumbass, dumbass, dumbass. I’d have to apologize for crashing the neighbour’s party. “Wasn’t planning on dropping in like this.”

All’s well that ends. The fence is repaired and the shed has been completed.

Dawn patrol. Ever notice that the best sunrises require some clouds?

Bedheads. Jill and Arye greet the sunrise over our balcony. It is a lovely place to start the day with a coffee. I don’t know what happened to Jill’s mug.

Things happen in a flash. My last escapade was flying over the handlebars of my motorbike. I usually put only myself at risk, but then there all those uncontrollable moments out on the highway. That was one. This past winter a friend launched himself from the lower step of a ladder while pruning a tree. Fortunately he did not land on his still-running chainsaw. He called me from hospital where he lay with seven broken ribs and other collateral damage. Another friend had a leg collapse, as they do, while on his concrete driveway. He suffered a split femur and had surgery to install clamps at the ends of the bone. Are you squirming yet?

A turdshroom. At first I wondered what that dog had eaten. It is another forest fungi with a purpose and right to be even though we may not understand it.

Some times it is hard to not become paranoid. But life is like that and we’ve got to carry on. And so we do. The next morning I was mowing the lawn and discovered a spring bubbling out of my front lawn. Uhuh! Broken water line. That was Good Friday. Fortunately a good plumber we know was there in little over an hour. I knew it was foolish but I dug a pit where the water was coming out. Of course the source proved to be elsewhere. You’ve got to try nevertheless. Our man suggested we simply dig a new trench and install a new waterline. Digging up the old line, finding the break and patching it, probably having to patch the old line again in the near future just didn’t make sense.

I was already too knackered from my previous digging effort to be of use. This plumber had the new trench dug out by hand, on his own, in about four hours. Most others would have used a mini-excavator, boosting the invoice by a thousand bucks and tearing up our front yard. We had water again the next day. I can only offer humble kudus to a man of integrity who is willing to work. Sadly those are a rare breed now.

The trench. A defense against invasion and other Trumperisms.

While digging, we broke into a mysterious cavern. We decided to leave that wonder for another day, when it becomes a sinkhole.

I’ve rumminated about what decadence it is to be able to take for granted the wonderful luxury of being able to casually turn a tap for an endless supply of clear, safe water drinking water. Millions do not know of such a thing. The water we use to flush the morning toilet would be a precious gift to an entire family in a place like Gazza. How lucky we are!

A week later, spring advances. The swallows have been back for several days and water restrictions are coming into effect. Municipal spring cleanup is in full swing. Folks drag their heavy trash out to the street for a special pick up. The stuff is amazing. Appliances, beds, furniture and other valuable commodities languish shamelessly. I am frustrated that the taxpayer should cough up the funds to account for other’s waste and greed.

Back to the inlets for another load. The work never ends.

Other folks cruise the streets looking for treasures. They find plenty. I am always shocked at the mindless disposal of goods which third-world folks would soon turn to wealth. Consumerism is our modern religion, it is our reason to be, our measure of status and the dogma which drives us toward economic and environmental disaster. Bic economy, burn it up and throw it away. We talk about it, but that’s it. As I sit writing I can hear fuel-gobbling vehicles being driven as hard as possible up the highway. The comedy goes on. The latest folly is the federal election on Monday. There may be new clowns, but will it be the same old circus? Who is going to clean up behind the elephants? Was that a Republican joke?

Even the trillium season is nearing its end already.

A storm always ends. Enjoy it while it lasts.

“”Don’t look for luxury in watches or bracelets, don’t look for luxury in villas or sailboats!

Luxury is laughter and friends, luxury is rain on your face, luxury is hugs and kisses.

Don’t look for luxury in shops, don’t look for it in gifts, don’t look for it in parties, don’t look for it in events!

Luxury is being loved by people, luxury is being respected, luxury is having your parents alive, luxury is being able to play with your grandchildren. Luxury is what money can’t buy.””

(2024) ” Clint Eastwood

Like it or not, see it or not, the sun always rises. I leave my curtains open to catch that first light on those mornings when the clouds allow it to shine through.

I am a recluse. An old T-shirt of mine sports an image of a Sasquatch above the word “Introvert.” That’s me. I do not like crowds and people’s conjoined behaviours within them. I prefer to hear music versus being slapped on the face with a monstrous din. A friend called to say that he had an extra ticket for a Bachman Turner Overdrive concert, probably their last one ever. Did I want to come? I agreed, then instantly had regrets. Yeah but…

“Takin’ care of business.” What must it be like to play that same song thousands of times?

So! I’ll long remember that April fool’s Monday night in Victoria. There were thousands of lumpy old farts and younger folk leaping joyously about to the music, happy and in harmony. It was an uplifting experience. Randy Bachman is now 81 years old, the band has been going for 55 years! His arthritic hands still play flawlessly. The other iconic band Randy participated in was the Guess Who and they played several of those songs as well. WOW! Happily, the band put a distinctively Canadian edge on the show. There was enough positive energy exuded to power an electric car for a year. I should also note that an opening band was April Wine, another half-century old, world-renowned, Canadian band. One opening band was Headpin, descended from yet another famous group, Chilliwack. The Pins have also been around for a long time, notorious for being the loudest rock band ever. No kidding! My buddy renomered them the ‘Pinheads.’ I came home with ringing ears, wondering what the hell I’ve done with all my years of rockless existence. Wot? Now, each morning when I’m out collecting the daily crop of doggy dna I catch myself hummimg “Takin’ care of business.”

“My father was a Cushman My mother was a Checkered Cab.” Move over Tesla, here is a practical urban electric transport. BEEP!

A week later, after a brief respite of semi-sunny days, we’re back to the spring drearies. Rain.

The drier days were long enough to weed the gardens and discover an infestation of Japanese Knotweed. It is a pernicious fauna, an invasive species which tends to over-run all else. Each tender shoot rises from a massive system of underground rhizomes. And so my life is reduced to this, pulling weeds. I remind myself that weeds are merely plants someone else says are bad bur I have an ingrained sensibility. Just let it be I tell myself, but my distant farmboy instincts have their own imbedded rhizomes. Damn it all! How about the Knotweed Cookbook? Boil the piss out of them!

A quick peek at a root. Apparently they can run 20′ underground and 7′ down. They have pretty flowers in August but can completely over-run a garden. Yet another example of someone thinking they can improve nature, this one came from Japan.

Careened. The traditional way of servicing a boat’s bottom. There didn’t seem to be anyone around on the coal bank. That seemed odd. Usually there is frantic activity as the tide turns and returns.

A Westsail 32 is all trimmed up to sail on the wind and out of the harbour. It is sometimes a poignant view for this old sailor sitting at his desk.

I sit at my desk watching sail and power yachts leaving the harbour at sunup. For all the possible reasons to own a boat, mine were spiritual. It is where my soul felt at home. I also held an illusion that I was free to leave this civilized world behind. The current madnesses out there really weigh heavily. The latest Trump tariffs have been impossed on tiny unihabited islands in the South Pacific and Southern Oceans, their only significant population being penguins. I guess when you’ve alienated all the people you may as well go to work on the birds. There is a meat wholesaler from over in mainland Canada who delivers to our local butcher. They’re named Penguin Foods. I’ve asked the driver who eats all the penguin meat but he didn’t get the joke. Wot? That, of course, makes it even funnier.

A bed of Fawn Lilies. Despite the cool wet weather the seasons march on.

Peach blossoms against my wall. Will every one become a tasty fruit?

Quail attack! A flock has discovered the seed spill beneath the bird feeder. I love these boisterous, zippy, noisy birds with the jaunty feather on their head. We also now have Mourning Doves visiting as well. I love them and their wonderful soothing call.

I wanted them but was told the “Bubbles” weren’t for sale.

Our reluctant spring continues. Just as the world dries out enough to get to work out there, another heavy shower arrives. We’ll need that moisture come summer. I sit at my desk and watch the world go by. The rain now comes by horizontally.

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

…Dolly Parton

Month: April 2025

Easter Past

JUMP