Your funnel’s rusty. Detail of an old steam locomotive in Nearby Duncan.
I watched part of the televised Provincial political leader’s debate. Ho hum! Frankly if those characters are the best we can do for leadership, we’re screwed. I shut off the television in despair. Cream may rise to the top, so does scum. What more is there to say? Life goes on regardless of who is in the saddle. I am not at all politically astute but I’ve been watching the game for a lifetime. I’ve learned that seldom does a candidate get elected. It is usually about someone being voted out. I have also come to believe that it is usually those who do not vote who decide our political future.
Other countries have massive violent protests for the basic right to vote freely and without intimidation or corruption. They die for that freedom. We live in such a broad comfort zone that many of us can’t even be bothered to participate in the democratic process. Today is the first chance to vote in the advanced poll. I’ll be there, if only to renew my license to bitch.
You’re scaring me! So tempting but I just can’t be sure which is safe.I’m sure that some readers have had enough fungal photos. They fascinate me obviously and are within my range at the moment.Crusing the fast fungus food strip.
It is moving time. The burly men will arrive in a week. We’ve busy packing boxes until the place is stacked nearly to the ceiling. Where the hell did we have it all squirrelled away? What did we use it for? Do we need it? Why are we determined to hang onto to crap we didn’t even know we had? I’ve written essays about owning “stuff” and here we are hard at it. I’ve been busy building fences for our dogs at the new home. I’ve also been hauling over ancillary possessions that can sit out in the rain. Fortunately the previous owner has graciously allowed me to do that and also given me access to the workshop to store the tools I need.
I’ve been fighting issues with chronic fatigue so I’m most grateful to have this opportunity to do important things, but at my speed. There is no way we’d have accomplished the change of nests within the tiny time window allowed before we had to be completely moved out. I watch the evening TV news and realize that a Palestinian or a Ukrainian would love to have my problems. There are millions out there who can’t even imagine a conundrum such as I have. A place to crawl under a tarp and a drink of water for their children is a high hope. And I’m pissed off that at two in the morning I can’t sleep.
A half-inch wide ball of wonder.New blooms in October.
I did go and vote today. The line of voters was long, apparently all day. It kept moving and more kept coming. What a wonderful thing to see such communal enthusiasm! It is said that change only occurs when the fear of the future is exceeded by the pain of the moment. Has the price of living here finally got our wheels turning? We’ll soon know. At these words a volley of fireworks has just broken out on the street. It’s the revolution!
You’re new in town. Nice textures!Shroomy way.A mid-fifties Studebaker coupe. So ugly it’s beautiful.Trent River, Vancouver Island. No salmon just yet. Maybe one more rain will swing the deciision.
So, it’s a Halloween election. Trick or treat?
I was impressed. Halloween fun at the Duncan Logging Museum.
“Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.” Keith Ellison
It is a beautiful September morning. I’ve been on the phone for a very long time working on my insurance claim for a replacement drone. It seems the people who sort-of interact with you turn ying to yang and then back again. Long pregnant pauses precluded more new instructions about how to upload flight data went on forever. First I needed a special cable to connect my cell phone to the drone remote control, then I did not. It went on and on. All’s well that ends. But…I’m not sure it has. Two weeks later, my replacement drone is supposed to arrive today; but now it has been delayed. But what’s more persistent than an old man with no place to go?
Making beaver cookies. This will upset the tree huggers! Developer beavers!The intrepid explorer.Fire Moon. Passing through the Kootenays last month under a smokey sky. (Not a bad photo for a hand-held cell phone)
Losing that drone skewed my entire prairie trip. I wanted to teach myself to fly it well and record some good drone footage. Nothing was life or death but someday it might be and I want my flying camera ready to rock. Hopefully I’ll be entirely on cue. Of all the airplanes and other machinery I’ve operated I have never needed a mobile phone or a QR Code or an Asian accent to make things work. I am missing something in all this AI gobbledy goop. ( By this computer’s AI, AI is not a spelling error, gobbledy is) Perhaps I should return to Drumheller AB and find a job as a dinosaur. “Alive! Living and breathing just as it came out of the swamp: Phredophartaus!”
Old growth in the forest.
Home again I find our local world immersed in a provincial election circus. This has become a two-pony race. The incumbent NDP party seems determined to run a shit-slinging barrage against the provincial Conservative party. They respond in kind. In my opinion, if a political entity starts muck-raking against a political opponent it has dismissed itself. If you cannot build a platform based on your positive aspirations and what you intend to do for your constituents, then go to hell. It demonstrates a lack of integrity. You have nothing of value to offer anyone! The conservatives emailed me today to ask who I was voting for. I replied that it was none of their damned business and now they were down a vote for Rustad. BUGGA!
Here today, gone tomorrow.Oregon Grape. This has been a fantastic year for these berries, but like this year’s blackberry crop, most are unpicked. I hope they’ll be winter food for the birds.
Our home selling and buying endeavours are a confusing muddle. I’d much prefer to haul my wee trailer over the horizon and not look back. All this manoeuvring for much more room than you need to live. The rest is to store, or display, all the stuff you don’t really need. I presently have rented a 20′ shipping container to re-move a load of stuff. I’m OK, I have stuff. The storage yard bulges with folk’s belongings that are rotting into the ground. There are RVs there which have not turned a wheel in years. I wonder at the devilish simplicity of that industry. No sales force, no financing, no warranty, low maintenance, and if a client walks away, you now own their stuff. It is a perfect capitalist storm.
Ram Rough. No air bags but I’ll bet it’s almost paid for! Note the original wheels and daily driver license plates.My shamrock plant at night time.Same plant in the morning. It happens every day.Snot funny. More autumn fungus.Stone Face. There is a phantom carver who goes about etching selected rocks. They’re subtle until eventually they jump out at you.
Meanwhile the tedium of buying and selling a house goes on. Each day another potential buyer wants to see our house near mid-day. The remains of the day become collateral damage. We fuss about cleaning the joint yet again until it is tiddly spotless then bugger off out to waste some time in the midst of another beautiful day. It’s tedious. We now know half the houses for sale on Southern Vancouver Island. The quotient price is near a million. Few vendors do much to enhance the “curb appeal” of their property. Take it or leave it. My instinct screams to move back onto a boat despite all the dark logistics of that lifestyle. What a strange culture. We constantly struggle with an obsession of becoming rather than cultivating the wonderful art of being. Dogs have it all worked out. We just have to pay attention.
None of these here. Yet! This was happening in Manitoba last month. Perfect for the crops.THEO. A new friend on the trail. He was giving me some bark therapy, What a beauty! He is a corgi/chihuahua cross and about the size of the latter.Artificial Intelligence replacing the human unit one treat at a time.
Today is our most precious possession. It is our only sure possession.
I swear I have been passed on the road by a shiny Hummer with a ‘Think Green’ bumper sticker. All this enviro-speak is very trendy but when if comes to giving up personal comfort, well yeah but…! I saw a photo recently of a fat man jovially sporting a T-shirt saying “I beat anorexia.” Yeah, it’s funny, but underscores how we love our extremes. We want to drive 300hp SUV’s and also get fifty miles a gallon. People’s vehicles are bigger than ever and obesity is worn by many as a badge of well-being but I’m just not that interested in global stupidity, I’ve got a full-time job dealing with my own.
A growing number of folks are taking pride in living fully by enjoying a fresh awareness of how little they need. Perhaps in result of recent economic events, it is a refreshing turn away from our perversion for lemming gluttony. After living in a boat for years I can claim the benefits outweigh the inconveniences. Not much room for clutter here and if something aboard hasn’t proven its worth within a year; it’s gone. Use it or lose it! Forty-one feet up one side of the boat and the same down the other gives me eighty-two feet of untaxed waterfront property. I can change the view and the neighbours any time I want and, Yeehaw! You won’t find a damned lawnmower anywhere in this boat. Yes, I’d love to have a workshop aboard and I can think of other essential amenities but soon enough I could could end up with an aircraft carrier and still be wanting a little more room. Some of my happiest memories have to do with canoes and rowboats and backpacks; enough said.
Home on the bay. How much do we really need?
I recently bought a teardrop trailer and that has led me onto some interesting paths of research. There is a quiet trend toward downsizing homes, vehicles and RVs with folks taking pride in learning how little they realty need. That path helped me discover the tinyhouseblog.com which is a site dedicated to compiling stories about people who are discovering the joy of living in as small a space as possible. Boats, trailers, gypsy wagons, yurts and small buildings are all there. Not only are many designing, building and living in sensible homes, they are joyfully discovering the freedom of shedding the burden of being owned by mountains of “Stuff”. It is a trend which I hope gains momentum and flies in the face of consumerism. That is an insidious religion we have all been programmed to embrace. We worship in the malls and plazas that are our mosques and cathedrals. Blind consumerism is as evil and deadly as any other fundamentalist dogma.
A matter of choiceFloathouse community in Cowichan Bay
For years I have noted some folks stepping backward when they learn that I live in a boat. I can almost hear the thought at times, ‘He’s one of those!” That’s fine, your waters are too shallow for me; I doubt we’d have become friends anyway. This old boat hippy does however firmly believe that the price of freedom is responsibility. No-one has the right to impose their personal preferences on others. I maintain my boat so that it is always tidy and seaworthy and self-sufficient at all times. There’s no point expecting respect from others unless you demonstrate you have some for yourself. I’m also learning that perhaps it is better to do big things in a small boat instead of little things in big boats. It is too easy to lose sight of the plan if you starting getting bigger boats and acquiring more stuff. Soon you are buried in a hole where your possessions own you. I know all too well! Not so long ago entire families went off to see some, or all, of the world in boats that were seldom over 30′ in length. Now the average cruising couple often has a boat at least 40′ long. Interestingly, each day’s dead reckoning is still calculated at a speed of 5 knots.
Home is where the boat is…41′ of waterfront on either side!
Minimalism offers the joy of being able to go now. The encumbrance of stuff and where to keep it all, and the associated debt, is gone. I have wasted a huge portion of my life preparing boat after boat. Many of those have gone on to sail away over the horizon with a new owner. The first boat I owned could have taken me anywhere. I can’t openly admit any of the excuses which have kept me tied to the dock and which I thought were so important at the time.
“When in fear or in doubt, raise your sails and bugger off out”…Tristan Jones
Emotional depression is an epidemic in the Western World. Sadly it is, I believe, a symptom of a huge malady relating directly to our consumerist culture. We all feel inadequate if we don’t look like this, smell like that, drive one of those, live in a faux castle and surround ourselves with other similarly deluded souls who desperately try to maintain a facade of bottomless wealth. Of course we can never catch up to those expectations imposed on us by a lifetime of spin doctors and marketing wizards. So very many of us become bogged in a swamp of despair because we have been convinced that we just don’t measure up. Rising crime rates, fiscally foundering governments? It is only an emulation of the mindset so prevalent in our own homes. If you have no self-love, it it is damned hard to respect and love anyone else. If the nation’s individual personal finances teeter on bankruptcy, how is it surprising that we have a national deficit?
Cheung Chau Harbour, At least three generations seemed to live on each boat and… half the fleet was out fishing at any given time!
I’m bending toward people who live in so-called third world conditions. There is a lot to learn from them. For all they don’t have, sometimes not even shoes, they have dignity and self-esteem. They can look you in the eye and actually smile. They understand, because they live so close to the wire, that you only have the moment. They are not emotionally constipated by worrying about investment portfolios or many of the problems of the future. They have not bought the myth that they are somehow immortal. If they can feed their children today that is their best expectation; feeding them tomorrow, a bonus. Most of the world lives like this; we are the privileged few. If only we could remain aware of that single fact as our middle-class erodes.
People who are not busy trying to build a personal empire have a lot more time and mental space to be philosophically and spiritually aware. A documentary I recently enjoyed, ‘La Camioneta’, is about the new life of a recycled American school bus as it moves from an auction yard in the US to a new home in Guatemala. A man there, who has a small business refurbishing buses for local commercial use is asked why he decided on his particular career. I paraphrase his reply in part, “The thing about a bus is, even if the passengers are not all friends, it is a place where for a little while, people share their journey through life together.” That thought is profound. Consider that the whole planet is a place where we must share our journey through life. There is so much we can do to make our journey together better for each other.
I woke up yesterday morning in a new year. The world was still here and so am I, not even hung-over or under. Again today, it is the usual drippy, grey dawn where thick darkness gradually gives way to medium gloom. By mid-afternoon the day will slowly slink back into a palpable darkness which invades your being a bit more with each breath.
So in this new year I have a great boat and a little trailer with which I intend to use the remains of my little existence to go unravel some of life’s mystery and rediscover basics we have left behind. (“Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to while doing no harm”) No matter how much philosophizing and analyzing one does, a balanced life can’t be refined better than that…. in my opinion. My little odyssey will be described in part through this blog. In some small way, I hope my discoveries help enlighten others. The journey began long ago. Soon I must shut-up about “Gonnado” and actually leave town. The blogs will continue. Bring some good boots along if you like but, no bigger than you need.
