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?Name that band!
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 Knotweed shoot. Inocuous looking.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?Beneath the peach tree.Camellia blooms in the rain.SWEET!Camellia patrolFirst bloomer of spring.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.Grab it while it passes.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.
Get up1 It’s going fast.
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
When I woke up this morning. An hour later it was raining again.Have you seen my little dog. Despite the dawn she snored on contentedly.
Sitting slumped in a restaurant booth, I watched a television hockey game reflected on the rain-spattered window. We were experiencing a late-winter gale with high wind and heavy rain. It was supposed to rage on through the night. Two emergency vehicles with screaming sirens pelted off down the highway into the gathering darkness. That damned bridge construction again! I was dejected. My effort at a simple plumbing repair had turned into a monster. We were eating out because I had to leave the water shut off. My wife is not happy with me. Neither am I.
Yes really! A White Fawn lily. Winter must be over.A Currant bush in flower.And in my garden, things are showing up. It’s our first spring here so there are all sorts of mysteries appearing.
Nothing is forever. Understanding that is a joy of aging. “This too shall pass.” So…when you see certain politicians on the tely, know they’ll be gone one day. The plumbing is corrected, the rain has ended, life goes on.
A Nuthatch, or Little Quank, Does it know how tiny it is? It is as important as any other creature in the woods.Knock, knock. Having breakfast and helping keep the forest green.Then came the carpenter ants. If you listen carefully, you can sometimes hear their tiny power tools.
Today is another spring day. Don’t make plans, the weather will change. This morning there was a sparkling sunrise. Everything was sharp and rich with colour. In a bight a mile across the bay from my window is a house with a huge, impossibly green lawn. Beneath the lawn, down a bank beside a long dock sits an overturned canoe. Directly above the canoe’s bow, up in the treeline on the ridge behind is the pointed top of a green water tower hidden among the tree tops. It is hard to find even when you know it is there. Today into that crystal air smoke rises in laddered shafts among the surrounding forest. Spring clean-up I suppose and a moment frozen in time back to when wood smoke was a sign of civilization. Now it is part of a panorama of houses all along the shore and I wonder how it looked before the encroachment of all us crackers.
Sleep tight, our Navy is awake…and hiding in Ladysmith Harbour. This is an Orca class coastal training vessel. Identified as # 57, can we call her the’Heinz?’A morning delivery.By mid-afternoon it would soon be time to head out for the next load.I don’t want it but I sure admire it; and wish I could afford one like it. Then I could buy a really nice boat. A favourite local home to me, it always reminds me of a time when poor people lived by the sea and ate fish.
Later in the day, after a drive home from Nanaimo in a pounding rain and hail storm I sit back at my desk. The massive storm cell through which I drove now speeds southward on a westerly wind. The black mass with its dark skirt of precipitation is born in a clear sky. The surface wind on the harbour comes from the south, the opposite direction to the winds aloft. They’re shooting more movie scenes in our Downtown much to everyone’s inconvenience. One block on main street has been remade to look like a small town in Colorado. I wonder if there is not a movie set in Colorado made to look like Ladysmith. I also ponder about whatever happens to our movie earnings. Despite a very public impact we are never told where that bonus revenue goes. It is a secret. Spring.
The crew shivers through another dawn, wondering when they’ll be assigned a berth and a cargo.An Egg McStumpinIt’s not mine. Good tradesman always put their tools away.
Let me repeat some old wisdoms. “If it seems too good to be true, it is.” I’ve been trying to organize my workshop and after much recrimination decided to order a too-cheap-to-be-true tool chest. It was a scam, money out, no toolbox. When you’re low with funds you tend to take some dangerous chances. “There’s no fool like an old fool.” Uhuh. Spring.
Yup that’d be me. The suit and tie is my disguise.
“Flowers don’t worry about how they’re going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful.”
The ‘Polynesian Queen’ heads upriver under the Astoria Bridge. An hour earlier she was inbound over the notorious Columbia Bar. The bridge is huge, very high and five miles long.
Another year, another trip to the Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria. It is something I treasure and looking forward to the event helps me through the winter. I have to thank my wife for her wonderful support. High lights have included an intense inspection by a US Homeland Insecurity K9. What a beautiful dog! The trip proved to be the usual litany of rainy grey roads and the gauntlet of trying to find a motel in the dark. The road signage at times is terrible and I really prefer now not to drive once the sun goes down. Many vehicles have searing bright headlights and not content with that, their owners will have banks more of add-on blazing lamps and do not dim anything as they approach. Of course these vehicles also usually have jacked-up suspensions as well. Share the glare! Having a blinded old geezer’s truck jammed in their grill is a potential danger they don’t grasp. The testosterone years! Somehow I survived my own and don’t want to go in a puddle of someone else’s juice.
A real truck. It’s almost paid for! 1964 Ford complete with tool box beneath cargo bed and a puddle of pee on the rear tire. The engine is an orignal 292 with a classic stuttering roar…music to my ears. The sign in the back window says”Eat More Possum.”Where the deer hit.If you can’t see my mirror, I can’t see you. Images may be closer than they look.
I vowed to keep my political mouth shut while in Amurica. It is too dangerous in an agitated country that may have a hand gun in nearly every purse and pair of pants. I did see a large demonstration in one town where everyone waved signs saying “Who Elected Musk?” My Canadian heart sang. I like driving back roads. There is a copious number of people who seem to prefer inhabiting the bog lands in broke-back hovels in varying states of decay surrounded by moats of mud heaped with junk. Huge black hogs snuffled in the carnage. Many of these properties displayed large TRUMP 2024 signs. Say no more, just button up the old lip. I don’t want to end up feeding the beasties in someone’s patch.
Downtown Raymond WA A patch of sidewalk in front of the Hungry Heifer Cafe.Glory Days, Raymond.Buying yourself a job. Downtown Raymond.The way we were.
I spent one long night in a redneck motel. Sometimes you take what can be found. The office was guarded by a huge yellow dog named Elmer. He was a delight. But the room, good grief! The carpet had streaks of black tractor grease and a stain like someone’s donkey couldn’t hold it anymore, the bedside lamp didn’t work, the toilet was plugged, there were evil-looking stains all over the bathroom wall, the linoleum was damaged in several places. All the caulking around the shower was covered in mould. Grey spider webs wafted from the ceiling. Of course the internet password did not work.The Eeech Inn. Yes, I checked the bedding, it seemed fine. All this included for a full fee. Elmer, you old dog! The proprietor, when asked about nearby food, told me about MacDonalds over the bridge. So I found a lovely tavern right across the street from my room, with great craft beer, good home cooking, live music and friendly locals. Uhuh? All night folks out on the street were trying to do tricks with their ve-hickles and none seemed to have mufflers. Then around 04:00 the loggers staying next door got up and dieseled away into the night after a good long warm-up.
Rickshaw World, Astoria.Arriving at Marrowstone Island near Port Townsend this US Navy vessel gets the Queen Bee treatment. “Ye may have crossed the Pacific but ye canna dock it on yer own!”
First thing I wanted to do at my next accomodation was to have a long, hot shower. I guess not every town can have a Trump Hotel. I don’t find the drive southward through the state of coastal Washington particularly scenic. There seem to be endless miles of raped and abandoned forest, mouldering little towns gasping their last breaths. But, those back routes, for me, certainly beat the chaotic gauntlet that is the throbbing pain of driving in the Seattle area. Everything seems exploited. The drive on highway I5 seems an endless strip mall all the way to Portland which is also a tumbling mess of urban blight. There are certainly wonderful and uplifting places to visit but so much seems so very soul-less in the land of the free.
Shop Astoria. They had some wonderful items…at wonderful prices!Astoria tattoo shop.Sundown on the riverThe old butcher shop now selling……Thundermuck coffee.
Well there was plenty of soul in Astoria. It is truly wonderful to meet up with old friends of a kindred spirit. There was a blur of wonderful poetry and music. All too soon it was time to head home. Up early in the morning, back over the long, long bridge and then a heads-down drive to the Black Ball Ferry terminal in Port Angeles. Home again in Ladysmith by Sunday night and then it is as if the event had never happened. Now it is already nearly a week since my return. Several folks apologized to me for their gormless president’s remarks about the 51st state. I get it, and appreciate their chagrin. We have similar issures here.
Since 1926Breakfast at the Workers. The bartender kept busy pouring drinks and cooking wonderful meals.A place of refuge.penciled beneath the word author it says “who judges books by their cover”Ching, ching, ching, ching, music to eat eggs derelict with a bloody mary.The devil’s in the details.Blink! The dogs were within three feet of it before the rabbit bolted.The poser. In the centerfold of ‘Playmutt’ Magazine
In the few days that I was away the snow had all melted. Flowers are trying to bud and it is time to get to work on this new old house and yard. So, first thing I did was to blow up my used pressure washer. It was a great price and worked wonderfully; twice. Now it is up on my shop bench with the guts hanging out of its pump.
Some farmer’s sons never learn! Spring is sprung. Time for a good manure spreader.
Isn’t it amazing what people can achieve when they work together? The Astoria bridge is 5 miles long where it spans the mighty Columbia River. It has 200 feet of clearance at mid-tide. The river can run at up to nine knots. Politicians should look at this bridge over bubbling waters and think about a few things other than themselves.
In short, corruption destroys the ‘deal’ – the bargain – between the citizen and the state; and it harms the poorest most. Hilary Benn
Have you ever noticed that the coldest moments of the night come just at dawn? Frost will form just as the sun is about to appear. Sitting at my new desk and looking out over my neighbour’s roof to the harbour has repeatedly confirmed that this winter. It is 08:08, under a cloudless sky and it is happening again. I think I undestand the phenomenon but it is complicated to explain. And do we need to dissect every bit of life with science? We just need to understand that things happen and we don’t have to try to change anything. In fact, I enjoy a certain degree of mystery in the machinations of the universe.
Spring…well, a promise thereof.
How the human race manages to stumble on in spite of itself is amazing to me. I grasp that I’m jaded. I could easily come to believe that nice people are simply assholes who want something. It does seem that way somedays. However I know enough folks who can easily prove me wrong. Here I go but for the grace of a few charitable, loving souls. In the days I see ahead it is important to avoid close-ended political rhetoric. We will be demanded to choose a side and that is always dangerous. I prefer stealth tactics. A seasoned US journalist, David Cay Johnston, in his poltical comments about current events says that the reason we are in the mess we are is that fifty percent of North Americans are semi-literate or worse. When people dismiss the value of the cornerstone of their culture, language, they also dull their critical thinking skills. When folks don’t ask intelligent questions they fall into a mindset of herd instinct and unquestioning direction. I just cannot say baa.
‘Reborn’ She was apparently built in Scotland in the 1930s. This is a sad way to die.Dogpatch, the bay of broken dreams. In a quest, or necessity, to live off-grid, some folks see buying an old boat as an easy answer. They cannot grasp that the price of freedom is responsibilty. Old boats are cheap because of the overwhelming burden of maintenance. Then comes a sinking feeling.The independant. I admire this character. They are tidy, unobstrusive and apparently self-sufficient. No-one bothers them. It must be miserable under those plastic wraps in the morning but they soldier on through the winter. Kudo’s indeed.
So, once again I sit watching another clear-sky winter sunrise. It is only minus five outside the window but there is a damp cold I can feel in my bones. I don’t want to concede to anything geriatric but I do wonder if plaid blankets are warmest. “Oh lord I’m beggin’ you please, for a new set of glow plugs and if you can; spare me a pair of grease fittings for these creaky old knees!”
Forest texturesMore texture in the woods. No skating!
A few mornings on it is now snowing furiously. Think I’ll stay off the greasy roads and post this blog. It is so very peaceful.
Snow coming.InboundOutboundGit ‘er done. After a two-day breakdown the crew finishes discharging their cargo as winter closes in.It happens. For our few snowy days each year it is best to just stay home. Well-seasoned in the extremes of the Great White North I’ll stay off this coastal wet white grease and avoid other drivers who don’t know any better. I have nothing that needs proving.Jill’s Flying Circus. I really don’t know which button I pushed by accident to achieve this effect. I’d sure like to find it again.
“ I have never once in my life seen a fanatic with a sense of humour.” Amos Oz
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world-not even our troubles.”
I’ll shoot! A juvenile CANADIAN Bald Eagle guarding his perch area. Is this a prophetic view of politics to come?Three young eagles. They gave the dogs a close scrutiny. Yum!
Saturday morning, January 11th. I’ve been sitting here since 05:00 winking at my reflection in the window. It is now 07:20, ther glimmer of dawn appeared about a half-hour ago. It has been a pristine night with a sky full of stars over the harbour. Now puffs of fog are forming under a clear sky. I may see frost when the light brightens. Yep another sleepless night since 04:00. I used to work the mate’s watch and stood at the helm from midnight to six am. There was no daylight on that shift in winter and upcoast on the afternoon watch it was often dark by three-thirty in the afternoon. I’m used to it and I hate it. This old flower needs his sunshine. Official dawn is forecast for 08:06, sunset is to be 16:40. That’s a little over eight and a half hours, no time for laying around today. The first sunlight we saw this year was a for few minutes on the 6th. That light is precious.
I’m still nineteen with all the frustrations of that time, yes ALL, and even more nasty is the seventy-something decrepit body I’m trapped in. I truly did not think I’d live this long and so did not look after myself. I’m the classic cliche. The memories of all the foolish and daring things I’ve done don’t thrill me much now at all. Like most younger folks I once looked on geezers as some sort of separate species. Now here I am. I just hope I don’t carry any of those old man smells. This too is coming to you.
My dear sister made me two bags filled with buckwheat. I put them in the micro wave oven for two minutes and have some delightful and enduring warm comfort on my old knees. One knee was replaced last year but so far the pain is equal in both. I have always loved ambling up mountains and into valleys beyond, along beaches and country roads. Now I realize that those days may be gone but damnit, I’m gonna to force the issue every way I can. Meanwhile the simple joy of a bean bag is bliss.
Bean bags. With two very warm beanbags between my knees it didn’t take my wee girls long to find them. Awwww! Bliss! Their added warmth is appreciated.There’s that neighbour’s roof again! 10:00 this morning. Clearly the solar panels were on standby. Hopefully the little sloop at the guest dock across the bay has a good heater. At the moment this is the depth of winter. No snow yet. Green shoots are appearing in the flower beds.In a hedge here today.
And yes, there is frost. It is now January 20th. T-Rump Day. That character has been issuing edicts and making declarations since the day he was re-elected. His decrees came from a Florida country club, not the White house and folks seemed to accept them even though he had no official voice. Now he’ll be singing “Back In The Saddle Again!” We are living in a neo-version of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ and seem determined to embrace a mass lemming sillyness. Up here in Canada we love to have something to whine about. We are a nation that claims to hate Americans yet most of us live within 50 miles of the US border even though the country runs north and south as far as it does east and west. We are finally realizing we have no political leadership, and have not for a long time. A bully has moved back in next door and we’re crapping ourselves. Well frankly, I perceive that we’ve been the 51st state since WWII and not much is going to change in that regard. Trump calls us the “Big faucet” up north.
I incessantly rant about Canadians consuming foreign food products. I discovered a lovely-looking frozen vacuum-bagged filet of salmon in the freezer. It had come home with the recent shopping. It is claimed to be sockeye. It looked great. I checked the fine print and discovered it was a product of Chile! Chile? I live in British Columbia! What are we famous for if not our salmon? Chile may be on the same beach as us but it is well around the far side of the planet! . WTF? Then Mr Brain-dead here bought some bagged tree bark to landscape the front yard. As I finished slashing the bags open I noted the labelling. It was a product of Rexford, IDAHO. No! We can’t even supply ourselves with our own tree bark? What else is this province noted for if not it’s timber exports. And I bought into it. I want to break into my sailor expletives but what’s the point. It has been said that “If rape is inevitable, relax and try to enjoy it.” ‘Fraid not!
Chile! THIS is BC! Where did the BC salmon go? It is also worth noting that this filet is not represented as being wild and the mention of antibiotics is a strong hint. How much of the price went to paying for diesel to ship it up here? Think local! Think green! UHUH!
Not this very binary old bilge ape. My finacial acumen is minimal but I understand that for a nation to build a strong economy being able to feed itself is a huge advantage. We certainly possess all those resources and once fed much of the rest of the world. Now we operate like an egg farmer who goes to town to buy eggs for himself at retail prices. Third world economics sell their resources wholesale and buy back finished products retail. Sound uncomfortably familiar? Maybe a global economic wizard for our next Prime Minister is not such a bad idea.
What’s his name again?
Ayre visits troll station number one.Heron in the wind.A bump in the night. The trunk is about four feet in diameter. A few feet further on another old giant lay in exactly the opposite direction. It was a wild and vicious wind.You go first.I wanna think about it.Rose hip. A ghost of summer past.On the writer’s desk as I make notes about what we import. Irish whiskey is awfully tough to compete with.
“Nothing is more deadly to achievement than the belief that effort will not be rewarded, that the world is a bleak and discriminatory place in which only the predatory and the specially preferred can get ahead.” – George Gilder
The favourite. Despite baskets full of squeaky toy’s, this one is Libby dog’s prefered unit. No head, no squeaker, plenty dirty. Love requires no explanation.
Feeling hugely benevolent, I bought a sack of bird seed that was on sale. Mix with hot water, let sit until mushy, then add a little brown sugar, it’s a breakfast of champions. Twenty bucks will keep a person in breakfasts for well over a month. And it’s good for you.
Anyone seen the dog? It’s winter. Bugger off, leave me alone!
Seriously, seeing wee dickie birds coming by the window brings a little cheer to anyone. “Look at the pecker on that one!” There is a decrepit old feeder which I cleaned up a bit and now that birds are coming to my window, they will get a brand new shiney restaurant. Joy to the world! The on-line comfirmation of the order clearly stated “Seed not included.”
Really? Would some folks expect it. “Product not as illustrated.” Perhaps someone would impose a trade tariff or would it be a contravention of some obscure agricultural edict? Then there’s the “Free Willy” bunch who would advocate that feeding wild birds ain’t natural. There is nothing you can do without pissing someone off, especially the self-appointed experts. There is no bottom to politics and in the weeks ahead we will see some new lows. “Seed not included,” perhaps that’d make an interesting bumper sticker.
Bob! He loves swimming, cold and wet be damned. Go Bob!
And so it became Christmas Day. The temperature is just a few degrees above freezing. Rain bucketed down. When I was a scuba diver there was a joke about the rain being too heavy to go diving. It is one of those days. Huge gusts of wind randomly blast the deluge almost horizontally for a few moments. The wet splatters on the windows. Oh lord! I’m so glad it is not snow. Homeless folk huddled in doorways and under bushes and I remember a time when that was me. This wet winter weather is as deadly as the minus forty degree days and nights I knew. It holds a mortal threat which is slower and more painful. Everyone is hunkered down as these winter systems march in off the North Pacific; the next week’s forecast is grim. I sit at my desk and watch as herds of white ponies gallop and turn on the black water of the harbour. Some crash on the reef across the bay. The dogs sleep.
The lowly kale. A food staple for man and beast through the ages. The center part will make soup before next frost.A fishnet maple leaf.Roots. It can get complicated.A southbound flock. I believe they may have been discussing what to do to that solar panel.
The shiny new bird feeder has arrived. It is an instant hit. Tiny birds fly through the rain. If I scaled it up, and it were one of us swooping around out there, each raindrop would be a bucket of ice-cold water. How do those fragile wee creatures survive? The miracles we look at and just don’t see!
I am malingering. This blog is now looking into the mouth of the New Year. The weather is dull, dull, dull and so am I. I have hardly been out and about and there is not enough light to photograph much of anything. I went to the local liquor emporium and bought myself an expensive treat; the birds can’t have all the joys. I once was given a bottle of Irish whiskey called “Teacher’s Tears.” It was nectar. So I went looking. I ended up buying the least expensive bottle of “Writer’s Tears.” It surewasn’t cheap, but worth every drop. The problem is that it is 40% alcohol and is certainly a jug of whammy. Sleep comes easily after a few sips of this brew. Bloody lovely so!
The former MLA’s office is now a massage parlour. Draw your own metaphors.After a soothing massage you may as well go across the street to the pub. It’s warm and dry with good food and beer.A secret garden.
And so the New Year begins. No resolutions. Buckle in, I think it’s going to be a wild ride.
The bleary old fart hisself doing a little bit of bookwork in his lonely writer’s garret. No wonder he’s lonely, just look at the bugger! Photo by Jill.Who’s been sleeping in my bed?
“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life .” – Robin Sharma
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.NO!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!On a winter’s morningAnother winter morningOne 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. The totemThe last dash. They’re still coming.
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!
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.
Frost on the roses.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.
I’ve got my stinkeye on you.Chalice in the mossHave another sip.
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.Crow dawn.
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
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.Soon gone.Nobody home.
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
