Books

How’s that for a Christmas photo? The wonders in the woods never end.

Whoa! Is this from a bomb cyclone? Whazzat?
Well, new smells at least.

I am sitting at my desk near the end of a breath-taking sunrise. The constantly throbbing colours from red to pink and blue, all filtering through shifting banks of fog have held me spell bound. I’ve watched from the first smudge of dawn, about an hour ago. What bliss! Behind me on the floor is a small mountain of books. They are tumbled and scattered and my day will involve sorting through them and deciding which will go on the bookshelf. The rest will be handily stored in the basement.

I’ve owned books for over seventy years starting with ‘Sleepy Time Tales’ and “Choo Choo.’ Yes, they’re here on the shelf. It is amazing to thinking that with all my travelling and moving on that I have anything from all those years ago. I was also taken aback to realize that a good many of these books were carried on board my boats. I recall fitting extra shelves to hold them all. Somehow I have the notion that all that mental energy of the writers is retained in those pages and perhaps I can access it from time to time. But then, some of the stupidest people I know can utter some of the most profound inanities. There’s far more to wisdom than what can be held between any two covers. Book learning is only as good as what the reader can absorb.

An old fart sorts through his books…and stuff and more stuff.

No! It’s pouring cats and squirrels out there. I don’t want to go for a walk.

ME TOO. A dear friend once gave me some wonderful wool blankets. They are the best gift ever!

I often rail on about about the apparent loss of basic sensibility in our contemporary culture. Primal instinct seems to have vanished. The notion of danger is abstract for many folks. Last week’s TV news featured, the same video footage for several nights, a sobbing young lady wailing on about how she had almost been killed and that “They should do something.”

She had been out driving when hit head-on by a runaway truck wheel. It had come unbolted from its mount and run amuck. I’ve seen it happen before. It is wild! Nothing can fling itself along like a renegade wheel. There’s a lot of energy stored in that centrifuge and yes it can be deady. That truck driver received a seven-hundred dollar fine but it was not enough to assuage this ladie’s sense of indignity and personal attack. Look! No-one ventures out onto the road in a cocoon of comfort and divine safety. It is dangerous out there, we are each part of that deadly probability. As the “Victim” of this affront ranted on about being responsible I wanted to ask her when she had last checked the wheel nuts on her own vehicle. It’s all about me and then someday, shit will happen. It is a reality of adulthood, life ain’t fair.

Crow drones. A university thesis became a movement declaring that “Birds aren’t real.” The conjecture was that birds were really government spy drones and that when they sat on a wire they were really recharging their batteries. Could be!

One more morning. Only a few more months of this. There is a ship in this image and a brave soul out fishing.

December solstice full moon. Last one of the year. I know, I know. A lousy photo but it was a hand-held mobile phone shot.

So Christmas approaches, that jaded and bruised commercial season. The real meaning is gone. Once it was about the winter solstice and that the days would soon begin to lengthen, warmth and fertility would come again. The notion of that sustained folks through the winter to come. Then the Christ-child story was sprung on us and that has carried millions forward into the next cycle of life. Now it is about love equalling how much you can spend. It is a gross celebration of excess and over-extension. People become aggressive and even more self-centered. I just left the grocery store where in the name of some Noel solicitation two ambulances and a police car jamed the handicap parking and all their crews in flourescent green jackets stood in the cold winter rain. The way folks were hurtling around in the remaining parking, chances are those emergency vehicles will be necessary before day’s end. I emailed out an old Monty Python mutated Christmas Carol. Some folks were offended, some were delighted. So wishing you all a sense of humour for Christmas and that you can enjoy a few moments of the warm and fuzzy. Bumhug!

Most humans are

never fully present in the now,

because unconsciously they believe

that the next moment must be more

important than this one.

But then you miss your whole life,

which is never not now.

Eckhart Tolle

Nail Holes And How To Move A Piano

And a duck. A nice day to get out of the harbour for a while.

Our new old house, by modern building codes, is built like a bomb shelter. The contractor back in 1957 still held a sense of honour which meant that every home he erected was also intended to be a monument to his integrity and skill. The timber used was strait-grained and seasoned. It is massive. We have bridge timbers in the basement which support the floor and upper structure. The original diagonally-nailed flooring still does not squeak.

Another load. There seems to be a frenetic activity of log barges discharging their cargo at our local log sort. Maybe it is because the winter break is coming up.

BBQs and snowblowers. What does this mean?

Last night a massive low (The girl in the tight skirt on TV called it a “Bomb Cyclone”) moved within two hundred miles of our shore and sucked the life out of us. We are some of the few who still have electricity this morning. There were gale winds and hurricane-force gusts. White ponies still race over the black water of the harbour and a low thick grey blanket of cloud races overhead. The rain was biblical. In our last home we had several skylights. I miss them. The rain drummed on them loudly and I loved hearing the weather raging outside. This old house does not creak nor allow anything of a storm’s song to penetrate. I have to open a door to check outside and then I am almost flung out into the garden as the wind catches the door. Bitch, bitch, bitch!

After the beach party. Strange things appear at times.

I am stunned as usual to witness the incredible stupidity of some people. Due to massive power outages after our recent wind event, several traffic lights are dead. Most folks understand to fall back on the old four-way-stop technique. Everyone takes their turn, first come first go. That is apparently too complicated for some people. I was making a left turn onto the highway. Other vehicles were clustered at the intersection, each politely taking their turn. When it was my time to go I tip-toed out with a sense of dread. Sure enough! An elderly lady did not even slow for the clot in her route. Using the left turn lane she hurtled through at full speed, narrowly missing me. I’ve heard of a few other similar incidents. Miraculously, I know of no horrific crashes. Clearly, fear is a primal instinct to be ignored.

So I pruned them and brought them in. There are a few morales to this story. Photo by Jill.

It’s not August any more. We actually had a sunrise but the neighbour’s solar panels were in standy mode.

The previous owner of this house wanted to leave me a massive old upright piano where it sat in the living room. I declined. I was working in the backyard when the poor guy arrived with a friend. I ended up helping them. The trick to moving a piano involves using a sledge hammer and crow bars. It is deeply satisfying. I discovered that it had no keyboard but that there was some beautiful clear, well-aged wood which I cherished. I knew that I’d have to take the whole thing if I wanted a part of it so I shut-up and pushed and shoved along with the others. There is some amazing workmanship in those monster contraptions. Have a look inside if you get a chance.

The old plaster walls hold a plethora of nail holes. It looks like there has been a revolution fought here. The Oyster Bay Insurrection? The walls have a rough texture and are hard to patch. It does add character. Random seniors volunteer bits of history about who has lived here and what they had done for the community. It is lovely.

Got bugs? There is a section of exterior wall here where exotic insects apparea regardless of the weather. This scarab is called a California Fig Eater. What the hell it’s doing here is a mystery.

Friday morning brings us another storm warming. Brace yourselves people! Predicted to not be a bad as the last one two days ago, it IS November. Anything goes. I sit at my desk as usual at predawn while a tug scurries in towing a log boom. Three vertical white towing lights on the tug’s mast and a brilliant port hand running light. On the log tow behind are six twinkling white lights which mark the perimeter of the booms. These are clearly led lights, perhaps even solar charged.

I remember being a deckhand out on the log tows. Once all the rigging up was done on the tow, the last thing to do was place and light the towing lamps. This was achieved by pounding a three foot iron rod into a secure log, tightly held in its bundle. On a bracket welded at the top of the rod we would hang a good old-fashioned kerosene lantern and then tie it with a piece of tarred marlin. Then you had to light the bugger, lower the mantle and trim the wick. This was all accomplished usually in a welter of wind and sea spray. Then you would hike back along the log tow to the tug, afraid to look back for fear the lanterns had gone out. There was a regular duty, whenever possible, of cleaning the blackened fragile glass globes, (Which often shattered when splashed with cold sea water, refilling the lanterns without losing the tiny bungs, and then not dropping the damned things into the ocean. Led lights, yeah baby! Bugger the romance of the sea.

At Gibsons, one of the entrances to Howe Sound, there is a bar which you can sneak a tow over at high tide. There is no time to mess about, you have to get your tide over the bar before the tide begins to drop. One night we were in that slot, following another tow northward to Port Mellon. It was past midnight and we could clearly see the towing lights of the booms ahead. Suddenly a speed boat hurtled out of the harbour. Four invincible young men, were completely drunk after a night in the local pub, Grandma’s Inn. The speedster rocketed directly into the back of those log bundles ahead. One body was found face-planted three hundred feet from the point of impact. In the end, after families of the dead had alleged that there had been no towing lights, we had to provide affidavits stating that in fact there were.

I’ve reminded myself of the first time I arrived in Gibsons. It was just at nightfall and I hastily moored my boat. There is a long ramp down onto the docks. A huge window in Grandma’s Inn looks down that ramp and out onto the beauty of the sound. I wanted to see why what looked like every kid in town was lined up along the railing of the ramp. They were all peering into that big window. A stripper was on a small stage, on her back, lewdly gyrating to raucous music.

Ah! Things that bump in the night. Well, here’s one more thing.

I was down at the nearest Home Despot this morning. I ordered an electric snow shovel. Really! I had not heard of one until recently. Five years ago I would have laughed myself wet. It seemed a reasonable compromise between a snow blower and a shovel.

I asked reasonable questions of the elves in orange aprons. I was assured of how it worked in wet snow and dry, fair enough. Then I wanted to know how far it would throw a dog pile. Uhuh! “How high is your neighbour’s fence?” My thwacker is on order.

Today I came home exclaiming how busy the mall was today. I hate malls and only go a few times a year when I must. Then I learned that it was Black Friday! I really did not know! It was quite like being in a footballer’s training scrum with half the shoppers stumbling around while texting on their phone. It was hellacious. Christmas Spirit? Hmmm.

Maybe there’ll be fish for supper. Times are tough.

Lift is created by the onwards rush of life over the curved wing of the soul.
― Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

Tik Tok

Dreamer’s Dawn. My new desk is in a room where I can display all my nautical trinkets and art. It has been a long-held dream. I love just sitting here and watching the harbour.

From whence comes the light. Looking out the window at dawn. Not bad I think!

Well shazbot and dinglebog! It is already one month since we started sleeping under this roof! We home! Time flies whether you’re having fun or not. I’ve pecked away at this blog despite illness and weariness. How the hell do you write about something as boring as moving into a new home? Well, I did! There’s a mountain of empty boxes downstairs ready for the next mission. Want ’em? Late summer has turned to mid-autumn and there was sleet in yesterday’s downpour. Any old how, we here ’cause we ain’t all there. Spring never seemed so far away. Life goes on.

Downtown Ladysmith on a sunny morning. Hunkered in the chilly shadows, as usual, God-botherers sit to hand out roadmaps to heaven. I keep my opinions to myself and just cross the street.

Charlie takes a dip. Cold sea water clearly does not bother him. He just likes swimming.

A grudging smear of grey begins to appear outside. Those glorious summer mornings of soft light and singing birds are over. It is an autumn dawn. Our Thanksgiving weekend is over. The emergency sirens down on the highway are quiet now, the carnage has ended for the moment. It was constant all weekend-long. There is a threat of rain and we know that, of course, it will be bucketing down on Friday, our moving day. That forecast hasn’t flickered. I am beseeching the weather gods otherwise.

Ayre, queen of all she surveys. Clearly I am smitten by my little dogs who are the real thing in every way.

We walk around in here sideways, between the stacks of boxes. Jill has done a magnificent job of extricating our possessions from under beds and out of cupboards and shelves. Each box even has a printed label which notes the destination room. We inherited our daughter’s belongings. She seemed to have a fetish for suitcases. I muttered this morning that we have more of those than a train station. They’re all bloody full! I swear that this will be the last move of my life and that I may as well try to enjoy it.

The control center. A place for everything and everything in its place. Uhuh! The pee-pad boxes proved to be perfect. Thank you Grace for sourcing those!

Dawn Patrol. Despite my contrary misgivings about Remebrance Day I always enjoy the fly-overs. This is a Chinese Yak 3 trainer.

A week later. We’re still walking sideways between the stacks of boxes but they are diminishing. I, of course, am finding things to repair and adjust. We’ve both had extremely nasty colds and there is little happiness in our new camp. But it will come and the dogs are thrilled. They seem to love the space, especially in the back yard. They race about as if they’ve grasped the notion that it is all theirs. There have been spectacular moon rises and I am sitting at my monstrous new free desk looking at my spectral image in the window’s reflection. It is nearly 7am and once again there is the faintest glimmer of grey dawn over the harbour. It will slowly evolve into an overcast morning but even that view is a huge treat to me. So long as I can see the water and boats going about, my world is endurable.

The days rumble past with an endless plethora of odd jobs and eternal unpacking. There is an occasional frantic about something misplaced but then it reappears. There are also a load of handyman jobs. I’ve been horribly ill for the past three weeks and every tiny effort is massive for me. The grudging dawns continue. I enjoy being up in the inky black pre-dawn and watching the sky lighten. There is what appears to be a large beautiful Krogen yacht anchored in Dunsmuir Bay. It has been there for several days. I can see its anchor light, a tiny speck in the blackness. How I wish that was me out there. Life without a boat is terribly dry but I do have this wonderful new office, something I’ve dreamed about for years.

Today is finally the one when we are promised to learn the outcome of our Provincial Election.

Who won? I’m outta here! Tides and the seasons may come and go but no matter what colour the hat the politcal game never really changes.

Ten days after the polls closed, some ridings are within a handful of votes between the two parties, it is that close. I, for one, am happy it’s turning out like this, political arrogance cannot continue to run this wonderful province into the ground. Either the NDP or the Conservatives will be just as bad. So long as they get on with the business of government instead of throwing poo pies at each other, we’ll be all right. At least, for once, there was an enthusiastic voter turnout. The teeter-totter of democracy was tipped by twenty-seven individual votes in our provincial election. Getting out to cast your ballot does make a difference. Imagine the T-Rumping coming up in a few days south of the border. I can’t comment on Amurican politics, I don’t even understand Canadian politi-games. One way or the other, we’ve some interesting times ahead.

Wasn’t that a party? End of a salmon run. But, there are more on the way. Life goes on.

Life continues in the woods, cold and damp as it is.

And that’s it for October. I’m now sitting at my desk and making faces at the reflection in my black, black window. I went to bed too early. Time has just tripped over midnight and fallen into November. It is tweak the clocks back weekend. Wasn’t it bend them ahead time just a few weeks ago?

First thing on a Saturday morning another small forest is delivered to the local log booming grounds.

Later that same day, the barge was empty and gone for more. As we sleep our industries goe on.

“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’” – Lao Tzu

Remembrance Of Dead Soldiers

Grieve not for dead soldiers

they are dead, they are dead

at peace forever in the blessed oblivion

of unawareness and silent darkness.

Their remains lie in tidy military rows

and as many leave their pulverized bones

lost in deep thick cold mud along with

discarded horses and murdered children.

No longer do they hold faint hope of promised glory

within fantasy of youthful invincibility

wagering their souls for the lies

of politicians and generals.

Naive and ignorant pawns they went

to commit the same atrocities as the enemy

but any soldier can justify following orders

especially when each has a god on their side.

Grieve instead for the multitudes of innocents

and their children, just as so even now

fear, hunger, cold, heat, thirst, loneliness

enduring each painful forged moment

forever on throughout the gauntlet of their raped lives.

Grieve for the warriors returned

in their shattered bodies

cursed with wildly twisting minds

a pulsing nightmare to endure through each breath they must yet draw.

What of the bravery which shatters families

left at home to endure endless not knowing

then the confusions of homecoming

learning to live again with monsters now cursed forever.

We take a few moments to assuage our thin guilt

before returning to the shelter of the pub

wearing tiny red plastic flowers

and bleating out epithets on tooting bugles.

Warship’s horns blast in salute

aircraft thunder zooming overhead

flags dip

there is the timeless drumming rhythm of outward marching boots.

Grieve not, they are dead, they are dead.

Tik Toc

A view from my new office, Nov. 5th. It sure beats the white stucco wall I stared at from my last desk.

If in fear or in doubt,
flap your ass and
get the hell out.

In Chemainus, our neighbour community, I discovered this. For a moment I was back in Foshan, PRC

Downtown full moon. Itis called the greasy lens effect.

Dunrovin? Why someone burned a backpack has got to be a good story.

At the end of October, beds of these beauties still bloom as they first appeared in August.

Another type of California Poppy. It is often called the ‘Fried Egg’ flower.

Moving Day. This single shot says it all. We did have a fantastic moving crew from the “Take A Load Off” company. Thet certainly impressed this old grump.

Today is finally the one when we are promised to learn the outcome of our Provincial Election.

Ten days after the polls closed, some ridings are within a handful of votes between the two parties, it is that close. I, for one, am happy it’s turning out like this, political arrogance cannot continue to run this wonderful province into the ground. Either the NDP or the Conservatives will be just as bad. So long as they get on with the business of government instead of throwing poo pies, we’ll be all right. At least, for once, there was an enthusiastic voter turnout. The teeter-todder of democracy was tipped with twenty-seven votes in our provincial election. Getting out to cast your ballot does make a difference. Then, on November fourth, an uncounted ballot box has been discovered!

Imagine the T-Rumping coming up south of the border.

Hallowistmas. I’m sure the Easter Bunny is lurking somewhere in there. Nothing is sacred!

The house spider. This wee cutey was about two inches long.

A river runs through. It is always uplifting to see the annual drama of the salmon.

A bouquet of morts. Salmon soon expire after they spawn. The cycle of life is done, a new one begun. Their remains enrich the streams and forest. A dubious aroma fills the damp autumn air.

My two splendid wee nurses. What amazing friends!

“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’” – Lao Tzu

A Perfect Morning

Blooming in the rain. Blackberry blossom in late September.

Thai apple drink in a Creston restaurant.
It was good.

Pub special. Chicken breast in buttermilk batter on a candied dougnut with fries.
Bluuurph!

I was out the door and walking across the parking lot when I realized I had no limp. Wow! First time since my knee surgery three months ago. Funny what happens when you’re distracted from your problems. Swimming some lengths in the local pool fixed that limp; it’s back. I drove home from the pool into a cloudless sunrise. On the corner an old man with a lab pup signalled which way he was going so as to keep me from waiting for nothing. A considerate citizen! He got a thumbs up from me. My morning medication routine produced a blood sugar reading which was lowest ever. Incredible! A perfect morning.

They’re back! Sept. 21st. First day of autumn.

These beauties always appear at the end of summer.

He was the black toadstool of the family.

We’re deep within the rushing current and back eddies of selling and buying homes. A building inspectors is coming in a few minutes to look at our present abode, Monday repeats the process on the new one. Well, it IS 67 years old. Properly built with old growth full dimension wood, (A2x4 is actually a full 2” by 4”). Floors are built with diagonally-nailed planks. Nothing but solid lumber everywhere.

I prefer that to the new slap-dash houses which are built entirely from OSB board, stapled together in the pouring rain and then put up for sale at an unbelievably high price. When we arrived on Vancouver Island forty years ago, houses sold at an average price of $40,000. Now the number has risen to $750,000. Has our money become worth that much less? I guess there is no point in asking questions that have no clear answers. The people we’re told to trust can’t, or won’t, answer them either. I still choose to believe we live in one of the best places on the planet. We’re still free to leave. Nobody is shooting at us yet.

A fashion statement? I have little idea of which fungi are safely edible, so I don’t.

Munch brunch. Before the slug came, a deer has taken a few bites. Interestingly they never eat the whole thing, choosing to take a sample of each. It must be nature’s way of leaving the fungi to survive.

Another peek at the huge microscopic world of the forest floor. There is always plenty going on.

This morning the rain is hammering down. Someone must be building a house out there. Haar! The moving process goes on with one more thing and then one more thing. The tedium builds. There are a few more days until both the sale and the purchase “close” and the agreements are inscribed in stone. Then we sit and wait until moving day when “possession” occurs and we then have a few hours to move our stuff from beneath one roof to beneath another. In the meantime boxes of stuff rise. We’re moving about three blocks. It is as much work as moving across the country. Bets on which day it will rain?

There was a time when all I owned fit in my backpack. Then it got to be the back of a pickup truck and half of that was tools. We’re like crows sitting on a wire. Too busy looking for something else shiny to peck at, we’re completely unaware that fifty thousand volts are running between our toes.

Finally the macrame trail of paper work is complete. I’m now sitting at my desk in someone else’s home. My house is now around the corner and down the street. It is still almost a month until we can make the move. Hurry up and wait. Somewhere in that time there is an election but there is no-one I want to vote for. But I will, if only to renew my bitching license.

Both deals are now fully completed. “SOLD” stickers are on the For Sale signs out on the street. Let the packing begin. What’ve we been keeping these for? Stuff!

Ever get the feeling that you’re being watched?

Home is where the heart is…even if you can’t remember which box you packed it in.

A Rude Awakening

Ya missed it. By 40 years! It is hard to hold a sense of time, and of infinity in this vast place. Here on the coast, where land now seems valued by the square inch, it’s hard to comprehend the openess even when you see it.

Abandoned bridge for sale. Well not really; it’s just sitting there. Once an engineering feat, now it is someone’s nuisance.

An abandoned railway trestle. Can you see steam locomotives chuffing across this amazing structure? The photo shows about half of it. I mentioned beautiful air-dried old growth timber. Here’s some. It looks as if the post in the foreground is propping the whole thing up. The trestle is somewhere east of Sakatoon.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. The noise came from far away. I didn’t know or care where. I just wanted to stay deep within the sleep I’d been enjoying. Then I remembered. I was on my bed in my trailer. I was on a ferry boat. Oh shit!

I’d driven from Salmon Arm, planning on stopping for the night somewhere along the way. I knew a place but drove on by, then another until finally I was in Hope. No campgrounds appealed to me. Now the gauntlet of the Fraser Valley Trans Canada Highway lay before me. I remembered the ordeal in getting out of the lower mainland. Reasoning that if it was that bad during the day, then in the morning when the whole world was rushing into the city area it would be very, very bad. Westward I went and soon enough the traffic was bumper to bumper, lurching forward up to 100kph then slamming to a stop. There were the usual idiots trying to weave in and out and the worst were the heavy trucks. Then the rain became serious. It poured. I hoped the thick layer of prairie grasshopper DNA on the trailer front was softening.

The rain continued as I boarded the ferry at Tsawassen. There was room for only one highway tractor behind me. I slipped into the trailer for a wee nap. Two hours later, boom, boom, wake up old man. The poor buggers must have been wondering what they had on their hands. I stumbled out groggily to find myself and the truck stuck behind all alone on the vast emptiness of the lower vehicle deck. There was a tribunal of unhappy deckhands standing with arms crossed. Then my key stuck in the ignition and would not turn. Finally the nightmare ended as I drove off the ferry and into the cloak of darkness. In the morning I discovered that despite nineteen feet of metal trailer to pound on, one star had decided to break a window. Collateral damage for my stupidity. The truck stuck behind behind me on the ferry passed without a friendly toot, toot. All’s well that ends.

Lenore, downtown. All of it. Typical of hundreds of small prairie towns desperately clinging to life. I was inclined to join them. There is a certain peace knowing what is not coming. Amazingly, many of these communities have memorials going back to WWI. This one had a monument flanked with genuine vintage Lewis guns.

I include a motley collection of images from my trip. In retrospect I should have continued in my meander mode and not rushed home. There were no events I could change in person, I simply needed to demonstrate that I cared. They knew that and the world turns just fine with or without me. I’d go again in a flash, the leaves were just going into their autumnal tones and a spectacular photo season is about to begin. I regret not stopping in so many places which held some great photos. I have long looked forward to exploring Drumheller for example, but the pretty town in a lovely valley seemed like a bizarre Disney effort with people swarming everywhere. The Rv campground I saw looked like a version of hell. I did not stop and dragged the trailer up the steep hill on the other side of the valley. My recently rebuilt knee did not feel like it wanted to wander far on foot.

“Son, here’s a tire gauge. Go check those tires. There’s only fifty of them.”

Here is the pusher truck hooked to the back of that trailer. I could have used it at times!

I don’t know what these enormous tanks are but I wouldn’t brake-check the trucks carrying them.

Yeah, yeah just another shot of my little rig. Now look out on the highway behind. That is one rotor for a windmill. Compare the blade’s root to the tractor carrying it. The trailer is clamped on far behind. Whoosh! That thing twirls around like a kid’s toy.
It puts things prairie in perspective.

The outskirts of Calgary are a sprawling urban mess with mega houses (Note I don’t say homes) up long lanes behind hideous gates. If it is an impression they’re trying to make, they did and it wasn’t positive. Banff has become a hideous neo-faux attempt at a glossy Western theme with waves of tourists wandering everywhere and sipping sexy little coffees in outdoor bistros and wondering what in hell they paid so much for. At a gas station there, I discovered a bidet. In a gas station! Imagine going to the attendant and complaining that the bidet was malfunctioning. “fired me right up against the ceiling!” I also remember being stuck in rush-hour traffic on the “Circle Drive” around Saskatoon. It was hot and the air reeked of hydroponic marijuana smoke. Not a stereotypical home prairie moment. Well, maybe these days it is!

Ya missed it. By 40 years! It is hard to hold a sense of time, and of infinity in this vast place. Here at home on the coast, where land now seems valued by the square inch, it’s hard to comprehend the openess.

Much of the old prairie has disappeared. Old homestead buildings and machinery are mostly gone. I’m told they are often simply buried. Whole little towns are gone or going until at times there is only a name board left on the roadside. Train stations and the metal rails have vanished and the nostalgia days of the prairie pioneers are forgotten. One lady, whom I flagged down for directions, know nothing of the old Miner Creek school. It turns out that her house was built on the exact same site of the historic one-room school building.

Agriculture has become an industrial monster which sits in the same show circle as mining, oil/gas, transportation, neo energy. The romance of any of it is lost. It is an industry. Art has become science. Soon the entire Trans Canada Highway will all be a four-lane hurtle-shute and with our modern vehicles, folks won’t even need to look out their windows.

The bright lights of Manyberries. An old stock yard, a few houses, no post office, corner store or gas pump. The wind whistles through it. The station is now someone’s house but nobody was home.

On the broad lawn of the Orthodox church near Smuts, thousands of these beauties sat in the grass and trembled in the wind.

There were copious motorcycles on nearly every road. It seemed that black-clad riders sat on bellowing black Harley Davidsons and rocketed along in small groups. It looked glorious. I did wonder at the riders with no face protection and what taking a grasshopper in the eye, at ninety miles an hour, was like. It must certainly deplete one’s testosterone level. I repeat that if you find the prairies flat and boring, you are flat and boring. The nuances and visual dramas are everywhere and the beauty is overwhelming. I can also say I met no-one I disliked.

Due South. We can fly, the grader’s just been by. He’s a smooth operator.

It’s amazing how buildings begin to crumble once they’re abandoned.

The ubiqitous prairie slough. If only you had one of these! Can we call this waterfront property?

1″ clear cedar tongue and groove in the ceiling! You cannot find lumber like that anymore.

Despite all the work, the dreams, the suffering, all things eventually return to the earth.

A bee falls in lust with its reflection in a screw head on my kayak.

A public school. Can you smell the dusty books?

Smoke, heat , dust and wind, It was a prairie summer day.

Isn’t it amazing how this all works? These grain cars will probably end up in Vancouver and their cargo will go on around the world.

A small private grain elevator. Could it make an interesting house? Good views!

Another token of the prairies. Horsehead oil wells bob their heads in herds all over the prairies. The arrangements are complicated. Don’t assume the farmers are making a high return from having these on their land.

There are thousands of prairie sloughs, small and large, natural and man-made. With all the grain fields it is heaven for waterfowl… and, for hunters.

Are you drinking enough? That was the sign above the toilet in the tire shop at Tisdale SK. Bemused I discovered a colour chart which showed what your urine should like if you consume an adequate amount of water. Humour, don’t leave home without it, it helps keep you alive no matter where you are.

If your dog runs away you’ll be able to see it for the next three days.

All’s well that ends. I’m home again on Fraggle Rock, with twenty-five miles of Pacific Ocean separating me from the motherland. Vancouver Island is a wonderful place to live but I ache to be on the road again.

Wow! After weeks on the prairie mountains are especially breath-taking.

A bridge in the Kicking horse Pass. I thought it was brilliant. Look at the constant grade it joins.

My greeter. This Pileated Woodpecker dropped by to say hello where I stopped in Salmon Arm. He’s about 18″ long. You never know who or what is just around the corner.

Marcel Proust

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

For Aunt Florence

For Aunt Florence

(And the wonderful family I didn’t really know I had)

The family farm down in the Pipestone River Valley. This photo hangs in the hall by her door in the senior’s home where Aunt Florence now lives and is well-attended by three generations of descendants. I photographed that image. I’ve been there and it really is beautiful.

A view from Butler Hill Farm; yep that’s the same beautiful barn. My cousin divided his parent’s farm with a daughter and her husband. What a feeling it must be to carry on a family business and a tough but fine way of life.

Near the farm is the little community of Cromer and its church which is clearly dear to my aunt.

“Bringing in the sheaves” Auntie calls the emergency monitor around her neck her “cowbell.”

I have decided to post this blog in honour of my dear Aunt Florence with whom I have spent the past too few days visiting. Getting to know her, her sons, her grand children and great grand children has been very uplifting. I’ve learned much and am delighted in meeting family who are outstanding and all are people to be cherished. I hold my head a little higher.

A beautiful example of a stone house in downtown Virden Manitoba.

There was once a brickyard nearby. I am not, of course, showing the humbler clapboard homes on the same tree-lined streets. This one’s for sale, but let me tell you about the winters.

What would Virden be without the railway? Just another bit of prairie?

My other cousin’s house in Kenton MB. It is over a hundred years old but is solid, and very cosy and homey. I instantly loved it. He bought it for $10,000! It needed a few renovations but… he owns it. Outright!

Sadly it was time to go far too soon. Leaving Virden was not a happy event for me. I drove as far as Yorkton and then turned due North. I decide that while miles out of the way, after all that family business, I’ll probably never be back this way again. I’d better go and try find my mother’s childhood haunts. The scenery changed to scrub bush and swamps. I began to expect moose to leap out in front but I saw none. Finally, a few miles before the town of Hudson Bay farmland reappeared as a mixture of rolling fields and and forest interspersed with plenty of waterways. The area must be a hunter’s delight. It is beautiful to my eye. In the Co-op store I ask an old man if he’s lived here long. He nods, but when I ask if he knows anything about the Eldersley area he says he’s never heard of it. I explain that it is the next town down the road but he’s stumped. Now that’s parochial! Uhuh!

Weyerhauser has an OSB plant there and now on the road, logging trucks compete with all the grain and oil heavies. Roads in swampy land roll and pitch, driving require full concentration. I discover another damned flat tire on the trailer. I change it but cannot find a tire shop and decide to just go find a place to sleep for the night. I was stung on the shoulder yesterday by a tiny wasp. It is still swollen and painful, right up my neck as well, so a good night in the rack is just the ticket. I’ve found a clearing tucked back in the woods out of sight from the road. It has been a very long time since I’ve been in a black spruce forest like this. Short with thick limbs, a whole industry has been built around this forest which sprawls across the entire Canadian Shield.

Best logged in sub-zero temperatures, when the ground is frozen, they have several months of that here each year. It is no country for this old man anymore. But the mosquitoes still like me.

A prairie bush berry. Folks may call them soap berries. They make a lovely bit of colour within thickets of spruce trees.

The apex of my odyssey. The land adjacent is where the one-room school once stood. Nothing is forever but this marks where my moom and all ten of her siblings attended. no-one seemed to get beyond grade 4. Most proved to be clever people who went on to lead interesting lives. I asked a lady but she didn’t know a thing. It turns out her house is built on the ruins of the old schoolhouse.

I drive west and finally see a sign for Miners Creek. This is the site of the schoolhouse which the whole immediate family of my mother. My mother and all her brothers and sisters grew up in a homestead shack within walking distance. The nearest townsite is Eldersley. It is almost completely gone. A few miles west is Tisdale where I stopped for a new trailer tire. One geezer, when queried if he lived here long, replied that he was a newcomer. When pressed, he told mine that he’d only arrived in 1939! Another old fellow replied that he vaguely recalled the family name but nothing more. He did know about the old schoolhouse and confirmed that the site was now a farmer’s house and yard. My family mission was accomplished as far as possible. Home calls.

The Eldersley train station is long gone. I think the small elevator was there. I vaguely remember that from my last visit 69 years ago. My mother probably boarded the eastbound train to Toronto from here with a gleam in her eye. Guess I’m the result!

That old building sits beside the tracks and may be from my mother’s time so long ago. It looks as if there may have been a baseball field there at one time.

Miners Creek trickles on. Some day it will arrive at some ocean. The name remains a benchmark in my sense of family history.

Somewhere in a near radius of where I stood to take this photo is where my grandparents, and all their chidren, tried to carve a homestead farm out of the forest, one tree at a time. They did not know it couldn’t be done but perservered. It took the next generation, and the next, to find a foothold. Life goes on. When it rains, these dusty prairie roads become muddy trails the oldtimers call “gumbo.”

Tisdale. A priaire landmark. i don’t how old this water tower is but it marks what were the bright lights of town for the surrounding farmers. I’ve repeatedly heard a lot about going to Tisdale. I vaguely remember the broad main street of the old town. It wasn’t paved back then. While I waited for a new trailer tire, I ate at Tim Hortons, then headed west.

I should mention all the splendid photos I’ve had to drive by. Shoulders on prairie highways are narrow, steep and soft. It was too dangerous to stop and capture spectacular sights when dragging my trailer. Today finds me in a RV park just on the outskirts of Rosetown Saskatchewan. Morning light sifted through a heavy fog and I drifted back to sleep. I awakened to the music of snarling crop dusters taking off from the nearby airfield. I’m staying the whole day as the warm prairie wind rises now and begins to moan. It was a near-incessant sound which, apparently, drove some of the homesteaders insane. Others endured quite nicely.

A girl on a swing. Still looking good at 87. Her life as a prairie girl and farm wife (67 years) deserve a book. Wow! the things she knows! The hardships and triumphs and surrounding family leave me feeling humble and very, very proud. I love you all.

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” ―Frida Kahlo.

Prairie Schoonering

A prairie schooner was apparently the name given to the covered wagons and carts used by the first white settlers. Apparently, from a distance, they held the appearance of white boat sails. It sounds romantic. Uhuh!

Aliens! If I saw one of these on my lawn I’d come out with my hands up. They are appently called air seeding drills. the discs furrow into the ground then compressed air blasts in seed, Beats hand-casting I guess. Not cheap I’m sure.

Yesterday was weird. The day began with a missing pot of margarine. It had utterly vanished and I cannot tell what happened. Just a crack of senility I guess. Then I hit the wee deer. To ice my cake I lost my second drone. I drove on into the gathering darkness and rolling squalls until I finally found a level paved place. I settled in as a dog barked in the distance. ( Next morning there are two pots of margarine in the fridge! WTF?) Is this senility or just stupidity?

As I finally drifted into sleep, a raucous chorus of deep barking broke out right outside my bedroom window. Two big white dogs had appeared and seemed determined to roust this interloper. They spent the night laying beside the trailer and taking turns re-waking the dead. Dog-lover that I am I was not about to go out into the dark and try to make friends. This morning they lingered until I opened my door. Gone! I am knackered. I’m starting the day with a stout coffee as I write this. There is some tinkering to do on the truck, a bath and some breakfast and then my little wagon train will lurch on eastward. Actually, by morning, I realized the dogs were barking at coyotes who lurked all around within the wandering herds of cattle.
Maybe they were guarding my trailer.

When I stepped out of the trailer there she was! The big girl was there, all wiggles and waggles. She’d been there a long while. I have the suspicion that she had been abandoned. Bits of her fur hung in the fence. Was she waiting for her last human to return? The other dog must have gone home to some distant farm. This beauty was gracious, sweet and completely endearing. Lame in one foot, covered in dreadlocks, emaciated and begging for love she had found the king of the dog-lovers. Damn and double goddamn! How I wanted to bring her along. I fed her and petted her.

I rationalized my conundrum both ways. Ultimately, cold practicality won over passion and even our instant bonding. She is a big girl and there is not enough room for her in the passenger seat. We already have two dearly loved dogs. I have a long trip ahead. I can only pray that someone will open their heart as she waits at the turnout. Driving away from where my drone had hidden itself was not at all as heart-rending as seeing this beautiful girl in the rear view mirror. I shed tears and will wonder at her fate for a very long time. Wot a sop!

Yeah? Well you might have a hot tub in your RV but I’ve got a sandbox! This is the second cleaning.

I drove onto a gravel portion of highway, dog thoughts overwhelming me, I forgot to close the roof vents in the trailer. They very efficiently inhaled what seems like a bushel of dust. It is insidious stuff and I’ll be cleaning it away for months ahead. But what’s a little dust to this incredible open land. Wildlife abounds here. From amazing flowers and birds to pronghorn antelope and deer, I even saw a huge black cow moose! As I write this I am beside an old corral where I’ve spent the night. The prairie wind moans softly through those roof vents. It is very peaceful. I fight the urge to turn back and look for my dog friend. Here, I am endeared by a tiny ground squirrel. Sop! East, old man, east!

A sqinny, also known as a thirteen-striped ground squirrel.

I am overcome with a sense of wonder at the vastness. It is very much like being out at sea. It is endless. I swear I have passed through a trillion acres of fertile open land. How we humans have fought to conquer it. I see the remnants of homestead farms, some abandoned entirely, some have clearly prospered through the following generations. Everything is huge. The machinery, the homes, the size of the farms. How did anyone think they could prosper with a quarter-section of land and perhaps a horse? But they took joy in their freedom and never looked back. Nearly everything was done by hand. That’s one reason families were so huge; manpower! It also was a good way to stay warm on a bitter cold prairie night and what the hell else was there to do?

My musings shifted and I looked at all this land. You can drive all day and it stays the same. Vast is such a tiny word to describe something so incomprehensibly huge. Then it occurs to me that all this land is broken, tended, seeded, harvested, then shipped. The product is distributed globally and processed so that some green-belly self-proclaimed environmental fantasist can go into any corner cafe and have a muffin! All of that industry requires the consumption of incalculable amounts of diesel fuel. We are ALL part of the problem. DO NOT start talking about electric tractors. It won’t happen, not even with ten times more windmills planted out in the fields.

How do! Downtown Maple Creek Sask. after a cloudburst.

Bear in mind also that this massive hairball of food production is utterly dependant on the whims of nature. One badly-timed severe storm, a drought, a too-wet season, a wildfire, the dark possibilities are endless. Yes even locusts and grasshoppers. As I drove along with my hand hanging out into the rush of warm air it began to be bulleted by these flying protein bombs. I’m told they’re tasty fried, and crunchy. They hurt like hell too! This year is very dry so the wheat is now at its peak. There is a massive frenetic effort to get the crops in. Often at about this time of year, there are a few minutes of devastating hail or rain. Then it is zero for the home team!

It was as if I’d landed in small-town Quebec. Tabernac!

Finally I have arrived arrived in Weyburn. My truck died here. I went skidding sideways through a highway intersection, the trailer trying to pass me. I’d blown out a brake component. I am sitting and writing in my bug-spattered trailer, the truck is in the hospital. The town has a wonderful municipal campground, easily located and adjoined to a huge playground. All the folks I’ve met are lovely. The internet is pathetic and I cannot check my e-mail or post a blog.

It is cool-my-jet time. I need it.

Doiwntown Weyburn. Tommy Douglas and always the wheat.

One of the things I wonder about in the south of these Canadian prairies is lumber. There are obviously no forests here. All the boards for the houses and barns and train stations and grain elevators had to be imported. Probably most of it came from Northern Ontario and British Columbia. It would have been expensive. Some old places I’ve seen are built of logs. Where did they get them? The buildings as they were abandoned were generally left, it appears, to fall down and rot. If nothing else they were a good source of dry firewood. That lumber, aged old growth dried planks, surely was precious to someone. It sure is now. Prairie folk are noted for their thriftiness but then they also clearly abandoned their redundant machinery. It is a question I wish someone could answer to my satisfaction.

The wind moans incessantly, but there are no answers blowing in it.

A root cellar, meat locker , and storm cellar.

Day two in Weyburn dawns with a clear yet smokey sky and a gentle wind. Just me and my resident houseflies in this small trailer. Damn they’re irritating! I’m waiting for my truck to be ready. While I wait I’m going to exorcise some more dust, the bathroom is loaded with it. I began to understand the prairie dust storms of the 1930’s! It is rich stuff if you can nail it down. This afternoon I hope to do some laundry and be on the road first thing tomorrow morning. I’m a day’s drive away from Virden. Meanwhile incredibly long trains gently rumble through town day and night. There is something reassuring about their steady throb and heavy clatter as they flow along the arteries of the nation’s commerce.

KAL Tire, Weyburn. Those folks were excellent! That’s my front ball joint. I wonder if my old knee joint looked something like that? It looks like it had no more potholes in it.

I met a couple from Victoria. They’ve followed the exact same route which I have and pitch a tent each night. They are not youngsters. We all marvel at the vastness and compare notes of wonder at the pioneers who first came here. What they went through on their odysseys from Europe can only be a speculation. Just to spend endless weeks in the guts of some sailing ship would be a lifetime adventure; and that was just the beginning. There would have been a bone-wracking railway journey through a huge landscape far bigger than any imagining. Then they finally arrived to confront this vast unknown. You’re here! Oh yeah, winter’s coming.

Few of us today would have the physical or mental stamina to begin, let alone endure, the ordeal. I find the simple effort of driving wearing enough.

Checking the weather this morning I realize that I am presently equidistant from Hudson Bay, The Great Lakes and the Pacific. That is one very long way from the ocean. What a huge country! I’m still not halfway to the Atlantic. I marvel that we are known as a nation of snivellers and bend-overly polite people. I’ve previously hitch-hiked across this expanse, travelled it by train, flown over it in big and little aircraft and still can’t grasp the magnitude of our country. With our tiny population and huge resources, we should own the planet.

Yeah but…..!

Is this anywhere near Kansas, Dorothy? Hello…hello Dorothy?

“He had seen it often, from the verandah of his uncle’s farmhouse, or at the end of a long street, but till now he had never heard it. The hollowing hum of telephone wires along the road, the ring of hidden crickets, the stitching sound of grasshoppers, the sudden relief of a meadow larks song, were deliciously strange to him.”

― W.O. Mitchell

Spare Parts

Canada Day. Morning glories and blackberries.

It is July 1^st. The weather is perfect. The temperature is just right. My wee doggies are sleeping peacefully after our morning walk. The second half of the year begins.

Canada. It’s a big place. Go see it. It’s yours!

I’ve promised myself not to go on about recovering from my surgery. It is a tough grind with constant pain. Soon it will be down to the level before they rebuilt my knee and I’ll be able to feel it was all worthwhile. I can say that I am fully impressed with all the medical folks I’ve met. They have taken great care of me, promptly and compassionately. To constantly do what they do, all day, every day amazes me. Frankly, when I hear the incessant howling about our medical system I am angry. If you truly believe there is something better out there, go find it. Maybe a few days in Gaza, or the Sudan, or almost anywhere else is just what you need to change your perspective. Oh Lordy, we are SO spoiled!

My girls, my joys. What friends! they’ve really helped my recovery.

We live in one of the best places on the planet in consideration of political climate, geographic climate and economics. Most of our concerns are about pinpricks in our comfort zone and which we are too damned complacent to deal with ourselves. And the nicest thing about living in West Coast Canada is that if you are truly unhappy here, your are free to leave. There is no emigration quota. Good bye.

Meanwhile this old sack of spare parts is hobbling along toward a recovery as fast as I can. They’ve rebuilt me here and there through the years and the future is up to me. As is often said, “ If I’d known I’d live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”

And so it goes. There will probably be fireworks in the harbour after nightfall. That will upset the dogs in town including our two girls but it will pass. The sun will rise in the morning and our lives advance. Happy Canada Day.

Old spare parts hisself. All rebuilt and ready for the next adventure. Photo by Jill

” We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.” Pierre Trudeau