Happy Turkey Day from the Sage's Place!

12 Oct 20

07:30 hrs

     Hello Dear Readers!

     Last Thursday I departed from the Wayward Inn at 0h Dark 30 and headed for the boat in Hub City. I landed on the other side at 0800 and headed for the Interior. When I stopped in Faith to top off the Ram I had only used a quarter of a tank and then I headed through the Coke to the Sage's. The driving distance on The Rock and on the mainland is about 610 km. Whe I arrived at the Sage's I checked the Ram's on board trip 'puter and I was surprised to learn my fuel consumption was 11.2 Lt/100km. That's 25 mpg. Outstanding!

     Since my arrival I have completed a plethora of chores around the Homestead. Sharpen knives, clear water lines, fix doors and latches, retrieve and install stuff.  

     Yesterday guests, the local Aunt and Uncle along with my L'il Sis (from another mother) and her husband Two-Bob, came for the holiday feast. Turkey with all the trimmings, cabbage rolls, smashed potatoes, salad, veggies and a butternut squash casserole. An amazing meal. 

15 Oct 20

00:05 hrs

     One chore left for tomorrow and then I pack for the trip back to The Rock. More to come.

08:15 hrs

     I have a game plan as to loading the Ram for the trip back to The Rock. Later this afternoon my books and odds will be stowed on the back seat. A lunch for the road will be made. The Road Tar and the regular coffee for the thermos will be prepped as well. I'll shower, change into fresh clothes this evening and then those bags can be packed as well. All of this work falls under the axiom - Fail to plan. Plan to fail! 

     Yesterday, my Lobster shared a picture of some new bottle our Sr. Couch Monkey purchased. Sheep Dog Peanut Butter Whiskey. Sounds like something that has been squirted out of the north end of a south bound basset hound. And you just know that when I get back to the Wayward Inn he will be insisting that I try it. If he asks I will take one just for you Dear Readers. May God have pity on me.

A Side Note!

03 Oct 20

19:45 hrs

     If you have been following the goings on at the Wayward Inn you will recall that we had a foreign student, The Onion, who resided with us for some time. This past spring she went back to India at her mother's request. We found out today that her mom  her dad and her brother all have the Beer Flu. We are worried about her as Indian households are usually multi-generational on their make-up which means no matter how hard you try this virus will spread. We wish The Onion is safe and secure in this time of crisis.

Adventure Day!

03 Oct 20

07:15 hrs

     It has been a long week for me. Eleven hour plus days for the entire week. Great for the paycheck but it wears the hell out of you. Especially when you're old as I am.

10:15 hrs

     We are taking the Oma-nator on an adventure. There are four of us in the Ram. My Lobster and the Jr. Loin Fruit are in the back seat while the Oma-nator is riding shotgun. We are on the Salish Eagle making our way over the salt chuck to the Left Coast Highway Trailhead. You can actually start at that point and drive all the way down the left Coast of North America from the Great White North through the Hugh-ess and down through Sleepy Sombrero. When get to the other side we will race farther north to a bakery that has sticky buns the size of a babies head!.

14:00 hrs

     We have already travelled to Nancy's Bakery at the End of the Road where everybody indulged their sweet tooth. While noshing a couple walked by with a pair of odd looking dogs. I asked our group if they knew what kind dogs they were. The Jr. Loin Fruit said that they were called Domesticated Western Land Otters. On the way back to our Landing Point we cruised through the original streets and marvelled at the wide streets and old trees. We are at a museum at the Landing Point. 

16:15 hrs

     We're waiting for the vessel to carry us back across the strait. We had gone for a short walkabout in this struggling metropolis. Bookstores, tea shops and local charcuterie were all targets. My Lobster and the Jr. Loin Fruit hit up two book stores. I was later informed that the first was a death trap waiting to happen. Everything stacked in piles on the floor and sideways on shelves and in no semblance of order. The other was the standard organized bookstore and was therapeutic - found a hard copy first edition of Serpico by Peter Maas. I took a long walk to a meat shop only to find that it had closed ten minutes before I had arrived. Oh well, the walk did me good. While I was gone the Oma-nator and my Better Half witnessed an impaired individual stagger down the sidewalk and commit reverse peristalsis three times. Shortly thereafter, I came strolling along without a care in the world and spotted the ochre coloured splashes at the last second which was just enough time moon shuffle waltz through the mine field.

     

Happy Anniversary blog

23 Sep 20

19:30 hrs

     My Lobster and I are currently relaxing in B&B in Capital City. We have a wonderful view of the harbour and the rain is now beginning to fall. Across the water from us we can see the CCGS John Cabot. It's one of three new CCGS vessels built at a shipyard across the Strait. Of course being a CCGS vessel in the Great White North it's used for research and protecting our shorelines from environmental issues. In other words it is unarmed. In fact, this branch falls under the Federal Department of Fisheries. 

24 Sep 20

06:30 hrs

     I'm awake - go figure - but my Lobster is still snorkeling in bed. I turned the fireplace on. Its natural gas, like the one at the Wayward Inn, but there is no blower fan. 

10:00 hrs

     We have driven out to Pot Holes. There's a lady selling framed exotic moths and butterflies. We already have a couple - and a bat - on the wall of the Wayward Inn. My Better Half wants a couple more and who am I to argue as I bought a new trail camera when we stopped in Hub City on the way down.

15:45 hrs

     We're back at our (temporary) stately manor after six hours of walking around Capital City. Feeling the burn. As we came down the hill I spotted not one but two HMCS boats underway from the dockyard. Didn't know they had enough personnel to crew more than one of them at a time. Our lunch was at a quasi-Mexican joint serving an all day breakfast and a limited lunch. Eggs Benny for the both of us please. We have the fixings for a late snack kinda supper apres du Hot Tub!

25 Sep 20

08:15 hrs

     A new day has dawned. Sort of. Last night after we got back to Chez Lagoon we watched two, no three, no four, yes! Four sea otters gambolling about in the waters below our room. The heron who was trying to catch his dinner was not impressed with their antics. The entertainment lasted about forty minutes before they slipped away to wherever sea otters go.

     This morning we have a low overcast sky that appears to still heavy with rain. I don't know how it could still hold moisture as it came down in buckets last night. My only hope is the Left Coast of the Hugh-ess is also being hit with the deluge. 

27 Sep 20

06:45 hrs

     My Lobster and I are home. Yesterday we woke up at about 07:00 hrs. We ate breakfast, packed up and headed out by 09:00 hrs. We stopped in Hub City to pick up a couple of items at a craft shop and when we arrived at the Wayward Inn I checked our fuel consumption for the return trip and the Ram operated at 12.2L/100km. Not too shabby.

Lots of Changes

20 Sep 20 

06:45 hrs

     Yes, there have been a lot of changes and revelations that have happened in the past week. So, buckle up Dear Readers it may be a bumpy ride.

     The first notable change is the amount of darkness even in the middle of the day. Sure, the sun is rising later and setting sooner but the sky has been notably darker due to the massive forest fires raging the length of the Left Coast of the Hugh-ess. All three western states have fires that have burned millions and millions of acres. The size of the scorched earth is even bigger than some other states. The size and scope of the fires is a result of a couple of factors - forest management practices and, more importantly, climate change. The entire Left Coast of the continent has been hammered by climate change with hotter summers and drier winters. This has left us with a much smaller and shallower winter snow pack that does not last through the summer. Here in the Valley our glacier has continued to visibly shrink year after year. It should be noted that the Island used to have twenty glaciers that slowly fed the creeks and streams and rivers in the valleys below their peaks. This kept the trees in those valleys well watered against the threat of a forest fire. Higher summer temps have increased the melt and lack of winter precipitation hasn't replaced what is being lost. Recently, a big chunk of the Greenland Ice Cap has broken off and is now free floating in the ocean. How big is this giant ice cube? It's about 110 square kilometers. This is nothing new. The ice sheets all over the globe are shrinking and the oceans are rising. Another thirty years and that penile shaped bit of land dangling off of the Right Coast of the Hugh-ess will be just a reef under the waves. 

     The Hugh-ess has lost a champion of the people. The Notorious RGB, Justice of the Supreme Court, has passed away after serving twenty- seven years. It happened Rosh Hashanah. She was the greatest champion of equal rights between the sexes which has elevated the rights of women without diminishing the rights of men. Unfortunately, with her passing the Tangerine Tyrant and his Sycophants are now chomping at the bit to find a right leaning conservative replacement that could undermine the statutes and allow the Scales of Justice to tip to the Right leaving the marginalized members of the Hugh-ess society in jeopardy. In short, the laws in the Hugh-ess could be moved backwards more than 50 years. This could include women's rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, minority rights, immigration rights and voting rights. All of this will cement the rule of the Old White Guys even more. 

     And think about it for a second. All of the fighting and arguments put forward by the GOP in the past dozen years has been because these rich old white bastards are deathly afraid of losing their control over others and deep down they are even more afraid of the browning of the Hugh-ess. If you think that equality under the law exists in the Hugh-ess you would be wrong. Mark my words you don't have to peel off too many layers on a member of the Old White Guy's Club to discover a person hoping for a return to segregation of the races. 

20:30 hrs

     A friend of mine posted on Social Media that he had been Out in the Woods to pick chanterelles and he mentioned that he had too many for his own use. Well brother,  you can drop them off at my place so Chef Blaine can make some wild cream of mushroom soup. Quite a few years ago when I was Out in the Weeds my friend Cindy had picked about two pounds of chanterelles that Chef Blaine had sauteed and folded into a half dozen egg omelet, cooked on a camp stove on the tailgate of the truck  Absolutely delicious. 

     My Better Half and I are going to be spending a few days in Capital City to celebrate our 25th anniversary.  Of course that will leave the Oma-nator in the care of our two Couch Monkeys. I'm sure she'll survive. 

     Have the leaves started to change colour where your at? Some of the trees in the neighbourhood have changed already and some have not. When we look across the Valley towards the Beauforts we can see the deciduous trees painting the mountains as if splotches of colours were thrown from B. Scotts paintbrush. Mostly greens with reds, oranges and yellows spattered about. There isn't as much colour as there is near the Nation's Capital in the fall. There it's all the colours until winter sets in and the leaves fall. Then its grey and drab. Dirty and ugly. At least our winters are not so ugly as we still have the greens of the conifers rippling on the shoulders of the mountains. 

     It's back to the salt mines for a couple of days. I had to purchase a new beacon light for the top of the Ram. One of the controllers must have been blind and informed me that he couldn't see the one I had and suggested that I replace it. Well, the new one has eight patterns and twenty-four LEDs. No problems now.

Ten months in.....

09 Sept 20

15:45 hrs

     So we are ten months since the Oma-nator moved in to the Wayward Inn. Ten months of Trouble. Must have played damn near a thousand games by now. But that's okay. If she was still own on her I don't think she would be doing as well. I know that her diet and her kidney function would be way out of whack. At least now she's getting some green veggies other than iceberg lettuce which has as much nutritional value as wet loose leaf paper. Other than her broken foot - she's wearing a Boot for now - she has been no trouble at all - as long as we do not try to feed her an onion.

10 Sep 20 

16:00 hrs

     I saw that one of the Watergate investigators has come out with a new book that is base on, among other things, eighteen personal (audio recorded) interviews with the Tangerine Tyrant. You have to wonder what was going through his head to agree to that. I'm pretty sure that his Sycophant advisors were all screaming NOOOOOOOO! Oh well, the cats out of the bag now. The pundits figure that150,000 You-Alls may not have died from the Beer Flu if the POTUS had been truthful,  honest and proactive. Nope, didn't want to panic anyone. I hope this will finally put the nails in his political coffin.

     Yesterday I found an old slightly freezer burned pork loin roast. Chef Blaine is going to turn it into soppressata and chorizo sausages. 

     I'm planning on heading to see the Sages for Thanksgiving. I figure about a week will pretty good visit. I know that they probably may not have a lot of chores for me to do. I'll take my knife sharpening set to touch up the kitchen tools. While there I'll take the annual run down to the City at the Head of the Lake to see if my friends mom is still on this side of the sod. Two years ago she could barely remember me. Last year she was rolled by me in a wheelchair and never looked up. This is something that I have to do. She was a great friend to many of us in highschool. Unfortunately,  her only son is such a shit he wouldn't tell anyone if she passed away. A friend of mine had just visited the Kangaroo Ranch. It's just south of the City at the Head of the Lake so I think that since I'm already down that way I'll drive just a little bit farther to buy some mead. 

     One of the pricier restaurants in The Valley has been closed for more than a few months, possibly because of the Beer Flu, and is now up for sale. It's a beautiful building. West Coast design, top of the line kitchen, seating for about 250. We had dined there on several occasions and really enjoyed the food and the atmosphere. 

     I spotted the renovations on one of the Valley's schools. A seismic upgrade was incorporated. It was an older building and had to be brought up to code or be torn down.

22:45 hrs

     When Elric the Stalwart and his Lobster were over last week my Better Half had bought a couple bags of snacks things to munch on while playing cards. We had a bag of chili and lime flavoured peanuts and a bag of mixed snacks. The components of mixed snacks could be purchased separately. The different items included seasoned peanuts, a crescent shaped moon cracker, a mustard flavoured twisted pretzel and some salted pretzels and these odd lumpy sesame things that looked a lot like cat cookies from a litter box. I said to my Better Half that the contents of the snack bag is probably made from the bits swept up from the production floor during the manufacturing of the individual items and what looks like cat cookies could actually be rat cookies. Let's sleep on that.

So that's what the problem is!

01 Sep 20

19:15 hrs

     We've been busy at the Wayward Inn. Then again, when are we not busy in some way shape or form. Last week was a busy work week for me and my Better Half. After I finished working on Thursday I came home picked up the Jr. Couch Monkey and drove him out to where we would be camping. Unfortunately,  the place I wanted to go was full so I had to back track to a second location. When we arrived we were informed that all of the sites were full. A little bit of begging and I secured a spot in the overflow site next to the boat ramp. After assisting in putting up the BAT I bid my son adieu and headed home. After work on Friday I met my Friend from Over the Hump at the Wayward Inn. I got changed, we loaded the boat and headed off to the lake. 

     Now, the road into the campsite is only 5km long from the main logging road which is pretty short as far as logging roads go. But, it hasn't been plowed in at least five years. All the other logging roads in the area are so smooth you could push a baby carriage and not wake the occupant. I'll be calling my local MLA about this bullshit.

     Once we got to the lake the boat was dropped on, the Jr. Loin Fruit was loaded in it and I took him to the other end of the lake for a solo camp over the next two nights. We checked on him the next day as we trolled by. We had planned on doing it again in the afternoon but the weather turned shitty and I wasn't about to launch the boat. The next morning we fished for a few hours, broke camp, retrieved the Loin Fruit and headed home. We had landed only four trout and my boat still has a leak.

03 Sep 20

19:45 hrs

     The Oma-nator is now wearing a boot cast on her right landing gear. We don't know how it happened but somewhere along the line she broke a bone in her foot. She was suffering from aches and pains but nothing like this. 

     So, on with the boot!

     She has an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon in a week or so. My guess is they'll let the injury heal on it's own

     The salumi that Chef Blaine started two weeks or so back is doing nicely. It has to reduce in weight by 35%. They started at 510 grams. They're sitting at 380 grams and have to reduce another 50 grams. He figures it will be another week just be safe and he is already looking at doing his own pastrami or capicoli or maybe salami. He has asked me to look for large sausage casings.

     Elric the Stalwart and his Lobster will be coming over to the Wayward Inn for supper on Saturday. Chef Blaine and Sous Irene will be prepping fajitas - beef, chicken and veg - with locally made corn tortillas and homemade salsas. I don't know if they've eaten fajitas before so this might be interesting.

04 Sep 20

04:30 hrs

     I just caught a story on a major Hugh-ess news network of another African American male dying while in police custody. For some unknown or imagined reason they had placed a cloth bag over his head - supposedly to protect the officers from being spit on. This shit has really has to stop and before it does  believe there will be another civil war South of the 49th Parallel. All I can suggest is that we keep our collective heads down when the shooting starts. Another issue coming to a head for our neighbours is the fact that due to the Beer Flu their neighbours, The Great White North and The Big Salsa Bowl have both closed their borders to casual crossings a lot of which was for medical reasons. It is well known that some medical drugs - insulin is an example - are far cheaper outside the borders of the Hugh-ess and a large number of those in need regularly travel over the border to fill their prescriptions. It is unfortunate to those in need that Big Pharma has trapped patients with their affliction.

21:45 hrs

     Prep work for our guests have begun. The beef has been seasoned and the chicken is marinating. My Lobster had purchased a big bunch of peppers from a local home gardener. Sweet, hot, mild, Hungarian and Mexican. Outstanding. We love peppers and for some applications the hotter the better. Chef Blaine has taken some green cherry tomatoes and has created a salsa verde for tomorrow's dinner. Sous Irene will use the ripe tomatoes to make a regular salsa. Desert will be the PBR STREETGANG mango cream pudding.