Endless Wind; Endless Work

I’m proud of myself, simply because I was so disciplined about my early morning. I rose at 4:30 and first enjoyed my morning toast and checking some news sites on the Internet, but then I got into action. I had my spa, dressed quickly and went out to water the gardens. By 8:00, I had very thoroughly watered all my beds, trees and shrubs.

And 9:00, we joined our friends to walk out dogs, and then we came home so that I could continue with raking and toting and enjoy a nice lunch in the sunshine followed by a short nap in the hammock in sunshine. I was waiting for the wind to dissipate before attempting the second coat of stain on the patches of the deck.

It was another stunningly sunny day. But it ain’t hot. It was 16° when we walked, and with the wind, it was chilly in the shade, but wonderfully warm in the sunshine. I’m giddy about the hammock. I’ve to rig up a swing rope for it, so I can sway in the sunshine. It’s a great new asset.

After my brief rest in the hammock, I went to work raking and toting. I cleaned up the driveway and the front yard while the wind blew hard, delivering more cones, caps and branches. It was too windy for staining the deck with a second coat. Instead, for a break from R&T, I investigated the cistern because it is not refilling quickly as it should. 

I climb up onto it with the ladder. That’s easy. It’s getting off that’s hard. The edge of the cistern is rounded and so I started sliding off it as I tried to get onto the ladder. I had a couple of very scary seconds, but I was able to grab onto the shed roof and keep myself from sliding off and falling about 2.5 meters. 

At 15:20, I was done. I was hot, sweaty and exhausted. I’d been in constant motion from 5:30 (12,000 steps), and the only rest I had was 15 minutes in the hammock and during several visits to the small room. Work a little, visit the small room, work some more, visit, work, visit. I somehow got the travellers’ curse, but eventually it ended. 

There was one sad aspect to the day. When I was in the spa at 5:00, I heard a robin calling in distress. It was incessantly chirping. And then I saw why when I rose to get out of the tub. The big Barred owl that’s been hanging around flew overhead. I think it ate the robin’s baby or babies. What amazed me, was at 17:00 when I went out to check on the water level in the cistern, the poor bird was still constantly chirping. And scientists said for years that animals have no feelings!

When I quit working for the day at almost 15:30, I had a spa and then I fed the animals. After that, I had to clean up the kitchen a little so that I could comfortably make dinner. By the time I was on the chaise, I was ready to drop. It felt so, so good to have my feet up and pillows behind me.

And then came bedtime.

Today is, of course, bright and sunny and we still have wind. I just finished raking up all the detritus, and now there’s a tone more. Work never ends. But I don’t care, I’ve naught to do all day, so the work gives me purpose. I shall be raking and toting today, but at noon I am going to meet Dan and Steve for fish tacos at the food truck in Silva Bay.

A Busy Day!

I just recently learned how to film a video in the correct format for Blogger. I tried it last night and it didn’t work, so I posted it on YouTube and YouTube’s insert function works with Blogger. Hence, the film, above, of the backyard. (Click on the YouTube icon to watch it on YouTube in a larger format.) And hey kids! Come back next week and see the edible garden and front yard.

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One of my dearest friends during my entire adult life has ‘ghosted’ me. That’s a new term for me; it appears to refer to a friend who stops communicating with you. It is a derogatory term and I question its fairness. Sadly, we have no tradition of how to say goodbye to a friend with whom attachment has faded away.

It’s hard to end a friendship, but I think it’s wrong to just let a friendship that was once strong and vital just die. Leslie has been an incredible friend to me. She played a key role in finding both my birth mother and father. Could there be a great gift? But she has, by her inactions, signalled to me that I there’s no longer room for me in her life.

Honestly, I think about her every day because it is incredibly sad that she has chosen to withdraw. However, I’ve long had a personal conviction not to be where I am not wanted. To fight for an extension to our friendship, therefore, is of no interest to me. But I can’t just let things die, so yesterday morning I wrote to her thanking her for the greatest gifts of my life and, essentially, saying loving goodbye.

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I’m reading, as you know, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and I am loving it. I shall be sad when it ends. On the cover of the book is, of course, the title and the name of the author. There are also an illustration and a qualifier: the words, ‘a novel.’ 

A novel? I confess that I am rather shocked to think that a collection of letters is called a novel. It’s a form that feels odd to be so labelled. The letters are fictional, so it’s fair to use the term I suppose. But it grates with me. Were it my masterpiece, I would not have had the word ‘novel’ on the cover.

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Just past 7:30 yesterday morning, I was outside staining the deck, and when I was done, I took Her Highness for a lovely morning walk while the stain dried. When we got home, I freaked out because I saw the hose running very slowly to feed my Paulownia. It had been running since 16:00 on Wednesday. I quickly turned it off and hurried to the cistern to see how much water was left. Relief! There was plenty of water left in the cistern, and this morning it was back to being full. Phew!

The rest of the morning was spent raking. It felt good to be finally getting to the yard. It also felt good to be doing work that can be done standing up. Still, somehow, raking hurts my back. Almost everything hurts my back now, so I had to take breaks even though the bending wouldn’t begin until I started with the toting. I worked until lunch time. Yesterday, lunchtime was at 10:00. That can happen when I rise at 4:30, only have a light breakfast and have done a few hours work.

Strengthened by food, I got a lot of raking and toting done. I had to take several rests to let my back heal and to refresh. I tire so easily from the work. But after ten or fifteen minutes of rest, I am always keen to return to the job. Slowly is the way to go. I managed to get almost the entire backyard weed whacked, raked and toted. I’ve only one small part to do, and next I will do the front yard and the driveway. And when that is done, I must clean all the garden beds that are drowning in growth caps.

At 14:00, I had my video chat with Aidan on Zoom. It was our first chat in three weeks as he was in Japan doing work there. We are preparing for a Zoom meeting on Monday with Emergency Services BC. And after that call was done, I took Her Highness for an afternoon walk to tire her out a little so that she’d be content to chill on her own while I went to the library to meet Dr. Tan, the veterinarian who might establish a practice here.

Finally, my busy day was done. After the meet and greet with Dr. Tan, I hurried home for dinner, very pleased with all that was accomplished earlier in the day. My deck looks great (but it needs a second coat of stain), as does the yard. Today, I’ll do the second coat and then get back to raking and toting.

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I heard from Leslie. It was great to get a response, but I can feel the distance. Still, I am glad I wrote to thank her for all she has done for me and to say that it’s okay to leave someone behind.

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Today I took 14,000 steps. My highest is 17,000. In winter, we’re going to be in the low hundreds.

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Steve is off to the Gay Games in Spain. He’ll be gone for a month, and I shall miss our frequent video chats very, very much. 

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I bought a hammock. It arrived and I assembled it. Then I tried it. Afterwards, I thought: Oh well, that’s another write off. This is a relatively new phenomenon, online shopping for me. All my life, until I moved here, I bought only things I could touch, try on, or otherwise judge it. You see the true colour, only in person.

Online shopping became a vital service for me when I moved to this rural island, and I have learned to live with boo-boos. I thought my hammock was one of them, but today, something made me choose to reassemble the stand, changing the angle of the structural arms. Et voilà! Now I fit comfortably, very, comfortably on it. In fact, it’s my new favourite place. Good-bye recliner.

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Further to the hammock…

I had an epiphany, thanks to the hammock experience. Reflecting on it, I had to throw something I know well about myself: I have no interest whatsoever in instructions. Perhaps I don’t like someone telling me what to do. I don’t think that’s the reason.

And then, old age being the time for telling truths before you die, I connected my adversity to instructions to my adversity to homework. I was a bitter disappointment to the school administrators who put me in the advance class. I had no supervision. I didn’t feel responsible to Don and Connie; they took no interest in my schooling. I didn’t like doing homework, so I did the minimum. It was easy to pass. In some courses, it was easy to do well.

I like puzzels; I think that’s why I was good at math. I think that’s why I liked finding things for people. I believe that I love experiential learning. Also, I was rather thrown into it as a child. From age eleven, I had to look after the house and yard, so shopping, and tend to Connie when she visited from the care home.

I had to fix door handles, mow the lawn and do gardening, paint, repair, replace; I had to learn a lot of practical things about buying and choosing trades people and paying them. I was constantly experiencing things that I’d never had to do before.

Whatever the reason, I genuinely feel good about this habit I have. I’ve always thought that my ability to make all these things that I buy work, or put them together, as a tribute to industrial design. (I always used IKEA instructions,)

I don’t think I was truly interested in my education. I went because it was expected by my academic councillors and friends. I should have gone to BCIT (B.C. Institute of Technology). I believe I would have engaged with my education there.

Oh well. 

I had to teach for two years to get my license to teach. From there, I went into the theatre. I f’ing built designed and built one, and found the funding build it. But I did everything on the cheap to build it. I used free and used materials from the many donations from the community and that I found. 

The score that I’m proudest of were the bowling alleys. 

On my way to work one morning, I drove over some pieces of wood on Broadway. That was at about 8:00. At 11:00, I suddenly thought of that wood and realized that it must have come out of the bowling alley that they were shutting down.

I had a wizard for a partner on the theatre project. Moira. Oh, let me tell you: I loved that woman. I never properly praised her in public, and I regret that. But in life, she knew. I could go on and on. She used one phone and I used another and we eventually found the alleys after calling all the industrial towing and removal companies.

They were on a truck going to the dump. Seventeen, sixty-foot, edge-grain Maple bowling alleys. The company contacted the driver, and I paid a nominal fee to redirect the alleys to the theatre site. They became the theatre stage and many counters and tables.

But my point is this: drawing the design, fetching donations, fixing donations, painting and adapting, donations, moving donations: I was always working with my hands as well as my head. I had a self-imposed rule when I had staff: to lead by example. When we had a flood … I was bailing first, long before help arrived. Then, when the staff arrived, they bailed and I sat on a recliner, drank champagne and imagined Tom naked. No, I kept bailing.

The greatest time my hands ever had was making my dresses. They were my proudest achievement because their stories, the actual dresses, and the be-fuckin’-zillions of man hours to make them had my hands busy for two years.

Not long after that, I had my breakdown. Since then, I’ve lost my lust of drawing and making things, but what a great, wonderful time I had when my drive and imagination were still in bloom. The dresses were a great final project.

Soon my hands will help me use a bedpan.

Just Another Day

 

When you come to Pinecone Park, you turn off North Road, the main road of the island, onto Buttercup/ As you come along Buttercup, you drive between two properties that were once functioning farms but now both properties are just large fields and Daisies are everywhere. It's such a lovely entrance to our neighbourhood.

Wednesday began with a walk with our friends. Every day, my foot is a little less painful, so the enjoyment factor of my trail walks with Her Highness is higher every day. It was bright and sunny and windy! It was too windy to stain the deck, as was my plan. Growth caps would have stuck to the stain. Instead, I weed whacked the entire backyard.

When we got back from the walk, it wasn’t long before we had lunch and then I gave myself a treat: I had a chilling session on the recliner in sunshine before I got busy with the weed whacker. Yesterday was another brilliant day, but it wasn’t hot. It was an ideal weather for doing yard work. 

There’s been no sign of the bat. It concerns and confuses me that I’ve neither seen it nor helped it find a way out of the house. I doubt the cats could catch it, but maybe it found a way out. Regardless, I carry on. Bats neither frighten nor disturb me.

Today, I shall be busy in the yard until 14:00 when I Zoom with Aidan. Then, after the call, I am going to the library for a meet and greet with Dr. Tam, a veterinarian who is considering establishing a practice here on Gabriola. I hope a big turnout convinces him to come and live here.

Deck Work

Tuesday began on a high. The bat had gone to bed, and the sky was bright and clear, and I was looking forward to working in the yard. I felt very good because my mind was clear; I had no demands, no meetings, no homework; all I had to do all day was have a good time doing outdoor chores. 

I loved my morning spa. I was raised in a house without a shower, so I’ve always loved baths. But having a bath, always at the ready, and outside is a true blessing. Once done, I Zoomed with my friend David in London, and then Her Highness and I went for our morning walk. I could hardly wait to get home and get to work.

When I got home, I felt I needed to postpone raking and toting (which I was seriously looking forward to doing) because Pete planned to come in the afternoon to sand parts of the deck needing repainting. I, therefore, chose to focus on cleaning the deck, getting all the crap out of the cracks between the planks and wire brushing areas where there was a slightly mossy film on the wood.

Lifting all the heavy planters off the deck was rough, as was bending over all the time to clear the stuff weathered into the cracks. I’m glad I did the work though, because I needed to get the planters raised so that air can move beneath them and prevent rotting of the wood.

It wasn’t the work I wanted to do, but I don’t really care about what I do. I love being busy doing any kind of maintenance. While I was working, my foot went through a rotten plank. I’m glad it was me who discovered the problem.  

I had lunch by the fountain because I’d moved all the chairs off the deck and onto the courtyard. As I sat there eating, the fountain was constantly busy with birds bathing in it and drinking from it. It’s my bird magnet in Summer because I don’t put seed in the feeders in the warm months. They didn’t seem to mind me as I sat there; I was as still as could be and delighted by all I saw.

Lunch lasted all of ten minutes, though, for soon I was back at work. I got most of the deck cleaned and so I took Her Highness into the village with me to fetch some wood with which to fix the deck. I need about four feet of new wood, but I got twenty feet so that I always have some replacement wood in hand.

By noon, I’d finished all but the hardest part. Two narrow strips of wood lie between the hot tub and a garden bed. It’s nasty working on this part of the deck because of all the rose thorns growing up beside the deck edge. Plus, I’m on all fours the entire time that I am cleaning the cracks between the planks.

I was chuffed about all I’d done when I finished cleaning all the cracks. The deck looked immaculate. But there was still more work to be done. It was time to use the wire brush to scrub parts of the deck where algae or pollen has stained the deck. I was back on all fours.

While I waited for Pete, I got to work on a plan for elevating the planters as part of my deck protection strategy. I wanted them highish off the deck, so I devised a way to achieve that by sawing some small trim wood I have into short lengths, and then I placed one of the many spare two-foot square tiles on top of the wood thereby making a low platform for my planters. And when that was done, I sawed the wood I bought by hand to fit, screwed it down, and felt like a manly man. 

At 13:30, I was rather pooped, so I took a very short break from work. I began working at 5:30 in the morning because my neighbours are away, so 13:30 is the end of am eight-hour working day—especially with only one short break. Although the work done was not what I’d planned on, it was very pleasing to my eye to see how clean the deck was now. And I love clean!

Ten minutes later, I was back outside putting everything away and getting my tools out that I will need today for raking and toting. As I was finishing up, a mighty wind blew in, and I loved the cool breeze. It gave me a boost, so I watered some of the plants that need the most water when it’s hot. 

Pete arrived at 15:00, just as I was preparing to go for our afternoon walk. We went while Pete sanded spots on the deck where the paint had chipped off. When we got back from our walk, I made him an ice cream cone because I know how much he loves ice cream. We had a nice chat while he ate it.

AT 16:30, I was done. I left him to finish up, and I came in to get my foot up. It was killing me and was very swollen. I settled in for a nice evening on the couch. I earned it. 

Today, I’ll paint the deck where Pete sanded, and the job will be finished. But first will be a thorough watering of all the garden beds. When my guests come for dinner next week, they will see a very, very tidy Pinecone Park.