Open to the world. Port Renfrew from Pacheedaht Beach. The fog over the Strait of Juan de Fuca can be on the beach in minutes.
It races through the tree tops. Tumbling through our campsite, it appears so thick that you feel able to grab a handful of the vapour in the tiny clouds. But it’s only fog. Even in the brisk onshore wind it invades like a tumbling army. Then it is gone but only to reappear again without obvious explanation. Pacheedaht Beach, near Port Renfrew, is an indigenous people’s sand beach that curves for a couple of miles along a bit of the North Pacific. Surfers love it in winter. We come here often.
A massive amount of huge driftwood bears witness to the size and force of winter storms. Children love the logs, surfers love the waves.Everyone loves the idea of home. Tomorrow’s engineers and architects stir their creative juices.Here it comes againAn empty log barge is towed to a remote logging camp somewhere up the coast. It reminds me of lost days when full-rigged ships were towed north the Cape Beale and then released into steady winds.
August on the West Coast is dreaded by mariners and aviators for its thick fogs. It can form almost instantly and at times lingers for days, holding everyone in a tight fist. Clear blue overhead, yet a thick grey wall lays over the Strait beyond. Miles out there ships blast their horns as required every few minutes. Those bellows boom over the shore.The open curving horizon calls. This old salt and every fibre within him aches to be back out there again with the pulse of the liquid planet beneath my feet. On shore the lazy crash of summer surf mixes with the sound of happy children and their dogs. Bliss.
Bumponimbulous cloud. There have been some interersting skies in recent days.
Thunder, lightening, rain, frightened dogs under the bed, a certainty of wildfires. Over six hours of crashing delight on Saturday night. It rained heavily, a desperately needed bonus. I grew up in a place famous for vicious thunderstorms but I’ve never seen one that lasted a quarter of a day. Across the South Coast there were over 11,000 lightening strikes! Now we’re back to cloudless skies and late summer warm temperatures. Every year there is a weather event that turns the page from summer to a sense of autumn and here we are, already!
Smokey MoonSmokey Dawn
The air is thick with smoke from the three wildfires started during the storm, the afternoon air is thick and sultry. Days like this need to be stored in our memories when the brutal autumn rains are coming sideways. Much like the shit storm from south of the border.
We had a bumper crop of grapes but they aren’t table fruit so we gave them away in exchange for canned salmon.Some of the harvest.
Former presidents are apologizing and explaining why Donny boy is so wrong. American citizenry are embarrassed and begging pardon. The fool is trying to rename Lake Ontario, perhaps reversing the earth’s rotation is next in his considerations. Along history’s path, to be allied with a good neighbour has always been a good thing. We’ve been at it for a very long time. Now we are blessed and cursed to live at the same time as the biggest fool the planet has ever known. Oora! From the shores of Lake Amurica…..I am so happy to stay hidden away on my little island.
There is plenty of industry in other corners of our garden.We are starting to look like tomatos. No worries! Winter’s coming.Wild flower seeds, a gift that keeps on giving all summer and requires only a little water.
This has been a year when there is a constant watch on the likes of Clint and Willy. They are icons of our culture and each hold a piece of nearly everyone’s hearts. In the middle of that old Dolly quietly jiggled her way out the back door. I am not one for the rhinestone cowboy culture but Dolly wrote and sang her way over it all, was a determined philanthropist and a treasured personality. I, for one, will miss her wireless ebulence and simple raw talent.
The leaves beneath this trout are nealy a foot across. Big Daddy and a school of over a dozen hang around the outfall of the local salmon hatchery.I wonder how many folks go by this image and fail to see it. I also have little doubt who the aliens really are.
And so I stumble on into September. There is a vague promise of rain. Cooler temperatures have arrived. It’s a nice time of year in this wonderful corner of the planet. It is drizzling out as I write. Tomorrow will dawn fresh and bright.
Out of the wind in the warm sun with a view that reaches to Japan.
“Should I ever make it to heaven and discover that there are no dogs, I shall ask to be sent where they go.” Will Rogers
“Oh Camilia, you’re breaking my heart” Much too early this camilia flower on the tree in my front yard adds brightness to the winter gloom.
Well Happy, Happy New Year! Ain’t it all a flock of bluebirds flitting about under a triple rainbow!
Can it be the Easter Bunny already? With high grocery prices it may well become someone’s supper.Hurry up and stop eh?
I have just sat outside for a few minutes on my front porch. There is a street lamp outside our hedge. In its cone of light a thick soaking drizzle sheets down in waves. It looks like a Hollywood film set. Humphrey Bogart could appear in a trench coat, collar turned up, fedora low over his eyes. “Gotta light sweetheart?” It has rained steadily all day, there are two more days and nights of this in the forecast. Happily, it’s not snow. Yet.
In the fog of the night.Boooooooooooooooop!No man is an island. Especially when he’s out of rum or firewood.
We’re already well past the middle of January. It seems we’ve already had enough woes thrust upon us to last until next Christmas. “Can’t have gravy all the time” a former boss used to say. I’m not asking for anything but a happy news story or at least an intelligent one. I am happy to not be spending the night in a doorway and I’m glad enough to be here versus so many other places on the planet. We’re doing fine. The only ambitious thing I did today was to walk the dogs on a sopping path in the woods nearby. They were happy to be home again. The hammering rain continues.
My tide guage. In the extreme spring tides just after the New Year, or “King Tides,” I use this dock across the bay as a tide guage. When the ramp is nearly horizontal, it is near high slack. At lowest low tide, in the dark, it will be tending toward the vertical.Sunup 08:00. A gift. Mount Baker, our own volcano about ninety miles away, sits just over the wire.
Finally the weather breaks and we are caught in the chill damp of mid-January. The sky is clear overhead but before the frost has melted away my backyard is in shadows for the rest of the day. Within that gloom I look up to the glittering spectacle of high altitude flights glittering in the azure lofty sky. This nutter is trying to accomplish some landscaping projects while the rain holds off. What other goofs are out there trying to reshape their little world in the middle of winter? Passengers in those aircraft are thinking ahead to tepid seas, warm sandy beaches, palm trees and icy citrus drinks. Bugga!
On winter pond.Winter ducks. Isn’t your ass getting cold?Did a manic winter-bound sun-starved pagan carve this?Aliens. Lenticular clouds over the Strait of Georgia.
Today the bay was shrouded in fog. It lifted and fell, swirled and drifted, twisted and rose then fell again in a heavy bank. The day was dark and forbidding. Late in the afternoon a ship came in to anchor. Its horn thundered wonderfully and continuously in the thick fog. It sounded as if we would soon see the bow looming over our backyards. Finally there came the thunder of the anchor chain as several shots of writhing steel shot out of the hawse pipe. Then silence. Out in the bay, in the night’s fog, a ship and its crew, from some foreign port rests.
WALK? We’re warm, we’re dry and you want us to go out there in the cold? Leasve sleeping dogs lay DAD!Waiting for mom.Four on the limbs.
Somewhere else tonight, coyotes howl under the light of a gibbous moon. A mesquite log shifts in a campfire and little creatures skitter among the brush and cacti. I wish I were there, just for the night. The desert is a splendid place to sleep. Perhaps someone there also wrestles with a troubled mind. What do they worry about? I doubt they think of anyone on a water-logged island somewhere in the North Pacific. And who cares? We’re here; now. That is all there is.
Yippy owooooo.
I love this painting. It adorns the wall in our favourite restaurant in Ladysmith, the ‘Indian Palate.’ The food is fantastic. This unsigned original was purchased by the restaurant owner in India.
“ I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
“Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people.” – Fredrik Backman ‘My Friends’
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.”
In the eye of the hurricane. Or is it between rivers?In the dog park.Clear the park, here comes Jack. It is torture to watch your beloved old dog shuffling stiffly where he used to leap and bound and race. His running gear is shot but there’s still light in his eyes and a frequent smile on his face. He still charms everyone he meets.Wot a morning!
Here I sit, a steaming mug of coffee beside me as I begin to write. I am in my camper, the “Hemoth”, in a friend’s backyard on Gabriola Island, visiting old haunts and friends. This is yet another blog in which I mention the rain. The next “Atmospheric River” arrived in the night. The rain drums a wild fandango on the camper roof. I lay up in the bed snug and warm, cozy in the result of all my efforts. The new mattress is very fine, the furnace works like a good one should. I looked out through the now not-leaking windows at the thin grey dawn and went to the brand-new toilet. Then it was time to light the new-used galley stove and perk a pot of coffee. My day can begin. Sheer decadence!
Another river arrives. Day shift at the toilet paper factory.Lemon Soup.
Storm surge. Storm wind out on the open strait pushes the high tide even higher in Degnen Bay on Gabriola Island.
This island was my home for a few years. I worked in the local shipyard and have wonderful stories, not all happy, about what I can look back on as the end of an era. The restaurant has burned down, the shipyard is closed, any hope of reviving the wooden boat school is long-lost. Rumours of an ancient Indian curse on Silva Bay ring true. I’ll meander around the island and then hopefully catch a ferry back to the big island. There’s been a crewing problem on the ferry due to a shortage of Covid-vaccinated personnel and several sailing have been cancelled. Like a turtle with its home on its back I’ll be fine, the old man who lived in an egg.
Home again, checking my email, I come upon the following ad from someone selling insurance. “Burial coverage that lasts a lifetime.” It’s a lugubrious mix of words which can be interpreted a few different ways. I wonder if the ad-writer woke up in the middle of the night realizing their gaff. “We’ll cover your ass.” “Out of luck, you’re dead.” It will be hard pulling your foot out of that one. Thanks for the humour!
Sometimes the gods send you an angel. Today I was tinkering on the ‘Hemoth’ where it sits in our storage yard on the back alley. I was about to drive away when a senior in their small enclosed electric scooter trundled up the alley, effectively blocking my exit. I sat and waited, allowing them time to clear the alley without my imposition behind them. Finally I idled up the alley as slowly as I could but there was the little red cart blocking the route. I sat mumblefluxing to myself about how to deal with the situation. The occupant sat inside the cart’s plastic enclosure peering back at me as if she wanted me to pass her. Finally she dismounted and came back to the truck. She needed help. Her battery was dead and she asked if I could tow her home to a senior’s housing complex two blocks away. Of course I would.
I secured a stout thirty foot marine mooring line to the front of her tiny buggy and we set off as slowly as I could. Up the hill, out onto the street, around another corner, further up the hill, around another corner. We arrived without mishap. I then pushed the cart by hand as she steered the remaining distance to her parking spot at her front door. All of the dark imaginings about what could have gone wrong on our wee jaunt vaporized as she introduced herself. Loriki was a very old tiny Japanese lady who was utterly charming. Jack was eager to meet her which in itself is a huge accolade. I gained a friend and feel blessed to have lent her a hand. Meeting her made my day. And to think how I could have bulled my way past her and left her to fate.
Kindness is a selfish thing, your reward is always bigger than your offering. I keep smiling at the image of my big lurching camper truck towing this lady up the street at the end of a long rope. There’s a cartoon there.
Two days since I began this blog the lid was jacked off another grim grey dawn. Another atmospheric river flows over us and rain pizzles down without stop. Jack’s outdoor water dish is full and overflowing yet again. As a former pilot from the old days when meteorology was a serious subject (right behind learning Morse Code) I was required to know about warm and cold fronts, trowels, troughs, high and low pressure systems, cloud types and what they meant in forecasting, isobars and dew points. Never among all that terminology did the term “atmospheric river” appear. It seemed logical that we knew how to look at a barometer and thermometer and what sort of clouds were blowing which way, then be able to predict what the weather was up to. Now we press a button and it is instantly available and explained. We can also turn on the tely and let some young nubile in a tight dress verbally machine gun a continuous sentence about atmospheric rivers. She’ll use words like “Prowr” and other illiteracies. Until recently, her term for “Atmospheric River” was “Pineapple Express.” I guess folks just aren’t content with the twelve month predictions in the Farmer’s Almanac anymore. And do you remember the catgut barometer where the little Swiss milkmaid came out of a tiny Alpine cabin for fair weather and the old man came out for the shit days? Yeah, I guess I AM that old.
Walkabout on a fine morning. The last of the fog burns off over downtown Ladysmith.Allegedly the nicest main street in Canada!Perhaps it is now…with a new public washroom. It cost us $100,000. and there are days I would have paid that! I like to think that my letters to the editor helped promote this notion of civilization.It has been a very long time since I’ve gone to a barkeeper to rent a room.Not exactly the Hilton, but I’ll bet there are a lot of stories from the years behind that door.Two doors down from the cat. Children love the old machinery along our main street.
Next day another atmospheric river is meandering overhead. Through the day the rain steadily increases in volume and after nightfall, about 4:30 pm, a fog begins to rise. I need to nip down to the grocery story, the main street is resplendent in Christmas lights. The usual number of moron motorists insist on driving around with retina-burning hi-beam headlights. I am half-blinded as I creep through the four-way stop. Suddenly, immediately in front of the car’s hood, a black-clad, black umbrella toting pedestrian has appeared. How she got out there from the curb is stunning. Yes, I stopped in time. I gave her my best old sailor roar but she was adamant about her rights. I’ve said it before and damnit I’ll say it again. We see it daily on our roads. We have devolved to the point where the primal instinct, fear, which has kept our species alive for a very long time, has eroded severely for many people. Perhaps there is a FEAR App. for that ubiquitous cell phone. Beep, beep, termination imminent!
Must be a relative. I had to grab a shot of this. note the new driver decal and the crawl-through window in the back.See the resemblance?
The premium app allows you to choose a celebrity warning voice. How about Porky Pig? “Tha, tha, that’s all folks!”
Black Friday Weekend huh?
Sunday morning, the rain continues. Monday, it’s stopped for a while. Jack and I are going for a walk.
Fredfessions :
Three blogs back I made the heinous error of describing the Farsi language as Parsi. Just one letter out but it is like describing Chinese as Japanese. I owe an apology to a very large ethnic group.
My second brainfart (to which I’ll admit) came today when an email arrived to which I stupidly responded. It was a scam. Now I am having to undo my knee-jerk foolishness. It is a time of year when we are all probably expecting a package and with current shipping issues, a damaged label seemed quite possible. They needed $3 to relabel and redirect the package. The scam really comes when you’ve given them a credit card number which is then reported to be not working and do you have another one you could use? Dumbo finally smelled the coffee and reported his stupidity. A new credit card is in the mail. I know, I know …as smart as he looks! You’ve been warned. Interestingly within hours, several ‘stranded package’ scams appeared. Scams must work, they keep coming. I’m not the only fool out there.
Looks convincing, right? Especially when you’re waiting for an overdue parcel. I’m smarter now!Another ‘atmospheric river’ arrives. Actually, the river is a constant, flowing eternally as the planet turns. Sometimes there’s some junk in the water. The app you see is windy.com. It’s free to download.Despite wind, rain, and frost there’s a little beauty still sheltering in the thickets.Hang in there.
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” Plato
This photo says it all. Thank the gods it is not snow!Water Cress. The ditch in the alley above the house. “He drowned twenty feet above his roof.”
The rain pulsed down. For some strange reason I thought of some horrific sacrifical beast which bleeding horrifically and gasping with gusting, dying breaths. The tiny coastal town also lay bleeding and gasping. Chemainus, once a lumbering and fishing centre, had turned desperately to tourism when industry failed. Now it was a retirement town. Its houses sat small and mostly well-kept on tidy streets which undulated up the hills away from the sea. In a bid to attract tourist trade, tributes to the town’s early history and first nations heritage were generously displayed around the downtown. Block-long murals, now fading, and sculptures of native figures, now burdened with moss and slime, were everywhere.
On one side street, a small restaurant, favoured by local seniors, unchanged for decades, sat in the rain. Next door the visage of a local timber baron glared down from a multi-story mural. Aromas of good and simple food escaped into the chill dampness. There was a handicap parking spot immediately in front of the door. On Sunday afternoon, the first nightfall since the clocks had been turned back for the winter ahead, the door briefly opened and amber light spilled out to reflect on the puddles in the street. Inside there were two tables available, all the rest were full. We took the small one by the window. A large, elderly woman rammed her wheel chair fiercely into the other setting and planted herself as if to stake out the other seven chairs around her. Her body and her voice trembled with a dreadful palsy but undaunted she imposed a loud conversation with the unfortunates at the table next to her.
The morning before the rain began.Baldwin behind glass. A municipal treasure, this old Baldwin logging locomotive is stored out of harm’s way…and public view.
It was the sort of place which was decorated with amateur oil paintings of landscapes painted on old saw blades. The one nailed over our table showed a crude depiction of prairie grain elevators poised between forest and rolling fields. Although the ocean lay two blocks away no nautical nostalgia was evident. There was a shelf filled with home-made jams for sale. A sign solicited any available canning jars. The little restaurant was a time machine into decades past.
An old man, grossly obese, sat across from us. His flabby white thighs burst out of his too-short soccer shorts, a pair of white knee-high socks added to the incongruity of his corpulence presented in an athletic costume. He sat watching his fellow patrons until finally he waddled off out into the spattering wet. More cars fitted themselves into the handicap spot. Watching those various lurching gymnastics was clearly prime entertainment.
A week later the rain continues to drum down. A forecast is up for a biblical deluge to sweep over us, 75mm in less than 48 hours. We are wearily resolved to a watery fate. In Ladysmith, the next town up the abandoned railway, I stopped at a local restaurant to pick up some take-out food. Incredibly, into that place shuffled the same old fat man from Chemainus. He wore the same costume in Chemainus. I’d recognize those wattles anywhere.
In the early morning rain… Despite the deluge the communal faithful turned out to to put up Christmas lights. Bless them everyone, hopefully there were big bowls of hot butter rum at the end of their gambit.
Meanwhile the rhetoric about the Glasgow environmental conference thinly sputters to its next stage of incessant review. It’ll go on for months. Nearly every journalist presents themselves as an eco-expert while the participants, from Greta to Joe Biden continue to blither on. When you need a long parade of vehicles (85) and a squadron of transport aircraft to go save the world a few questions tend to rise. Now everyone who hoped to be seen at the conference heads self-righteously homeward in a storm of jet exhaust. Frankly I think the entire effort made as much sense as mufflers on a Tesla.
Yes there is a global warming trend, just as there have been many before in the history of this planet going back long before the human parasite showed up. We are contributing to the effect, but let’s not be so arrogant as to claim to be the exclusive cause of it. We will not begin to solve any issue so long as we remain determined to bullshit ourselves. Let’s take a look in the mirror and then consider what we can do personally within our own sphere of being. Resolving any issue is not about what someone else should do. Got that, Greta and friends?
Bambi Lane. In Oak Bay, where one risks being trampled by an urban deer.I joked about the town deer wearing Gucci wrist watches. There are two local factions, one to cull the deer and one to save them. Think of all the places on earth where they’d love to have this problem.
Meanwhile our local forecast of gloom is proving accurate. The rain is pounding on the skylight like Charlie Watts is up there. Two months ago everyone was gasping in a summer-long heat wave. Only four or five months of winter ahead. Bugga! It has nothing to do with enviro-disaster, it is simply November on Vancouver Island. The rain has been falling since Friday evening and is forecast to ease tomorrow afternoon. Then there will be a mere 24% chance of rain. Think about that.
Rain dogs. After our plod in the wet, we came home to find an email from a friend with the following photo attached.I don’t like Cabo but…I’ll be right down. Photo credit: Ann & Randy
Two quotes I’ve stumbled across this afternoon:
“I’m not getting old, I’m evolving.” Keith Richards
“I ain’t draft dodging. I ain’t burning no flag. I ain’t running to Canada. I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for four or five more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people.
“If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for me right here at home. “
– Muhammad Ali
I can barely recall taking this image but such a moment will come again..
The dawn on the day in question. There were no gaily frolicking dolphins, it was even too wet for them.
Driving in the coastal morning dark can be hell. During a hard rain the sucking gloom becomes a black hole, like the inside of a bear. The wet slashes down and sticks to the windshield like thin, cold oil. It will not wipe away. Some other cars hurtle madly past on the lemming highway and promptly vanish as if sucked into a celestial black hole. Headlights in the spray become a blinding, impenetrable fog. Yet we arrived safely. I walked into the glare of the Duke Point ferry terminal.
But sometimes a day becomes a celebration of life, like it or not. It can happen even when the weather is apocalyptic. The day I’m writing about was one of those doomy days in New Westminster. The rain had persisted all the way from Vancouver Island. Thick heavy dark clouds scudded overhead only fifty feet up. The incessant cold rain hammered down and bounced back knee-high, chilling wet and bloody miserable. Full daylight never appeared.
My old truck and camper, now named the “Hemoth” is a dreadful daily driver. Lurching around town is a challenge and finding a place to park is never fun. Angle parking on main street is risky business. The truck, with dual rear-wheels is useless on wet hills without the weight of the camper and I want to keep the two together as a single unit ready to go south at the first possible moment. Its monster diesel engine likes to warm up and do some work, which can’t happen putting only a few blocks at a time. I don’t have enough money to get away at the moment so I decided to acquire a cheap “Winter beater.”
Beater World with dozens more inside. There was no razzle dazzle or any expensive suits, just simple decency and integrity.
I’d been questing a rough-road capable scooter but they’re incredibly overpriced, even with high mileage. For a few dollars more one can buy a new one. So I thought I’d apply that same budget to a small used automobile. Mission impossible. During my quest, I did discover a Rolls Royce SUV, (a mere $450,000.) just the ticket to drive up the mountain in hope of finding a grouse for supper, cheap meat old chap!
Eventually I found a vehicle for my pittance and off I went into the rain of the back waters of an old industrial park in New Westminster. There was a labryinth of twisting streets leading onto the far end of Lulu Island in the Fraser River. Even when the taxi arrived it took a minute to realize I was in the right place. It was a yard jammed with cars, no more than six inches apart. In the rain, you could not walk between the dripping fenders without soon becoming soaked. Still the folks were all congenial and I sensed that they operated with a rare integrity.
Everyone works together with a rare feel of harmony. There is an exotic air to the place, in part because the language they speak among themselves is Parsi which fascinated me. All seem truly interested in the customer’s best interests. Every vehicle I wanted to see was parked in a back row so there were other cars to move around first which required even more shuffling to find room to put them. And, of course, every vehicle needed its battery boosted. The prices were fair, there were no rip-off documentation fees and there was no argument when the vehicle I came to see proved to have too many problems. In fact the owner offered me a very fair price on another vehicle, which I ended up buying. It is an innocuous little silver car with plenty of miles but it runs well and was driveable without any repairs needed. My experience was quite pleasant and not at all like a “Big Slick” operation most of us have known. Some folks still understand the ‘golden rule’ and I can confidently recommend this place to anyone.
I’ll go back there again and heartily recommend Tala Auto Select if you need a low-price vehicle. You’ll find them online. By the way, should it matter to you, there was a large inventory of assorted BMWs and a large private collection stored inside. That is guarded by five feisty little dogs.
An oasis in the rain.Going fast. I thought I should take a photo before I inhaled the whole thing. There was no need for supper.
Next door to this business is Rozzini’s Restaurant. They advertise an Italian, Greek and Indian menu. Their fare is superb, the prices are great, the service was grand. They’re online too and well worth the out-of-the-way drive for a positively unique experience. I was at the ferry terminal and sailing back to Vancouver Island before evening darkness fell, my belly full of roast lamb. The rain never stopped.
I should also mention that during weekdays, seniors travel on BC Ferries for free. I walked off the ferry, stepped right onto a bus and one transfer later I found myself at the Scott Road Station, in less than an hour from the ferry, for the lofty sum of $3. Bitch all you want, we’re doing fine. This old grump is truly pleased with all my experiences on Coastal BC public transit systems.
As I drove back to the ferry that afternoon, in the weaving traffic and endless rain, I realized that for the same money I could be out there wobbling along on a used scooter, raincoat flapping next to some cement truck’s wheels. Yep, it was a good day. Now all I have to learn is how to find such an ordinary little car where I left it in a big parking lot.
A morning with better weather…our local dog park.Thazzal for now folks. The wind and the rain are beating the leaves from the trees.Jack has always loved little boats. He did not leave this piece of flotsam easily.A golden pond.
Fish rise within the reflections.They’re baaack!A never-ending drama that is never diminished in wonder when the salmon return each year.Autumn low tideDogpatch, nothing ever changes. Abandoned boathouse and sailboat beside old pilings that I think would make a grand base for a new marine pub.An explanation among the garbage on the beach.Halloween roseNovember SuckleA local blueberry farm. It’s for sale.SolitudeThe municipal hanging treeNo-one could say when it began but slowly an ancient castle emerged from the ground in the forest.The ‘Swell.’ This beautiful old wooden tug was launched in 1903 as the last steam-powered tug built on the BC Coast. I remember talking to her on the VHF through the years from various tugboat wheelhouses when she still worked as a Tug for Westview Dredge and Dock. After an extensive rebuild and refit she reappeared as she looks now, a fabulous mobile fishing lodge.
Electric cars aren’t pollution-free; they have to get their energy from somewhere.
I’ve often lived where the howl of wolves or coyotes is a regular sound. This morning I sit writing while waiting for the coffee to perk as early dawn softly filters through the trees. The coyotes are there. I love their sounds. Others may curse them but for me it is a song of wildness and freedom that is very comforting. I’m up early so I can beat the heat. In the afternoon the stifling interior of the shelter where I work in a welter of dust and itchy fibreglass is unbearable. Now I sit wearing a jacket. It’s chilly, for now.
A secretIndelible boyhood memoriesMore childhood memories in the making
Tonight I’m exhausted and feeling like an old man. Somedays it seems extra stifling and tonight, in addition to the dust there is a heavy acrid tang of wildfire smoke as well as a warm and fuzzy aroma from a broken fitting in the septic field. It’s a little taste of hell. Still, we’re doing fine and when I hear stories of more Covid19 outbreaks, lockdowns, droughts, floods and military actions around the world, I know we’re OK. I also am happy to report that my old camper now has a functional water heater. It certainly seems decadent to get hot water out of a tap after many months of heating it in a kettle.
I can also report that due to my contribution, someone in Cranbrook is waking up in clean underwear between clean sheets. I took my laundry to town yesterday and it was promptly stolen from the dryer and replaced mysteriously with someone else’s. The price of replacement bedding and clothing is stellar. I found a few items in the thrift stores and then the box stores but I still paid a small ransom to replace my rags. Although we are in the heat of mid-summer, trying to find summer togs was almost hopeless and so somewhere there may go a naked clown. I’ve got his costume. How about jungle camouflage and plaid? I did find some great deals on parkas! *
My tenure here has descended into a sort of madness which I will not discuss but at least now I’m now doing the work I came to do. I’m fixing boats for my duration here and then I’ll be going on to new adventures. So it’s warm drinking water and tepid beer with dreams of palm trees and cactus. I’ve been pre-conditioned.
On Sunday night I sat outside with the computer when a vicious sou’west wind began to blow. I had sat like an old, panting dog and that wind felt so very good. Pine needles and cones rattled down, then the wind eased as quickly as it had begun. Minutes later a solitary raindrop fell on my bare back; then another. A gentle warm rain began and I sat in bliss with the rain on my skin. I considered running naked in the rain and then I saw headlines in my imagination about the sighting of a geriatric sasquatch. So I just sat and savoured every spatter of moisture on my skin. So simple, so pleasant! I came inside and prepared for bed. The air was cool and sweet and dust-free. I checked the temperature, it was down to 27º C. It almost felt chilly! G’night.
Morning dawns with a low muggy overcast. August 2nd, almost halfway through summer. A first vehicle comes crunching down the gravel road above this little community. Another day begins.
DryTired old loaders still earning their way. That’s me on the left helping out in a local gravel pit.Unbelievably I used to sell this type of loader in the early 80sFifty-plus and still working. This old GMC truck has a Caterpillar diesel engine. If it can be started it’ll work all day.Creature comforts, 1970 style. Now just stick the orange wire in here and the blue and pink one there, it should go.
* Astriks
One of my heroes of fifty years ago was a character named Charlie Farquharson who was played by CBC’s Don Harron. This pithy and earthy character wrote a book and produced calendars often punctuated with Astriks as above. They were followed by “feetnotes” and so here are my ass tricks. This morning a co-worker arrived with an armload of folded laundry. Within the stack was most of the laundry I thought had been “stolen”. I was gobsmacked. What the hell? It seemed like a very weird dream. I know I had removed it from the washer and stuffed it into my laundry bag. I used the washroom next door then picked up my bag, tossed it into my truck and headed for town. All I could puzzle out was that some well-intended soul, trying to be helpful, somehow put the right stuff in the wrong bag. Dunno, dunno! That would explain why there was strange laundry in the machine at the laundromat in town and why the review of surveillance video showed no-one tampering with anything. Damn this is confusing. If any four-legged creature wandered out of the woods and began talking to me, I don’t think I’d be at all surprised. Weird! The latest word is that this has happened to other folks here. Apparently we have a prankster. Now I have to go back to that town laundromat and try to retrieve the laundry that had been left there. Good grief! And here I am writing a blog about laundry. Good grief again.
Mid-summer boysWho me?Let”s hoof it!There…hidden.Don’t wiggle your ears, no-one will see you.Spring twins. big and healthy and being weaned.Ahhh All the deer in these phots are mule deer. Just after this photo a moron on a jet ski charged this pair and chased them off.The upstream tack. Sailing close-hauled up the Kootenay River.
“You see, back when we were all young kids we had these things called imaginations. Some of us still have ’em, and we control our lives much the same way we ruled over our imaginary childhood kingdoms.”
Abstracto! It’s just some faded paint on a car fender but eye-catching none-the-less.
Friday the 13th. The weather forecast shows the date and a thick grey cloud with heavy raindrops. That seems about right. At the moment however there is an attempt at a sun rise. A thin brassy light reflects from the neighbour’s windows and that damned insidious street cleaning machine is out there growling away again. It’s on a fourth pass now. The wind will blow everything back in short order. A day later the weather is the same with a cold rain in a gusting wind like only it can in November. By the following Tuesday when I finally post this, not a lot has changed.
There are two leaks in the camper which have eluded me despite all my attempts to find and cure them. All that was left to do was to remove the inside panelling and insulation. What the hell? There was some faulty wiring to trace as well. Between the inner skin and the outer I found some soggy insulation. I’ve removed it. The taking apart is done…I hope. It has rained sporadically for the past few days, the kind of cold rain that can leak into anything. I just checked; there is no sign of moisture! Grrr! I knew of course that this little old box would require some attentions but I had no intention for it to become a career. To keep things in perspective I know that there are plenty of people who’d love to have this one as a home, leaks and all.
I wonder what the weather is like in the desert today? The leak project.Aha! That tiny pinprick of light is the great dull light of the rainy outdoors shining through. The wood frame is good so patch and go is the order of the day. The piece of metal above the beam is galvanized steel which is the source of electrolysis. It may be no warmer or dryer in the woods but I prefer being out there.
I managed to strip out the final bit of forward interior in perfect co-ordination with a horrific rain storm which went on and on. The problem is now that the ambient humidity inside is so high that condensation forms instantly on the bare cold metal skin. Still I tracked down, or up, the source of ingressing water. In one corner just below the roof I found a mysterious cluster of tiny pinholes. I’ve concluded the cause is electrolysis, something I’m all too familiar with in boats. When dissimilar metals are placed in contact they begin to produce minute electrical currents known as a galvanic action. Add an electrolyte like water and an insidious corrosion occurs. Introduce an electrical current and things become really weird. What I found was that when the camper had been built small galvanized pieces of metal had been used to reinforce corners of the frame. So, combine thin aluminum, steel, zinc, 12 volt wiring, possibly lead-based paint, 40 years of time and copious rain. Bzzzt! Still learning after all these years!”
Just off the main street in Ladysmith sits an old building just behind our tiny museum which is a remnant from the town’s rustic past. It is flat-roofed and covered with a faux brick heavy tarred material which I recall was named ‘Insul-brick.’ It was an old store of some sort and for a long time displayed a faded sign that said ‘Food Bank.’ It has been boarded up for a very long time. On one corner of the building is a small porch built into the structure. A homeless person moved into that space and set up camp under a green tarp. They have been evicted and the empty porch is now caged in. A tent has been erected in the back of the soggy lot.
Don’t fence me out. Plan B is in the background. Plan C is under the bridge, if there’s any space left. Someone is always in a worse situation. The siding is called insulbrick.
If I could wish myself into a larger fibreglass camper I would donate this one to someone who needs a shelter. In the meantime I’ll keep this old tin and stick box as a sort of earthquake plan. Isn’t that all we need now in winter on top of Covid?
Living behind the waterfall. My neighbour’s overflowing rain gutter. It is a low-quality photo taken by mobile phone on a very dark afternoon. That’s a hummingbird sitting on the feeder. Imagine flying around in weather when each pelting raindrop is nearly half your body size and three times its weight.
I’ve just returned from a quick trip to a building supply store. As I drove out through the parking lot a character leapt in front of me oblivious to all except to be fumbling with their covid mask and text messaging in hand. I managed to stop in time; they never noticed. What’s that term? “Eyes wide shut.” We’ve even abandoned the primal self-preserving instinct of fear. “The Lemming Syndrome.” I’ll get back into my box.
Whodathunk? Ten months ago I could not have believed I’d ever be seen looking like this. With a fierce second wave of Covid washing over us it seems a respectful thing to do toward my fellows. Masks are designed to prevent a person from spreading their own germs and maybe help keep you safe from others…and to prevent you from licking door handles!
“I’ve decided that a sign of aging is losing the ability to be amazed. That amazes me.”
Halloween blue moon over Sayward Junction. A nautical superstition is to never begin a voyage on a Friday. We did.Hoomak Lake dawn. A placid lake betrays the ongoing business of the North island highway and the rest area where we spent a long night. The traffic never stopped.End of the road. A view northward from Port Hardy to the central coast and all points beyond. I miss my boat!
These breathtaking copper panels adorn the lobby of the new Kwa’lilas Hotel in Port Hardy. A venture of the local Kwakiutl First Nations the hotel is an elegant example of Neo-Westcoast architecture. It alone made my drive worthwhile. Each panel is about six feet tall and the mural portrays the history and culture of these people.
I’m starting this with the rain drumming on the metal roof of the camper. It has slowed enough for the moment to allow me to hear individual drops. This morning I first awoke to hear the wind roaring in the tree tops hundreds of feet above me. The din was like a passing high-speed train. The trees are massive ancient Sitka Spruce, already venerable when the first of us Caucasians stumbled into these swamps hundreds of years ago. The rain now crashes down again in barrel-sized dollops. Our shelter shudders under the assault. I worried about a tree falling on us but realized they had withstood far worse weather in the hundreds of years they had grown here. Many of the bases are more than ten feet across. It will take more than my dark karma to bring one of these down. The notion of a crackling campfire is a mad fantasy.
Finally! The objective after over seventy kilometers of rough muddy logging roads and a long walk. San Joseph Bay on the west side of Vancouver Island.Jack galloped ahead as if he were suddenly ten years younger. The trek back was hell but he was determined to do it all on his own.He trotted across the sand to inspect this creature emerging from the icy sea. It had no pockets or treats. Surfers pack their gear the entire distance of over 2.6 km in and then back out after a day in the water.Mystery flotsam. How did this ball of copper wire manage to end up here?A roll of bull kelp not to be confused with a load of bull.Hawaii next stop. There are three surfers out there. What a way to celebrate being alive and young!And then the reluctant turn back.There is magic everywhere and the coastal rainforest seems filled with the presence of many spirits.They lurk overhead.They reach out as if to draw you into their boggy world.There is magic under every root.This beauty was about twenty centimetres tallBerry niceThe entire ecosystem depends on massive amounts of moisture. At times it seems one can reach out and wring a handful of water from the very air.Beneath giant’s feet. The wind thundered in their tops a few hundred feet up.Whoosh! Beside the camp spot. There was no dry firewood.The watcher of Nahwitti LakeThe whole damned downtown. Holberg once had upwards of 3000 people living in housing built on log rafts. It was the largest floating community in North America. It is still an operational logging center.
We arrived the day before in pristine weather. I’d wanted to find a place called Palmerston Bay but on arrival discovered a simple ending of a logging road. The slippery scramble down and back from a rocky, surf-bashed shoreline would have been too much for old Jack and so we retreated back the way we had come. The described “recreation site” proved to merely be a wider spot in a muddy trail surrounded by old logging devastation, not a place to cheer my soul. Eventually we arrived at San Joseph Bay. I hadn’t been there for over thirty years and recall being able to drive almost to the beach. Could my memory be wrong? The developments since made by the Provincial Parks people are impressive. Their pathways are like narrow highways and meander through the rain forest in a circuitous route which is far longer than I recall. It is a beautiful walk and Jack bounded ahead, full of enthusiasm for what lay around each corner ahead. I thought I’d have to carry him back but how could I impose on his joy? He was exhausted on the return walk but soldiered along determined to stay on his own pins one staggering step at a time. What an amazing character! After a long sleep he seems none the worse for wear and is, as always, eager for the next adventure.
Near Holberg is Vancouver Island’s first wind farm. In a traveller’s stop in Port Hardy, a defunct turbine blade is a grand curiosity. Take a lunch if you’re walking to the other end. This massive chunk of carbon fibre is not recyclable and consumed massive amounts of toxic substances when it was manufactured. There are some obvious green questions about the hundreds of thousands of these machines around the world: Eco-politics versus common sense.Where the Marble River drains out of Lake Alice. Free, clean constant energy, no dams or exotic plastics required.I remember when this engine was still working as a back-up for the diesel locomotives and to haul eco-tourists out to show them active logging operations. It seems sad to see the logging locomotive relegated to being a lawn ornament in the venerable logging community of Woss.Old 113 is a mere 100 years old and probably still capable of earning her keep.This photo of her at work in 1944 is how I remember seeing her in the early 90s. I’d love to hear the whistle echoing up a valley again. How fortunate to at least have the memory.
The next night we are well on our way toward home. The rain is incessant so again I sit with Jack in our little box. The winter weather has certainly made it seem much smaller when forced into confinement. Jack is cuddled against me as I sit on the edge of the bed and write. The blasting rain has revealed leaks which will, of course, be addressed once home. It is damp enough for the wallpaper to be separating for the inside panels. I curse myself for my restless nature and being up here in these conditions. Of course I look forward to going to drier country so these test runs are necessary to ensure there are no nasty surprises ahead. Tonight we sit fifty feet from the high water mark on Johnstone Strait. The wind and rain are increasing again but we are warm and dry with full tummies. Who could ask for more?
“Right then, that’s being the welcoming party done with. Let’s find a dry spot for the night, it’s going to be a wet one.” This doe and two very healthy fawns seemed very tame when we arrived at Elk Bay on Johnstone Strait.The next morning. The rain eased for a little while but the rising puddle made it obvious, that along with mechanical problems, it was time to pack up and reload for the next adventure.Even this former logger was appalled by such a devastated clearcut.
Driving southward, trees with leaves began to appear and now back in Ladysmith it seems we’ve regained a month. Only two and a half degrees of latitude on an island of rugged mountainous shorelines makes a huge difference. This massive rock angles out into the North Pacific and catches hell from a very long way off. Wintry wind and rain have followed us home but as soon as repairs are made to truck and the old man box, Jack and I will be off to some local remote nook. Covid may have us trapped here, but I know the Snowbird flocks have filled every possible private campground on the island. It’s clearly a great place to be, especially with a civil war looming just south of the border.
Splendour in the grass at the edge of the sea.The tide in the raincoast jungle. It is flooding and ebbing just as it has for a very long time. Not a friendly place for humans, it is an amazing ecosystem.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ― Albert Einstein
Isn’t it interesting how some nondescript sight, sound or aroma can trigger a memory long-buried? It happened to me a few evenings ago. I was tinkering on my little trailer as the day began to cool and when I looked up, this is what I saw. I have been doodling landscapes all my life and have always sketched this sort of sky in the background.
Painted sky, without clipper ship.
The cloud shapes and colours took me back well over sixty years. A happy memory of my childhood was when my father would take he and I off on a day-trip. Off we’d go with his ubiquitous military canvas gas mask bag slung over his shoulder. I’ve no idea what he carried in it but by today’s standards it was a way-too-cool man purse. He was the quintessential British trainspotter and so we usually began these trips with a train ride into Toronto. Trains meant rail yards which were his absolute delight. Steam locomotives were fast-disappearing in the late 50s and dad would almost wet himself when we saw one chuffing out clouds of steam and sooty smoke. Yep, that was over sixty years ago!
Look up!Good to the last gasp. An hour later a horrific lightning storm crackled across Southern BC.
Rail yards are often built near waterfronts for obvious reasons and one day that’s where we ended up. There were rows of lake freighters moored near the grain elevators and nestled somewhere in the heart of it all was a small working man’s cafe. All I can remember is a vague recollection of a clock advertising Player’s Navy Cut Cigarettes. There was an image of a bearded naval rating that implied real men smoked. That old salty dog sold a lot of cigarettes; I don’t know how many people he killed. Clearly remembered of that distant moment is a large framed painting of a full-rigged clipper ship sailing before a glorious sunset just like the one pictured here. She heeled slightly to the wind with all her sails set, stuns’ls, t’gallants, everything she could carry was up and billowing in the rich red-gold of a sunset just like tonight. The white bone in her teeth reflected the light of perfection. I suspect that image did a lot to inspire me toward my lifelong nautical persuasions. Could something that fleeting and subtle influence the course of someone’s entire existence? I suspect so.
Hero trade mark Imperial Tobacco
A few days later I’m finishing this blog as rain patters on the skylight above my desk. It’s lovely! We need it. The forests are bone-dry and our streams are getting dusty.
Original paint! 1962ish I think. I was ten years old when this Ford Falcon was new. It’s in much better condition. It came as a compact car a few years after the end of the steam era. Seatbelts, airbags, child restraints, even radial tires were still in the future. It appeared in our parking lot and was a delight to see.
Anyone who lives on this island is fortunate indeed. What is left of California burns up and wildfires rage in our interior. In the wake of those clouds I photographed a spectacular lightning storm raged across the southern province. We won’t get all the rain we need but it is all a help as summer evolves with shortening days and cooler temperatures.
Dogs know no bounds about size, colour, gender, age or owner. Jack appeared sympathetic about the leash.
Walking with Jack in the heat of yesterday afternoon crickets were chirping their summer song and the tang of fermenting blackberries on the vine was in the air. As the berries become over-ripe they begin to ferment in the hot sun. Wasps become drunk on that nectar and buzz harmlessly but crazily in front of your face. There’ll be plenty of berries for several weeks yet. Blackberries have evolved to bloom sequentially and produce fruit over an ongoing calendar. There’s a bumper crop this year with more than plenty for everyone. Just remember to harvest your berries beyond the watery radius of dogs and old men.
Yet two wo days later, the sky is clear again. It is 10°C outside at the moment. Yep, it’s coming.
The primal old fart urbanite sitting with morning coffee by the facsimile campfire. photo by JillWet spots. The photo says it all.
“There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.”
