Sunday, Cogburn Wilderness Camp, Lake Harrison

Another night of unusual dreams. I do believe the clutter and chaos of the city get worked out and refiled when I’m in wilderness.  The roots of the trees and the forest itself surround us.  Sky and lake are the fabric of this housing. 

I woke with strange men in suits fighting each other and leaving me alone.  They’d somehow concluded I was valuable.  I didn’t know what their argument was.  Some boardroom somewhere. I’d just been sailing in my dream.

Here I’ve had a wonderful sleep.  Last night I ran the furnace before sleep, reading in the galley. I’d barbecued magnificent steaks and shared them with Madigan. He’s still such a puppy so enthusiastic this morning. The sky is over cast. The forecast is rain. I’ve slept in till 8. Now I’m having a coffee. 

I’ve been packing and stowing. A lot of work for a day of hunting, I have a grouse and memories.  Madigan is much more a bird dog than he was last week.

 I don’t hunt the morning I leave anymore. I’ve had 2 evening hunts and one morning hunt. Madigan killed his first grouse so is officially a bird dog. I’ve had two swims in the lakes. The celery has been magnificent. It’s been a truly wonderful wilderness break. Lots of quadding and lots of grouse that got away.

I have a list of repairs, I really must get the blind replaced. It was great till it suddenly died one day.  I thought I don’t need the ATV canopy since there’s nowhere to stow the poles. I’ll just get a slicker for hunting in the rain.  I really have too much gear for this little space. It’s like the boat that way.  If I was doing more than these long weekend hunts and camping I’d have to streamline it for quick set up and stow.  It’s definitely a pretty skookum deal.

“I love the adventurer camper,” a pretty woman said in the parking lot as we were both unloading our shopping carts,”.  My husband and I bought one a couple of years back and did 6 weeks travelling through Tombstone and Custer’s Last Stand.  I came home and said , “ why do we have a house.  I so enjoyed living in the camper. “

“I motorcycles that area a few years ago. Loved Custer’s last stand. I hope to take my Adventurer there next time.” I said.

“I loved Custer’s last stand, I loved everything. We had such a good time. I love our camper. Enjoy your weekend, 

“You too!”

I really look forward to travelling with this camper in the states visiting historical sites and galleries.  I’d not be taking a trailer only having the Vespa on the front. 

There was wood here for a campfires but I only like campfires when its warm ironically.id rather read inside with the furnace on and candles. I can sit outside around a campfire outside when it’s warmer not that I didn’t appreciate camper fires winter camping in igloos in the subarctic. I do see campfires in my future too. I’ve not played guitar much and campfires are great places for guitar,

I’ve a restless dog, He’s hoping we’re going hunting on the ATV but I”m just packing up,  I’ve got the slow ride out on the hard logging road.  It’s a challenge watching for potholes and going slow.  

It’s been a great weekend. So much wilderness eye candy. Great scents of the outdoors.  Madigan is in heaven.  We have to go back to the city and work. Time to return to the city . We’ll been back in the camper in a few more weeks.

  

Cogburn Wilderness Camp< Harrison Lake

It’s truly lovely here. I have the Adventurer Camper on my Ford F-350. The ride up Harrison East was daunting after I hit a pot hole last trip doing damage to the camper corner and breaking the actual bar that holds the camper down on the truck bed  The bar fell off on the road through Rosedale. I stopped and a couple of young girl stopped and offered to drive their car back to where they saw it fall off and picked it up for me,

“It was just a mile back, I saw it come off,” said another young fellow who stopped.  I’d had to wait till a safe place to pull over and  put on the flashers. Before heading up Harrison East I attached a tie down cord.  It was better than nothing. I was pulling the trailer and ATV.  Nice people,  Reassuring young people stopping and offering help.

The Cogburn Camp owner said they officially closed the week before but could take me as it was clear I wasn’t there to party. 

“We brought in a damage deposit and that stopped the loud partying set coming here.  My wife and I like the folk who like it here for the quiet and beauty.” He was a pleasant fellow. A bit like Hawkeye from MASH.  Tall, lean, blue jeans, clear eyes. 

“I thought I’d like to go for swim if it’s not too cold,” I said.

“There’s a dock with a chair on it and the beach stretches forever around the way,” He suggested a spot close to the beach.

I took the spot right away. There were only a few RV’s and I loved the isolation,

I set up the camper and unloaded the ATV. It was 6 pm when I headed back up to the logging road.  I didn’t see any deer but I saw 4 separate grouse. The first two flew up way ahead of me. I shot at the next two and was sure I hit one but it flew away into the forest.  Madigan was excited by all this action. I concluded I was using 7 1/2 shot. Good for grouse when you can walk up closer but I switched out my pocket for number 5. If I’d had #5 or #6 I’m sure I would have brought that one down. The ATV scares them when I’m further away.  It was already dusk after the last one got away. I headed back down..  I’d made it here and set up and actually got in a bit of the evening hunt,

I unloaded the guns and stripped off the hunting clothes. My jeans with a belt load of knives and ammo weigh a ton. Good to lighten up.  Next in my bathing suit wearing teva’s I walked along to the beach then waded way out in the cold water. The sky was beautiful.  The Big Dipper and Cassopeaa.  Mountain all around. The lake beautiful. I’d accommodated to the cold when I finally dove in and swam a bit, enjoying floating  on my back looking up at the endless sky of galaxies 

I’d left Madigan in the camper and he was really glad when I returned.   I boiled up some smokies. I had cole slaw and potato salad from the deli, fresh white buns.  A delicious meal. Madigan liked half a Smokey. He prefers steak.

I couldn’t put down Tanis Laidlaw’s, Tuesday Child, a mystery thriller, only able to fall asleep when I finished it after midnight.  Worried about the power and batteries I didn’t put on the heater but didn’t need it. It was warm.  I got up once to look outside. I just love the air and the lake and the mountains all around, the stars and nearly full moon. Awe inspiring,

I didn’t get a before drawn start. I made expresso and filled a thermos.  I had left the Honda 420 Rancher pretty well loaded. It was 730 when I headed out It was a blue sky day, I loved the early morning calm, the ATV chugging up the mountain trail. No grouse but great slash. I parked the quad, taking only my Ruger 30:06 stalking  up the trail off the logging road.  I could imagine bucks and bear but despite slowly walking uphill for an hour stopping and scoping nothing appeared. 

Madigan who loves the ATV loved this mountain hike.  A couple of hours of exercise and I turned around , glad to get back to the Honda and coffee. Madigan had water.  We shared a granola bar . Madigan jumped up on his seat ready for more road hunting.

On the way out I met a fellow in a 4x4 SUV. I was surprised he’d crossed the two cuts in the road, in his vehicle. They were veritable ravines. I’d wondered about doing it with the ATV, standing as I code up the steep sides.  We talked.  He was young and exploring. I’d just seen a grouse but it had skedaddled away.  AFter he left I saw another grouse. This one stayed down when I hit it despite it being a long shot and he was about to run.  

Madigan is two point tied behind me. He’s doing a veritable CARRIE swivelling round and round. Like  a kid in the back seat he’s keeps going side to side.  It’s then a challenge to untangle his leashes. I actually did this time before the bird died.  When I ran up to the bird still flapping he ran right by it then came back. That was an ‘aha’ moment. He pounced on the live squeaky toy and killed it.  That was it, He was now just too excited, I rescued my dinner and gutted the bird putting it in a green bag.  Meanwhile Madigan did circles and jumped on and off the ATV.

Excitement, Bird dog heaven. He’s learning,  

Back at the camp I went for another swim taking soap and conditioner,  I’d spent the afternoon reading a western  Rovky Mountain Saint, young mountain man Tate and his pet wolf,,, Lobo,  I’ve had the generator going charging everything up.  Even my satellite phone had died for lack of power mid call to Laura letting her know where i am. 

It’s really beautiful here, Like summer I love the beach and lake. Time to get ready for the evening hunt. I thawed out some steaks for later. The lantern is charged and I’ve potatos to boil.  

Madigan has been sitting at the picnic table while I’ve been here reading and writing.  He’s be so exited when I start loading the ATV.  

Hard Start

I’m glad for work today.  It was a hard start this morning.  Two hits almost three to the snooze bar. Vague recollections of hunting dreams.  I walked Madigan but have this feeling there’s so many things I have to remember and do but not really. No more than usual. But I have that sense of dread that I’m forgetting something. I’m not .  It’s an old trigger. Like the time I went bow hunting and forgot the bow.  Forgetting the generator the weekend the batteries didn’t work. I’m a life of recurrences. It’s sometimes harder to be in the day. Carpe diem.

I walked the dog. I dumped the trash. I did my bare minimum exercise and meditation. I prayed I made coffee. I love my expresso in the morning A new religion.  The toast and peanut butter and jam were good.  Madigan is a squirmy.  He’s unnerved by his haircut. More dependent.  He peed in the washroom when I was out. Months of being house trained and suddenly he reverts.  He needs more walks. He’s bored with fall.  Tomorrow a backwoods hunting day. Next week play with other cockapoo.

I’m glad for work.  Ritual.  Being useful. I felt useful yesterday.  Just necessary to the carousel going round.  A spoke in the wheel.

I want to travel but Covid and all the restrictions as well as the uncertainty and the negative mood make it wise to wait. I dream of driving around the US with a camper and truck visiting historic sites. I have the dog along. I only fear theft.  I think of travels with Charlie.  Route 66.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Racing.  The last road to the coast. Corner of Winslow Arizona. I ‘d like that. Campfires in the evening. 

I used to think of driving to Alaska and hunting and fishing but I’m not so keen on that. I still think of driving east maybe visiting the northern clan. It’s been years. I want to sail down the inside passage.  A different boat, smaller less keel.  Appropriate for the task.  I imagine this RV in Arizona. I want to winter in the south.

The onset of fall and rain with the recurrent winter bronchitis and the SAD worry me. I want to be in Mexico. I want sun and heat in winter not rain and cloud.  

I want to go to Aberdeen, see Grandad’s home. I want to return to Ireland and visit Venice.  I have to always think of Madigan. Road trips are his thing but since I love museums and galleries he’s not the best companion on European or New York trips or safari’s.  He’s a great companion camping and at home. I love that we walk three times a day. It takes so little to brighten his day. 

Wearing women’s clothes gives a new twist to the same old same old. I ‘m worn down by the repetitive.  I sometimes just want to ‘get through the day’.  I weary of ‘waiting for Godot.’ I feel time is running out and there’s so muvh done an undone. I don’t know what the next phase will be. I’m leaving one home and no longer doing renovations. I don’t feel I’ll be in this body much longer but I don’t know where I’ll be. I like the known, the convenient, the easy.  Challenges are waiting but for now I’m doing the same old.

The world is in turmoil. I’m waiting for war and the abscess to break. I’d hoped for a new party with the election. New hope. But there was only mor of the same encroaching tyranny.  Insanity reigns in the pseudoscience and political lies.

This too will pass. I’m glad I have work today. I can be of service and help.

Thank you Jesus for meaning and purpose.  

 

Transcendent, Cross dressing, roles

I enjoyed watching the new series, Transcendent, several young transexual dancers in a San Francisco restaurant. They’re preparing to showcase at the SF Pride Festival. I confess I like dance movies.  I like the stories of the personal lives. “”None of my family know I’m transexual” says the youngest,, a college student . As she and her friend wait to see the doctor, a plastic surgeon who will be prescribing hormones.  Plastic and cosmetic surgeons have never been in conventional reality except in burn units.

It’s so far a delightful series. “I’d like to meet a man who wants a relationship not just a one night stand for sex.” Says one who pines for ‘love’. . They sound like any young man or woman I know these days.  “I’d like to have childdren’ says one. So say the young men and women who pine for families and the evil 50’s destroyed by the Marxist feminists. I always fought for choice.  Never though mothers were ‘oppressed’. I never saw or heard the world that is depicted by the college sociologists of today who celebrate communism with their limited Tolken minds. Post WWII was the greatest time for the most men and women in America, victors, with technological and sociological advances like nothing ever before.  

Women had choice. Women began cross dressing in the 20’s .  The whole Hillary Pant Suit expression began with Chanel in the 30’s.  Men continue to wear the male attire , the military suit variation that was the garb of the British Empire in the 1850.  Men dress for war at formal functions.  Women in 4 inch, fuck me shoes, and jewels and taffeta and lace are dressed as Trophies, the way Veblen saw them.  

You can’t question women today.  You couldn’t question men in the 30’s.  

Lister says Freud called female sex the ‘dark continent’. Which she says was good, ‘since he was lost and terrified of the inhabitants’.

Today women are more ignorant of men than men once were of women

Girls and mothers. Only grandfathers and grandmothers speak truth but only the grand children listen.

I cross dress. Today at the end of a long medical profession that began as a spiritual calling and was celebrated by a collective oath taken with Dr. Arnold Naimark perhaps the last the great profession, I made a pledge and signed a covenant. I bowed. Then one day a decade or so ago when Canada’s leadership became godlesss and the religion of aetheism , called communism took over, I began to be called a health care worker but I didn’t have a Union. I never had a union representative. I had an ‘association’ and as doctors we were overnight ‘stripped’ of all we held true.  The elite doctors made a dirty deal for pieces of silver with their masters, administrative doctors who forgot their oath or were too young to have taken it. I’m the last of a breed of ‘physicians’, ‘clinicians’. The Knights Templar of Medicine

Before I was a doctor, before I gave my life to duty and service I was a dancer and actor and wanted to be a writer, a play write actually. I was a poet at the time.  I performed on stages, developed an improvisation team that toured, acted main stage, danced on TV, trained with the world champions in London and loved.  It was only later I’d become an ‘intellectual’.  It was in those days I ‘sang the body electric’. It was later I’d become a monk. It was later I’d turn from God and turn back from God following the women I worshipped and living hedonistically and epicurean.

Today I’m spiritual

I’ve done a masters degree in religious studies and theology.  It turned out my divinity degree was lost when the university that bequeathed it was de certified. I loved the irony of that. I had a life long medical degr3ee but at the time my ‘subspeciality’ degrees were being marketed with a shelf life. The money squabbling university was no longer granting permanence but selling crackerjack temporary diplomas so that educational suckers would be hit three and four times .  Once you were hooked on the university they could squeeze3 you. I was teaching at the university at the time I became skeptical.  There was something truly mean and cowardly about the slavery of the student debt.  I didn’t have debt though every women I met I met wealthy and left a pauper and yet women were always portrayed as ‘victims’.  

Toxic masculinity because the halcyon cry.  A woman needs a man as much as a fish needs a bicycle,  Dead beat dad’s.  If I , an egalitarian, said have the evil things about women as women say about men publicly I’d be in jail. Play boy is faulted and Hefner a war vet discredited while 50 shades of grey becomes the women’s mainstr3eam best sellers nore pornographic than the Penthouse letters of old.

Vibrator sales and ‘erotica’ flourish. Pot becomes legal.  Trudeau an alleged Sex Offender buys off his students he abused and lies and lies and does more and more drugs but at least Clinton said ‘I didn’t inhale’. Obama admitted that he did cocaine as the black thing to do. Now we’re into hallucinogens and the Brothers comic predictions have come true.

I used to do guerilla theatre, improvisation theatre in the community, doing comedy routine with my other performers. I dressed in all the costumes.  Even played King Lear. I liked uniforms once. Loved my college professor look with tweed jacket cordoroy pants and leather elbows.

Today I liked best my cammo gear I wore hunting when I whispered in deer and touched them in their sleep, stalking and going about a night learning to walk and follow my cat soundlessly in the night. Today I prefer roaring about on my ATV. I liked the leather look riding my harley in uniform to Sturge3s.

I loved sailing in the tropics dressed only in canvas shorts or a sarong. I loved nude beaches.  I loved to ‘sing the body electric’ .

I loved all the passion and the sex and all the work when I was young carrying women across thresholds making love to them held up in my arm against walls. In fields, in 4 poster beds, in 5 star hotels and in sleeping bags on the side of mountains. I loved the girls. We had such fun. We still do but they’ve only so late come to own their anger and their fear and their shame.  They still blame their parents. Having lost fathers the single mother children blame the single mothers who claime that they did the work of two but it’s still about control,

Like suicide, I can’t control anything I’m out of control but I can kill myself and “I’ll show you’.

The symphony was so uplifting. Hesse and the Glass Bead Game.  I was transported. Dissociative divine experience. Uplifted. Tzaichovsky.  Otto Tausk a delight. The music heavenly and I touched that spot in my heart where God speaks. 

I’ve saved or interfered with thousands of suicides and now my aetheist consumer colleague does euthanasia for gre3ater pay and status and I’m not supposed to resent or envy. I’m still a wage slave but I don’t believe the MAID Doctors or the Abortionists do Buddhists Right Living. I’ve killed. I’ve done abortion. Women aborted my baby. I’ve been gagged and raped and beat and locked up and punished over and over again till I laughed at my own pain and self pity Poor me I screamed and then I knew

The story of Jesus is God came to earth and the government killed him.  God sent his son to visit creation and the government and the church killed him.  We crucified my Lord.

I’m aware when I spear the side of god or hammer nails.  

We’re all afraid. Jesus said do not be afraid.

I’m less afraid dressed as Klinger,  I’m old.  I’m enjoying looking on Both Sides. I miss being a hippy.  I miss the adventure. I’m facing the great adventure of dying.  God’s waiting room So many of my friends and family younger than me have died in the last few years.  It’s hard to keep up with grieving. My priest friends death hit me. Covid.  And the government keeps lying and the propaganda keeps spilling like bullshit and I don’t trust the Who, the UN or Tam or Fauci.  Trudeau is a sick sick boy whose mother was a drug addict and whose father was a communist.  Aetheism.

I just feel that aetheist don’t feel the ‘flow’ m the interconnectednessm the transcendent walking in the fore3st. I felt it last night in the forest. Fairies and mystery and the presence of God and hobbits and Fay I’m Fay. I’m touched. One tenths of my patients diagnosed psychotic were having a spiritual awakening.  I struggled to sort them out knowing the money was in putting them all down and keeping the factory going. I didn’t like the one size fits all of the institution. The psychiatric hospital was just a female designed jail. I worked in both. 

I’m afraid.  

I pray.  I meditate,  I walk about nude i swim naked I wear women’s clothes. I miss the tropics.  I want to move south. I want the sun. I am in pain. Joints ache. The family arthritis’s. Traumatic Arthritis .  All the assaults. I miss my boat. The gentle sway of waves and tides.  I’m on the hard earth,  

I am at an age where testosterone and estrogen are changing. Male menopause.  I like skirts. I’d wear kilts more if they were lighter and in lace and satin I asked the clan for a polyester kilt and they told me they had a table cloth.

I am today actually okay. It’s a lovely day. My dog’s hair cut has made him young and frisky. He’s a character. I’m preparing to meet family again. The struggle of that.  Drama of the Gifted Child. I would take a space shift to Mars and become a Martian than live a totality of life, like a high school reunion. My dream of showing up in a red dress, Fuck You and 4 inch heels.  What is it about drag queen and their mockery.  I just want to slip away in androgens. I’d like someone to care for me as I’ve cared for them. I want to reincarnate as a dog.

I’m afraid Aging.  I’d rather sit in a pair of pumps, nylons and black skirt , white shirt typing in an office, I was called a faggot for working as an executive assistant in England using the first computers wrapping my brains and finger around the Olivetti and the ATV BBC scheduling.  I was called a faggot and I was making more money than my friend made working on the oil rigs . I just was wearing a white shirt black trousers and black shoes and coming home each night to glory in sex with the most beautiful and sexiest woman in the world my dancer wife of the day.  We went to theatre every week and bicycle and ate fish in paper wrapping. I read Hesse and Tolstoy for the first time.  

I do the next right thing

I serve but my taxes go to pay terrorists and to buy the enemy coal mines for the war against our former allies. I’m in Nuremberg in my mind struggling with the Banality of Evil. The election could have been worse but it was bad enough. I am afraid. Totalitarianism and the reign of terror. The loss of rights. UN and Agenda 21. The WEF and Davos all are mechanisms to entrench the elite and hurt the poor and middle class. It’s Marxist. Elite and peasant Dictatorship of the proletariat The Supreme Court serves the clown wearig a mockery of the last supper sweatshirts.  Forgive them for they know not what do.  Some are sicker than others.  

I would rather lie in the arms of a lover and feel protected. I don’t feel I can protect anyone anymore.  My last wife stoned on coke and psychotic tried to kill me and I was only thankful she didn’t kill me and my dog. She was so insane.  That’s not the story that was told.  The government backed the lying crack head prostitute who prayed on my practice then lied to them and they used her as their Trojan horse to punish me and I really felt afraid. All of the false allegations and the courts revel in them.. It’s a story contest which the best dramatist making the best poor me story and the drug addicts and psychotic borderlines gas lighting but the old administrative grandfathers loins are hot with the hope that if they help the lusty young woman they were get the blows jobs her eyes promise. I can’t compete.  I know too many who fucked their way to the top I was at the top when I was raped.  

Rape is inevitable.  So lie back and enjoy it.  Days of fasting and deprivation. Alone in hurricanes. Igloos and polar bears. Nights of reflection.

A good life, An adventure story and a romance.  A thriller. A western.  And all the while healing.  A good doctor.  

Roles.  

Donovan, “the doctor bit was so far out, looking through crystal spectacles, I believe I had your fun’.  

I’m actually pretty happy. Life is good. God is good all of the time.  I’m grateful for the depth and breadth and design of my life. This comic strip of reality I live in.  It’s actually some days a novel or a documentary.  More like I’m still playing the kazoo in the symphony of life.  I dream of meetings with angels and god and family. Last night I was learning sewing in my dreams, repairing a patch on a sail.  I had a new machine and there was no rust. Like the time I repaired the ham radio in Mexico or the days I overhauled the Diesel engine in the Hawaiian islands

Two new deep cycle batteries are sitting in the vestibule to be taken to the camper for the weekend hunt.  I’ve work to do on ensuring the electrical system works with faults when I don’t have my generator along. I’m installing solar panels in the fall. Soon my camper will be as survival proof as my offshore yacht.

But am I ready for death. When i was unable to breathe, feeling my lungs didn’t work, when I still ed th panic liked I did when my scuba tank went 3empty and i had to rise slowly to avoid the bends and I lay there in Feb 2020 and prayed and stilled my heart and breathed and thought I was going to die not remembering a flu that was like this every before and day or so when by and my lungs released and the panic stilled and I breathed and I thought ‘that must be Covid’.  But I didn’t feel prepared to leave. I didn’t feel ready to die. I dfidn’t feel fit .  I have meditated more prayed more, talked more with God and done my work but reflected on my life 

Keep the lamps lit as the master could arrive any day.

My dog needs me.  I want to live to care for him till he’s 20 I cared for Gilbert, blind and back injured and I carry myself along and am my own mother and father, lover and friend..

Thursday Morning - thankful

It’s a plain fall day. No jewels. No boas. No make up.  Plain. Natural. Lovely in it’s own way. A gossamer veil of white cloud softening the sun.

I’m here.  Madigan is here.

I’m blessed. God is good all of the time. I pray to appreciate grace more and to develop a deeper attitude of gratitude.

I’m here. Madigan is here.

I pray Holy Spirit Come. Use me. Fill me with Joy. Show me the Way. Thy will be done not my will.

Thank you for this day. Thank you for family and friends. Thank you senses and the world.  Celebrate!

I’m working hard. Long hours. Much pressure. So many demands. My mind is flitting here and there hoping I don’t miss something. I’ve so many little things to do.

My filing system has been faulty for so long but I can’t rename the boxes on the computer so when emails come in I file them in close proximity to what they should be . If I needed to find them I could but it’s just one of those ‘alright’, ‘jury rig’ office matters because I have no time to call Apple and learn again how to reorganize my computer file email system.

I m aware of the mess. Everything below the knee is Madigan. I clean frequent picking up pieces of things he’s destroyed. I vacuum frequently but it’s a bit of a mess. Dog toys bones and balls everywhere.Right now he’s on his back rolling back and forth biting a squeaky toy. It’s so cute.  What can I say?

I have ordered batteries for the camper and will remember the charger but I’m wanting solar panel battery charger now and trying to have that ready before I go to the nephews wedding. 

I have to get a present yet. 

I must find out why the computer is not opening the Oscar file when I’m not at my desk. It’s like Oscar has locked out Apple. 

I’ve not found the time to reconfigure the camera blue tooth with the computer. I get these programs set up and then months later with a virus patch or new upgrade of software the interfaces don’t work again. It’s all timely and I don’t like to sit to these tasks because in the past they’ve been rabbit holes with long delays waiting for techs and one glych needing fix only leading to another glych and another fix.

I feel always pressured for time.  I’m on the clock. I’ve a factory Shute of patients each day and a long list of phone calls and emails and no time for the multitude of tasks. I actually got a little caught up yesterday but missed my meeting. I wasn’t finished work till the meeting time anyway and was exhausted.

I’ve not ridden my Harley much at all. I put it away in October.

I wanted to sell my boat but the only thing that limits it’s sale is the rusted out stanchion base. I have to fix that before I can put it up for sale. I want to do that when I’m in the east.  

I haven’t the license to pull this trailer and while I like it as a home I don’t know about pulling it about.  For now I can use a tow truck.  But one day will I downsize .  

I have too much excess in my storage locker and want to downsize.

Will there be war?

Will I die soon.   I don’t feel like it. I expect I’ll live  another 20 years plus. I’ve got to take care of Madigan and he’s going to live to be 20.

I have this thought it would be fun and more peaceful to live cross dressed.  A nerd. Travels with Amber.  It just gives spice to the possible.  I don’t want to be restricted to conventional much more. I miss the dance and theatre days before the duty of medicine. I’ve served my life and clearly the reward hasn’t been as promised.  Yet I’m thankful. It’s been a blessed life. But what I want to do now is not bland. I don’t want to be loud. But discrete old lady listening.  I want to be receptive to the Holy Spirit. I’ve been so much in command. So much having the answers. So much the caregivers. I read of friends going to gyms and spas and swimming each day and body beautiful and I am still rushing to eat lunch and grab a coffee in the pressure of the day and the weekend goes too soon.  

I have a down weekend .  Hunting season is always pressured. No one’s fault but mine.  Yet it’s when I lose weight and get healthy with exercise as well as have a 180 change from my day. I’m so active hunting and camping.  At home I spend too much time on the couch reading and watching Netflix.  

I really am blessed.  There’s a mundane same old same old quality to this life and I’m not used to the pace. I don’t have any desire to work in hyperdrive. I used to always rise to the occasion. Now I’m pacing myself.  It’s okay.  I’m learning.

This age of retirement is difficult for me. I don’t really want to but I really would like a longer vacation. I”d like 3 months off . Or a year sabbatical. I’d done more years of work in the field and time on the front lines than most I know.  So many of my classmates have retired.  Friends are gardening and fixing homes and doing art projects . Others before Covid were travelling poorly.  Now I look forward to the post covid travel again.  I’m restricted by the world. There’s no need to push against the bars of the prison. There’s so much good here in the middle of the siege. So much I can do and consolidate.  Solar panels are my latest idea. I’ve lost track of the solar panel I had a few years back with an earlier generation of RV.  

I don’t need anything. I must manage my ‘wants’ and let them be. I have been blessed with so much.  Be satisfied. Be thankful.  

Even getting to the pool and hot tub are a challenge with covid but I’ve got the BC Vaccinate card and have been signed in and can just go there.  I have an electrical fencing for protection and solar motion lights but haven’t even needed them. I’m protected .  There was a bear in the yard nearby and people warned me. I first thought of getting my bow or gun and only after thought of the risk to Madigan and then I thought of my camera. My mind is peculiar these days.  With the proximity of the cougar I never thought of physical safety a couple of weekends back but instead thought of getting my camera out the gun right there.

I’ve enjoyed driving around the back country on my ATV.  Now I just fear theives. My patients have been broken into. I’m wondering where I can camp and be safe. I won’t take laptop perhaps.  I worry about theives , not just the government, but common theives.  It a worry of thieves.  This concern about not having what one has.

I’m so blessed with all I have. I’ve had such a full and exciting life and I have such extraordinary memories. Yet I want what I haven’t got.  I want leisure when I’m busy and busy when I’m at leisure.  A contrariness is in the works. I need more acceptance, patience and joy. 

Thank you Jesus for the life . Thank you for the time. Thank you for the experience.  

Another day

Politics is scared. We just learned that General Milley conspired with the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security and the Communist Chinese Military to overthrow, though ‘underthrow’ would be a better term the President of the the US. Claiming a threat of a ‘right wing coup’ the left wing, with Nancy Pelosi and the California crime syndicates and other democrats literally ran a left wing coup. 

Communist Chinese destroyers are testing the defences off the Alaska coast.

Continued incursions by the Communist Chinese Military into the Taiwan airspace.

All dissent is destroyed in Hong Kong. Tibet continues to be invaded and taken over for Chinese housing.  

Communist Chinese invasion of India remains stopped by Indian troops but the Communist Chinese have not returned to the lines of demarcation before their attack.

More strains of the Wuhan flu lab virus permeate the world. The Latest is the Mu variety.  I have both Pfizer vaccines but a report today says that the Chinese corporations are heavily invested in Pfizer. I don’t know what to believe. I did get my BC Vaccine Passport.

I’ve a weekend of study and recouping. Laura is coming over and will take care of Madigan while I attend the all day conference Anna Borowska is presenting on insomnia.  

I’ve a men’s meeting tonight.

I’ve plans to go hunting again before we go for Allan and Meaghan’s wedding. I’m anxious about the conditions of the roads and the truck since a boulder or pothole caused such damage to the rear of the Camper.  It’s functional and we’ll be able to use it in October for our planned hunt and rest but I’ll have to get body work done in November. 

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, typical for September. More demands. Urgent cases. More paper work demands. More expectations. More consults.  Limited time. I don’t seem to speed up anymore. I don’t miss lunch’s and dinners and work all night to serve the taxation machine. I am trying to stay healthy so I begin to rush and stop myself. I eat lunch .I make coffee.  I walk the dog.  I imagine all manner of people have done this all their lives. It’s odd behaviour for a clinician. I did this when I was on salary in the hospital and had 9-5 jobs.  Canada a country of unions and Beurocrats but I’ve had my private practice for decades with limited breaks from the pressure. All entrepreneurs feel it but live next door to others who may coast given their work and pensions and what’s so difficult is these neighbours have no idea what it’s like for us. The nurses at the hospital actually thought we had the day off after a night on call.  My ex wife called me ‘lucky’ and was disdainful of my success never seeing the truth of ‘genius is 99% perspiration and 1 % inspiration’.  I succeeded where others and failed and found the cure and success because I worked harder and longer.  It’s what I’ve seen in the many above me too.  There’s the Hollywood idea of ‘being found’ but it’s not so easy.

I’m wanting to coast and slow down and take it easy. I’m old enough .  I like cross dressing as ‘play clothing’.  My suits and shirts and even my hunting and sailing and fishing gear are all ‘work’ clothes. I liked 4 inch heels decades ago because ‘you’re not supposed to be walking in them. If you’re walking in them you’re doing something wrong.’  I envy women wearing white.  I am always getting oil grease or some kind of dirt on my clothing. I can’t wear gossamer or silk without having to fix the electrical box or manage the engine in some way.

This last weekend was a fisasco with the camper, electrical failures and dealing with hitches and trucks and ATV’s. I wanted to dress in a skirt anonymous and walk through the louvre looking at paintings. I have been countless times as a doctor called upon to attend emergencies getting blood and dirty and human waste on me while I knelt beside someone who collapse. I imagine all the women dressed in white sometime learned to protect their nails and their clothing.  

I miss working in an office as a secretary.

I miss the acting days and dancing.

I’m at retirement age but continue to work as a doctor and enjoy virtual and being of service and the work. But my ‘life’ remains ‘heavy’. Sailing was always so much ‘work’ and ‘anxiety’. Off shore was glorious but the effort to get their and ship maintenance and all that was involved in staying aware was incredible. I like the attention. I like the activity but the fact is my back hurts and I don’t want to be physically lifting and contorting in spaces with wrenches or learning more about replacing toilets and dealing with flat tires or engine failures. I don’t want to be doing surgery even. I want to write and read and watch. I want to travel.  I’m looking forward to that.

But I ‘d like venison. Madigan and I so enjoyed the grouse we shot.  It was a delicacy beyond compare. I enjoyed so much the preparation and cooking.  It was delicious.

I like photography too.  I did enjoy target shooting. 

My mood is better but I’m uncertain about the world. The election is near and I fear the machine that would keep Communist Dictator Trudeau in power.  

Oh well, work beckons.

God is good all of the time.

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.

Protect us Lord from all evil. Thank you for Grace and Love and Joy.  

Saturday Hunt, Success and Failure, God is Good all of the time

At 130 am I awoke in the camper, chilly, with alarms beeping.  I got out of bed.  I found that there was no electricity except enough to power the propane sensor alarm. I went out side and turned off the propane. It didn’t stop the alarm.  I cut the wires.  I can’t stand alarms when I’m trying to think. 

I plugged in the truck cable and ran the truck. Electricity ran to the outside lights of the camper but didn’t do anything to the interior. I flicked the fuses. I pressed the electricity reset. Nothing. I couldn’t look it up on utube because I didn’t have wifi or cell beyond one cell line which allowed me to text the dealer and let him know my situation and ask for advice, knowing I’d get an answer in the morning at earliest

I was delighted to have the manual bar to ratchet down the happy jacks. I”d worried about that as there was no power for them. Having tested I could lower them I was relieved.

It wasn’ that cold. A chill wind but just sweater weather. I used the toilet but without a water pump I had to use a Nestle bottled water to flush.  I climbed back into bed. I was cozy with the comforter and Hudson Bay blanket.  I slept till 730.  I thought of coffee and Macdonald’s breakfast.  I could have gone for a morning hunt but decided I just wanted to get back to civilization.  I’d forgotten to bring my generator and thought I could buy one. I could buy new batteries. I could even drop off the camper and go home.  

I manually lowered the happy jacks.  I unloaded the gear from the Honda 420 Rancher ATV.  I loaded the ATV onto the trailer.  I tied everything down. It was comforting to load the dog into the truck and start her up.  I love my truck.  I drove off with the Argentinian 20 gauge over under and the Ruger stainless steel 30:06 rife. I road hunted back to the high way. It was something.

When I put the rifles in to the camper to drive onto the freeway I found that there was a dim light happening from the overhead and the refridgerator was showing numbers. I’d later realize I’d have to turn the propane on again. I did and fridge was working .In Hope I tried to buy a little generator.  Say 500 or a 1000, something small I could stow in the camper.  All they had were 2000 or more, no different than what I had and had left at home by accident.  I almost bought batteries but decided to wait. It looked like everything was working fine. I’d bought some fuses and a crimper at Lordco along with more flashlight batteries.  I still didn’t have water so I pulled out every fuse and checked it.  The water pump worked.  Don’t know what I did but it all worked now. 

I decided to head to Harrison Lake.  That was in number 2 zone so bucks and grouse were open.  I don’t get much holiday and needed a break so figured I’d continue on.  Mistake.

Somewhere between Lordco and camp I hit a bump and the whole camper smashed down. I didn’t know what it was .  But there was significant damage to the back corner either front the jack catching, it was up higher than the truck under carriage or just from the smashing up and down. The back stay had come off so it wasn’t held down,  

I camped by the river. A nice spot. Unloaded the ATV and packed it for camping.  Madigan was in his glory, jumping up on the seat and waiting there till I was ready to go, guns and packs and spare gas all loaded. Because I had this fear the day before that someone would break into my camper I bfought my laptop iPad and iPhone along with ny passport and vaccine I’d in the bag with me. I tied it onto the back of the ATV.

Sadly the place I ‘d wanted to hunt which I’d hunted in spring was closed. They had a gate up and sign, active logging.  So I drove onto the other logging road. It went right up the mountain and huge ravines were cut to stop flooding. I saw 4 grouse. 2 and 2 more and they all flew up into the trees and from there further.  Madigan liked all the action.

 I rode right up to the top and has the most spectacular view of Harrison lake.  On the way down I saw another grouse and this one I bagged.  Madigan is not ‘with it’ regarding grouse. I had to unleash him from his tangled two point tie downs.  So the bird had stopped flopping around .  I said ‘where is it’….‘git it’….and he didn’t know what I was talking about. I showed him the bird and he stepped on it before looking down and getting really excited,  We’d come across a couple more grouse that ran into the ditch but he wasn’t leaving the road except to follow me. I did but having had to untie Madigan and get the gun, that one was long gone.  

I used the spare gas before heading down. No deer . No bear.  But lots of fun.  Back at the camp I filled the tank and the spare tank and we headed out again, north.

I came across a logging trail which led into lots of bush …I drove through Wisteria/lilac  bushes and vines. I  got down into a river bed in dense woods and bush looking for a place to turn around. I finally did. Night coming on and worried I’d get lost.  Thankfully I found my way back to the road.  I hea ed off full speed on this wide open logging road, almost a gravel highway. The ATV did 60 km /hour on the flat.  I checked one short trail and then saw the river. Magnificent. I was heading up another short trail when I realized my bag with my laptops and passports was gone. It had fallen off. It was dusk already.  I retraced my steps at high speed and thank you Jesus! Hallelujah!, I found it in the deep bush muck I’d struggled through.  The handle on the bag must have  caught on something and pulled the bag out from under bungee cords.  Thank you Jesus!

I was ecstatic. It’s like those nights when I don’t get game but God helps me find my way home. Here was a find better than that. I just thought of all the trouble and cost I’d have losing my computer and passport and vaccine passport.  I was trying to keep it safe taking it with me. Like those times I hide things for safe keeping then can’t find them when I return.  I really felt God was taking care of me. 

It was dusk. I saw more grouse but they were running full blast ,  I had 2 grouse now though. I ‘d found my way out of the deep bush.  I had found back in and found my lap top and passport. Against that was a damaged camper I hope insurance will cover some of.

Along the ride back a guy shouted . I thought I was trailing something or  something was wrong.  Turns out this guy camping with friends are camped on the side of the road. He says, “I just wanted to ask if you had any cocaine. But with a dog I guess you don’t.  We came to party and ran out of stuff.’  I don’t know what having a dog has to do with cocaine but he had the idea that guys with dogs didn’t do cocaine. He had a girlfriend and buddies. 

“No don’t have any cocaine,”. I carried on on the ATV. I prefer natural highs. 

When I got back to the camper, once again, No electricity.

I’m sitting here in the relative warmth. It is warmer down by the lake than it was up at Coquahalla Summit.  It’s really quite balmy. I’m glad I found the candles.  I’d also charged up this iPad off the battery pack.  

The refridgerator is cold. There’s still ice in the freezer. I took out the bread , some drinks and the left over 2 smokies. I put the grouse in the freezer. The latest one’s  not even cleaned .The English weren’t big on cleaning right away. I’ll let it unthaw later.  

I’d thought to do the morning hunt but think I’ll probably do as I am doing mostly these years,  using the last day to pack up and travel,. I’m not far from Chilliwack.  I’m good at packing up. I’m not bothered by anything like I was once, I just go about tasks and solve the problems as they arise.  I don’t catastrophize or even focus on the negatives. It’s just a challenge. I feel when things go wrong like I ‘m back alone on the boat and have to fix it so I can go onl. The camper had been pretty reliable with some little glyches  but this is a major day with damage to.

The grouse are probably $1-2000 each.   What an adventure!.  This weekend seems like weeks of a holiday.  Getting to the tops of mountains on an ATV and seeing the magnificent views is incredible. All the quadding it high concentration and high risk up in the cliffs.  It’s all chiropractic in motion. Looking for deer, scoping hills, enjoying Madigan’s company.  Seeing the joy he takes in everything.  So much excitement.  From Thursday night to Saturday night it was a rush with one event after another and so much action. 

I’m looking forward to getting back to the ‘norm’ of work. I don’t hunt again till October and by then Far Out RV should have fixed the camper electricity.  I’ll have to take it in to Frazerway. They make them so will do a good repair.   I’d not been off the grid without my generator this year. We’ve been staying in sites with electricity.  I think the actually batteries may need replacing or the in-house charger generator or the truck cable connector is faulty too.  

I’ll not forget my generator any time soon.  

 

Friday Hunt

I almost gave up finding this place again. All the construction and changes and big trucks.  It wasn’t at Coquahalla Summit. I turned around and passed Falls Lake where I’d camped.  There it was Britton Creek and Coquahalla Lakes.  I’d found it.  I’d hunted here so many times but not for years.  

I was actually doing the morning hunt too in my truck. I drove too far and ended up deep in section 8 where the restriction is on 4 point bucks. I returned to section 2 and drove the road that runs along the border of the two areas.  There was a 10 KM Parking Lot Recreation Site which I eventually came back and set up at. I could return to section 2 and there was some wonderful hunting areas in 8.  Towing a trailer I was thankful for the space 

I unloaded the ATV from the trailer then loaded it up ‘for bear’.  I had my Argentinian over under 20 gauge and the Ruger 30:06 stainless steel. The sun was hot and I went in a tshirt with a vest for pocket.  

I started on the snowmobile trail but it was so spooky , rolling and rocky, it demanded all my attention. I systematically explored the logging roads off the main for the next 10 km.  

On one of them I saw a grouse.  I stopped the ATV. Lifted up the 20 gauge. Thought of letting Madigan off his back seat leash then changed my mind and stalked up the road loading the shot, going into the bushes where it had run,  It suddenly appeared and I blasted it, shooting over the head so I’d get the least pellets in the meat. I went back for Madigan and he came to see it.  I lifted it up and the blood dripped from the head.  Genetics and breed.  He was ecstatic.  Jumping up and down. After I cleaned it leaving a wing on for identification he wouldn’t stop licking blood off my hand..

We came back to the Camper at 1 pm. I napped. He napped.  I was so tired I didn’t make a sandwich but just had granola bars.

In the evening I headed over to section 2 and sought bucks and grouse. I actually did the evening hunt. I’ve yet to get off the ATV and walk.  I’ve yet to sit in ambush. But for a first day I did my due diligence I was out in the woods where I could shoot game. I was travelling the deepest backwoods on the ATV. I was stopping and scoping. 

I shot a grouse. 

My dog, already a gun dog, is now a bird dog. His first birthday is next week. He’s a really good dog,

Now night is upon us and we’re back in the camper. I’ve got smokies boiling.  There’s a really chilling wind and some sprinkle of rain and I didn’t feel like getting out he barbecue.  I’ve fresh bread.  Smokies with mustaard and bread and potatoes I’ll have with butter and sour cream is pretty decent meal

Thank you God that we stayed safe and despite the dangerous outback areas and the gnarly quadding we retured alive and un maimed. Thank you for the grouse.  Thank you that our gear was here when we returned, Truck and camper and trailer all safe.  Thank you that I found my way out of the woods in the dark. Thank you for Madigan a great companion. Thank you for a spectacular day of hunting.

Falls Lake turn around

10 Km Parking Lot Recreation Site

Falls Lake Turn Off

I missed the Coquihalla Summit turn off. This whole area is built up with so many big trucks.  There’s even a new parking lot for  truckers to stop. I’m surprised there’s not a restaurant up here. But I guess it’s just a place where people take a nap break.  Lots of lights. Much much more activity that I remembered from before when I came here. It was called ‘tool gate’ then.  It was dark and busy.  I pulled off at this Falls Lake turn around and checked the gps. Apparently I’d passed it 6 miles back.  I was tired. 

It’s been a long time since I pushed myself after a day of work and headed up country. I was doing fine till I got to the Agazziz turn off. I felt I was being pulled to go to Harrisons while I was thinking and wanting to go to toll gate.  I pulled off the road and made a turkey sandwich I shared with Madigan.  He’s such a good companion.  I’d been looking for a burger place but hauling a trailer I wasn’t comfortable parking in the A&W and gas station lot after I filled up with gas. 

After I had the turkey sandwich and a Monster drink I felt better. But then I couldn’t find the road that took me back onto the highway.  I had to turn around at the first dead end , not too difficult but the second dead end was a killer.  I was jockeying back and forth trying not to hit a guys mail box on one side of the road or go over into the ditch with the trailer on the other side of the road.  I’m amazed I did get turned around it was such a tight space .  I next ended up having turn around at the entrance to a native land reserve.  Three dead ends before I found my way back onto the highway.  An hour of being ‘lost’.  

I’d already lost an hour caught in the traffic jam at Langley. I was behind a huge flatbed hauling steel rods.  Twice the driver appeared to fall asleep and roll backwards. I reacted thinking I was rolling forward then hit the reverse a bit while slamming the horn. It happened once again and then I just hit the horn and after that took the HOV lane to get out from behind him.  I figure I gave a fright to the guy behind me when I backed up.  

Now I’m here.  On the side of road outside Falls Lake. Unfortunately I read up on the area and there was an advisory of theives in the Falls Lake region breaking into hikers cars.  They advised again leaving things in the car. That got my catastrophising mind going and immediately I missed Laura.  She so often stays at the camper when I head out and her presence ‘protects’ the ‘stuff’.  Of course she has a rifle herself and phone but while she’s afraid of bears and stays inside mostly I’m afraid of human theives. They’re not dangerous but prey .  So while I was driving up Coquahalla amidst all the big trucks I began lamenting the decline of government and law and order and miss Laura and wonder what the hell I was doing taking risk. I began thinking of having a house again. But when I lived in Shaughnassey theives broke in three times.  All the neighbours had been broken into.  Vancouver is a drug addict city of theives and insurance companies.  I began to worry how much my insurance premiums would pay back if my camper was pillaged.  I have an extra gun and I have a computer lap top and hand held Hamm radio. It would be several thousand to replace gear if I was broken into.  

Worrying is praying for negatives.  So there I am now driving in the dark up a mountain praying vigorously to block my catastrophising mind.

Jesus said ‘do not be afraid.  So as I told my sailing buddy, ‘worrying is wicked’.  Of course when we got into a tight spot in a blow and I was bailing the cockpit he grinned and asked “are we wicked yet’.  I was getting wicked as the night was falling and the wind was rising. I really was thankful to get to a safe harbour that night.

Now here I was wicked again and trying to block my thoughts with ‘all shall be well’ and ‘god is good all of the time.’

Only Falls Lake the turn around I pulled off at turned out to be the place where the thieves were reported.  

I put the struts out on the camper and having walked madigan climbed into bed for a great sleep.  

I woke at 430 and years younger I’d have headed out finding a camping place and starting the hunt. I rolled over and went back to sleep and woke again at 6. I’ve found coffee and made it on the stove top expresso and dressed. I’m feeling better now. But my dream is touring in my camper but I have to consider planning for possibility of theft.  Then I thought of my country homestead where I’d put in various protections. Even now I have motion detections lights. I once had motion alarms. I’ve got interactive cameras and want to get something for this camper.  But how to get such a thing outside internet range.  Still I don’t like theives and now it’s light and I’m missing Laura.  I don’t think there’s much risk from other people but the whole snatch and grab fold and the drug addicts and the light laws and the present government soft attitude towards criminals all work against property protection. 

There’s an election coming.  I am hopeful but was so disappointed the last two elections that I wonder about leaving the country. That’s my aging fear. Watching the abysmal way our government treated seniors during Covid was shocking. I fear aging and physical decline. I sometimes think the whole city girl gossip hanging out as a tribe with others is the way to go.  I have depended on my ‘manliness’ and ability to defend myself all my life but now ‘manliness’ in Canada is called ‘toxic masculinity’ and if you defend yourself you are the aggressor. Our PM who claims to be a feminist but is as borderline and gaslighting as they come says ‘if you kill your enemy they’ve won’.  What dribble.  I have thought long and hard about self defence and know that Jesus’s followers were armed. Fisherman always are.  Peter cut off the fellows ear. 

Even the Buddhist non aggression has three groups. Those who don’t eat meat at all. Those who eat meat if someone else kills it and those who eat some meat.  I studied the Chinese communists (the religions of aetheism) attack on Tibet and when the most peaceful monks were killed the B team of Buddhists picked up the left over English 303 and fought the Chinese machine guns with them. I enjoyed the fortress in Cambodia.  I’ve visitted Meteora and Cappadocia.  The Somalian Cabinet minister asked what he would do if he wasn’t reelected in Canada said he’d go back to his home in Somalia. So many of the Canadian politicians aren’t Canadian and the PM is anti Canadian claiming to be a ‘transnational’. Meanwhile I’ve nowhere to go.

I enjoyed meeting a Jain and loved worshipping with the Quakers. But I long ago figured that if a person was going to kill me letting him would make him a murderer so if I cared for his soul even I’d defend myself. If he died and I lived then so be it.  Of course there was the risk of both of us dying if I defended myself but in the past I’ve been able to stop assailants who would have killed me and lack morals and ethics and we both lived.  I’m not sure I can save myself without killing the assailant in a struggle now I’m older. We joke and say at our age there is no ‘second round’ so we have to end the fight in the first round.

So that’s what I wake with. Anxiety about possessions and theives.  Consumer world.  So many years of works three jobs to have the ability to be here where I am with what I have and I wonder about ‘safety’.  If I holed up in my bed it wouldn’t be any safer.  Yet so many of my patients do that.  Fetal position for days.

Anxiety.  

Anxiety is a measure of my distance from God.  Time to pray. Time to go too.  I’ll see if I can find the turn off at Coquahalla Summit .

Working between hunts

I love the bow hunt for the joy of the season.  Walking in the woods in the fall carrying a bow with a dog trailing along has always been uplifting for me. I rarely succeed in actually bagging anything but love the excuse to get out and enjoy fall season.  It was always a time for hunting with my father and brother and the dog growing up too.  Sept 10 is when rifle season opens.  It was the time we hunting prairie chicken out east. Now I’m looking for grouse and deer.  I’ve become older too. Older than when I hunted with my Dad. I’m actually older and still hunting than all those ‘older guys’ I hunted with.  I have a Honda 420 ATV so do more driving about on logging trails than actually stalking and sitting like I did younger when I shot a lot of game. 

Laura and I had a 5 day weekend, getting back on Tuesday so I could do a couple of days of work before heading out again. I brought the truck and camper and trailer into town so I don’t have to load them.  That’s a real blessing since gearing up takes at least a half day. I’d hoped to get away tonight but the wifi guy is coming this afternoon and I need the wifi to be working well for work so I’ll get away later.  I’m really looking forward to shooting a grouse and seeing Madigan become a full fledged bird dog.

I was reading Burton Cummings stories and enjoying them. I thought though how I’ve kept an open journal transparent about my thoughts and feelings. I liked reading the FB meme ‘everyone is a little screwed up in their head, it’s when you’re screwed up in your heart that you’re a piece of shit.”  

I’m feeling a little dissociated . Not quite in the flow. I find myself looking at my ADL’s like another person was doing them. I pray and meditate but there’s not the ‘passion’.  Just a lot of going through the motion. It’s been like that with Covid and the Lockdowns and now the Vaccine Passport.  So much skullduggery.  So much confusion.  The industrial ‘push’ of the Covid 19 with FB ‘attaching’ a ‘truth’ notice whenever Covid is mentioned, pharmacies always having some mention of it. Lots of virtue signalling. An election is going on but after the media corruption and election fraud of the US and Trudeau buying CBC I’ve become fearfully apathetic. 

I’m aging and there is a sense of marginalization.  I enjoy costume and dress. I walk around anonymous whatever I’m wearing. I remember my friend who dressed as clowns and animals and how as kids we did ‘guerilla theater’ and laughed so much.  I miss theatre and dance now that I’m older. I’ve given my life in service  and done my duty and answered my calling and done service. But now I’m on the cusp of retirement wondering how many more years I can do this. I’ve only short tern goals. 

I have Aberdeen to visit. I want to take my camper and drive about the US like ‘travels with Charlie’ and ‘black like me’.  I like the RV world.  I’ve a hankering to sail again. The inside passage on the east coast, changing my 40 foot boat to a 26 foot boat that would be more maneuverable.  

I ‘m very thankful for all I’ve had in life and the older I am the more appreciate the blessing of my parents and my teachers and friends and family.  Time to get ready for work.  In a few hours I’ll be in my truck hopefully heading out on the highway for another hunting adventure.  

Thank you Lord.

Hunting weekend, Similkameen River, Riverhaven RV Park

Laura makes me feel ‘manly’.  I enjoying camping and hunting and feeling no shame in masculinity.  Toxic feminists seem to breed in the urban cafe but dwindle out where masculinity is appreciated.  Laura loves being in the camper and Madigan and I love being out on the Honda ATV in the woods.  It’s a lot of work to manage all the aspects of daily living. Water systems, heating and refridgeration, automotive, community, electricity, sewage.  It’s a whole different thing to be sitting in a space station city apartment with all the services vaguely ‘miraculously there.”

We’re not roughing it by any means. Laura stoically joined me for all the tenting days when I’d leave her with a rifle and go off bear hunting in bear country.  She stayed in the truck one time. Another time a freak snow storm collapsed the tent roof and I found her sitting inside beside the heater read. She loves to read.  Another time while myself and the guys were out hunting grouse one landed on the picnic table and she shot it with her 22.  We were skunked and she had the grouse.  

I love this Riverhaven RV Campground. It has all the services, electricity, city water supply, sewage.  We can also access the ATV trails and back woods off the RV site.  There’s a beach and all the kids are down there all day. Yesterday was hot and sunny. I’d thought to jump into the cool stream but missed my opportunity. Today it’s overcast. Lots of folk are down swimming and playing by the water. But I’m passing. I only like cold water when it’s hot and sunny outside. I did just get out of a heavenly hot shower in the Adventurer camper. I love the Adventurer Camper.  

It was all day getting out here on Thursday. We had errands in the morning, and had to load the camper at John’s.  I also had to hook up the Lowe’s Store Utility Trailer with the Honda 420 Tracker ATV.  There’s keys and locks for everything so it’s always a mental Alzheimer’s test trying to remember all the details.  I keep meaning to get a flight checklist but forget to do it only to have to remember again next time.  We’d stopped at Cabelas on the way out only to find there was almost no ammunition.  None for my rifles.  Thankfully I found what I wanted at Canadian tire.  30:06 180 grain Nussler Partition.  What a find? I bought four boxes.  I’ve not been able to find any for a year but luckily have had leftovers from previous years.  The 300 Win Mag Short is all sold out too.  

It’s bow hunting, dear and elk but rifle for bear hunting. I found the bear banger gifts but the ammo was sold out.  I got a solid lock for the new electric bicycle. I hadn’t brought the Vespa so if we didn’t have something we’d have to do with out.  I was thinking this when we got to Hope to provision.  At Chilliwack we noticed the price of gas is way up.  Being older and knowing the country before Trudeau’s waste and mismanagement I remember $100 paid for a weekend of gas. Now it’s more like $400. All the food prices have gone up too because of all the taxes on primary processes and inflation.  I’m okay.  I’m still working yet I no longer feel clean paying taxes. Paying the terrorist ten million dollars for killing the American medic never sat well with me. When my taxes went to roads, defence and hospitals I was okay. Not okay but now it’s scandalous.  All the people who don’t work and don’t want to work are being rewarded and we’re suffering more and more taxes and less and less income. Same with legal gun owners, high costs and impeccable behaviour while the criminals get a pass from the government. 

Oh well, I’m far from the maddening crowd.  I love it here. Families and children and no loud music. A really well run campground.  Lovely owners.  So helpful. 

At Hope I really loaded a lot of food.  People are stockpiling canned food again as fall is coming on and more and more shortages are appearing in the stores.  Other than ammo we’ve been fortunate.  I’ve used Amazon to get some sweet items for camping.  Motion sensitive portable lights.  Also a soft Kolpin ATV gear bag seat that’s just skookum.  I like Kolpin.  

The ride up through Manning Park was a delight on a sunny day.  It wasn’t at all like the smoky surreal world I passed through last month. There was still some smouldering fire at East gate. There had been major flames before and black billowing smoke. Now it was just a little grey smoke.  A last stop at the Princeton store for sandwich meats. That’s all I’d forgotten at Hope.

The refridgerator is working well again thanks to Nick at Far Out RV in Hope.  

We finally made it to Riverhaven at dusk. A beautiful river side site. Lots of room. I was able to put the trailer beside the Camper and Ford F-350.  We’d had MacDonald’s from Hope so weren’t hungry. I did eat a cold cheese burger left over and that satisfied me. Laura wasn’t hungry after the quarter pounder late afternoon. It was so quiet and the stars were out.  

Madigan cried half the night. He wanted to be on the bed. He was bored. He was upset. I woke at 2:30 am with a cramp, took him for a walk and downed several Alleve.  I slept in. 930 am.  

Yesterday was a great day.  I actually went through all the gear and sorted it out.  It’s the first day of hunting and it’s always like this. I did get the net tent up.  Laura doesn’t like mosquitoes so I got this skookum net tent with bright lime roof. Caravan Canopy Screen House10 ft by 10ft. I put it up myself. Only takes one person. Modern design and really light weight. I love it. Laura loves it. 

When I was all set up I headed out with Madigan on the ATV.  I had to go through a rancher’s field and open and close the barb wire fence.  Magpies and steller’s jays were in the trees. Maybe even a whiskey jack. I’d see all of those and more.  Lots of birds. We stopped where we did in the spring. Madigan is fine with rifles. I sited in the Ruger and it was good enough. Nice pattern a hundred years. A couple of inches high and to the right.  It was okay.  I tried the old and new ammunition and it was okay.  Then I shot an arrow from the Excalibur hitting in the second ring from bullseye, first shot standing, 30 yards. Good enough.  Madigan was having fun running around off leash.  

I just rode the Honda 420 all over the mountain.  I saw a rabbit.  I raised a covey of grouse and got pictures.  Grouse season opens in a week. I saw one doe climbing up the mountain.  No bear.  Lots of cows. I was surprised by two beautiful young women in a Jeep wearing cammo. I’d not heard them as the ATV motor the Jeep’s quiet engine. They stopped and smiled and we shared about seeing lots of cows. I don’t know if they were hunting but they could have been. First time then for me seeing two girls out hunting together.  Always two or more guys or a couple.  I came across them again near dusk when I was heading back. I’d stopped to scope a  black lump on a mountain side. They passed me while I was stopped. 

It was 8 pm when I got back.  Dark. I barbecued some steaks and we used the cold salads I’d bought in Princeton. A lovely meal.  Not much longer we were in bed and Madigan slept well.  The park was really quiet. I ‘d walked Madigan before I went to bed around 10.  Everyone was turned in by then except for a couple of campsites where folks were sitting around the dead fire pit talking quietly. There’s a fire ban. Madigan slept and I slept and Laura slept. It was a glorious sleep.

This morning I was up at 6 am but I didn’t get going till 7:30.  Dawn was 630 . Supposed to be in position ready to ambush the dear at dawn.  I actually got up the mountain and find a place to watch for deer.  Madigan was learning how to walk behind me and did his best to sit still. Not very good. He would get 3-5 minutes before his attention broke and he had to look at something or chew a pine cone or climb on me. He did well. Normally I’m meditative and don’t move at all waiting for deer.  I was distracted but last an hour and a half before I got back on the ATV.  I drove all over the mountain after that. I stopped to let Madigan have some pond water. I had a couple of stops for coffee. Scanning the valley an clearings.  It was chilly at first but warmed up.

More grouse.  a Rabbit .  Doves. No elk, deer or bear.  But. I was there.

I came down the mountain after noon.  It feels safe here and I didn’t mind leaving stuff on my ATV. I put the bow and rifle in the locked truck but didn’t feel the need to unload.  I’d just put a tarp over the ATV the night before and found nothing disturbed in the morning.

I’d been hankering after eggs and bacon so barbecued some back bacon while Laura made scrambled eggs. We ate together outside under the Screen Tent. 

I had a lovely shower.  It’s so dusty on the back trails.  I loved getting clean.  

Now I’ll head up for evening hunt in an hour or two.  I might have a nap first. It’s so peaceful here.  

Riverhaven RV Park, Hedley , BC - Glamping!

Glamping Hunting! That’s as best a description I can come up with for this last 5 days.  Riverhaven RV Park is a glorious find on the Similkameen River. The owners are a delight. Everything is proper. Cute little cursive signs “Beach”, “Dog walk”.  There’s even a horse shoe pit and a place for children to play.  It’s compact but takes double trailer pull through.  I remember the first time I came a decade or more ago I had to use the pull through because I didn’t know how to back up a trailer. The new owners still helped me guiding me in backing up my F350 and Adventurer Camper  and ATV hauling utility trailer   last year.  We in the spring. We’re coming back again later in the fall.  I’ve got the hang of backing up with the utility trailer finally. 

It’s quiet. Beautiful spruce and pine and only the sound of the Silmikameen River after 10 pm. Children playing on the sand beach and dogs on leash.  Everyone friendly.

Meanwhile I’m the killer among them. At least the ‘wannabe killer’.  A trail off from the park connects to endless miles of forest service road and trails.  I must have done a couple of hundred at least this week .  I had my green Honda 420 Rancher literally loaded for bear.  My Ruger Stainless Steel 30:06 on the front rack alongside the Excaliber cross bow.  Black bear season for rifle was open along with bow season for elk and deer.  I had the new Kolpin soft back seat and bag  which Madigan ,the cockapoo could very comfortable.   I tied on the cased Nikon camera at the front and wore a GoPro camera on my helmet too.  

The first day I did hours of afternoon ATV road hunting.  I had to pass  through the barb wire fence, mounting, dismounting, moving the ATV and remounting,   opening and closing the gate so the cattle didn’t get out.  Up the mountain in a clearing, I sited in my Ruger again. I was using Federal 180 grainNosler Partition ammunition.   A few expensive shots confirmed I was shooting true.    On first shot with the Excalibur I hit one inch from the centre at 50 yards so didn’t spend any more bolts. Razor blade pointed bolts are expensive but the weight affects the shot. I target practice with a standard bolt but shot one of the heavier deer killing bolts to confirm accuracy.  Madigan wasn’t at all bothered by the noise , happily running alongside me back and forth between the target and the ATV.  My little cockapoo was in dog heaven.

I saw lots of grouse. Whole coveys.  Madigan was riding behind me on the soft Kolpin seat with a leash from either side of the back ATV rack connecting to his red harness.  When I’d stop I’d let him off to sample cool creek water then he’d bound up to take his seat again.  “Let’s go.” His expression always said.  The pines and spruce were glorious against the blue sky with the mountain ranges rippling like huge waves out to the horizon.  A few white clouds drifted by. I love this time of the year. I was only in my new khaki ‘tactical’ cargo pants , a Harley tshirt and a vest. Later I’d wear the blue jean jacket coming down the mountain.

I was up at 630 dawn but didn’t get away till 8 the next day. The next day it was a 730 start and finally I was able to get away at 630.  I doddle in the morning. Love my stove top expresso.  If it weren’t for my cheerleader Madigan I’d crawl back into the warmth and joy of bed with Laura. Madigan now that he knew what was coming was whining to get going at 600.  My thermos is critical and hand ful of Nature Valley crunchy granola bars. And yoghurt. I popped some Aleve but while my back had been more painful when I arrived, the relaxation and  the rolling camel ride motion of the ATV, like my offshore sailing ship, loosened me up more than a chiropractor. I slept like a dream too.

I enjoyed meeting the father and son. The boy must have been about 10 or 11 yo.  They were both dressed in cammo and the father was on the ATV. The boy had a tripod and 22 rifle and just missed a grouse when I came along. The proud father said, “He got his limit yesterday.”  It was youth grouse season. I missed  the year when we could hunt grouse with bow as well as deer. It cost a lot in bolts but I did bring home some grouse. I only saw one buck this year. I thought it was a buck . I was driving about the back trails slowly on the ATV when I saw it and thought I glimpsed a spike horn.  That’s where I’d come the next day.  For bow hunting you really need to sit by a deer trail.  I drove 27 km back into the woods that day enjoying the weather though it’s was a cooler overcast day.

The next morning heading back to the same spot I saw the deer, finally having got away at dawn, I’d surprise a big cougar. I was creeping along the back trail when this beautiful animal came up out the ditch and turned around after almost running into the front of the ATV.  Not more than 20 feet away in the ditch it turned around again and we stared at each other. I was thinking whether to grab the rifle or the camera but believed cougar season wasn’t till November.  I’ve never shot cat but ate delicious cougar when I was a flyin doctor in the Yukon.  I had a tag but reached for the camera rather stupidly unafraid.  I am a predator and he recognized it. I suspect he was equally curious about the little excited quivering puppy behind me, some sort of human dog cyborg ATV machine.  I couldn’t get the camera out fast enough but watced him slink so gracefully back into the spruce.

I left the ATV where I’d spooked the deer and walked a few hundred yards along the  trail to where I had a good view down the mountain ravine deer trail.  I had my rifle  filled with ammo and had cocked my bow and loaded an arrow. I had my Nikon P2000 telephoto. I had my thermos and pocketful of Nature Valley granola bars. I sat down with my back to a tree and tied Madigan to my leg. The day before he’d only been able to be still for 3 minutes not at all ‘getting the quiet still waiting game of the ambush’.  This day he was magnificent. A couple of hours passed as I dosed in the heat of the morning sun. I drank a couple of cups of thermos coffee and shared some crunchy granola with Madigan who was mostly content to chew sticks and listen and watch.  What a great little hunting dog companion!

At a bout 10 am we walked back to the Honda and loaded up.  More roaming about and exploring. Such beautiful country. Normally I drive on the main at about 20 to 30 km per hour in 3rd or 4th gear while in the back trails I crawls along between 5 and 10 in 2nd or 3rd gear.  I confess on the main logging road I enjoyed at times gunning it finding I could do 55 km/hr in 5th gear easily. I loved deep breathing too smelling the rich aroma of cut logs when I passed active logging sites. The smells in the woods are incredible. Here and there a touch of smoke scent still from the old forest fires of the summer. Then the musky marshy smells by the rivers.  The outdoors is such nose and eye candy. I loved it.

I loved all the birds, magpies, whiskey jacks, falcons, hawks, crows, stellar jays, chickadees. 

Each day I’d come back around 3 and plan for an evening hunt but after lunch and a nap I’d rather hang out at Riverhaven with Laura. She’d spent the day puttering and reading. . I’d put up the Caravan Mesh Screen Tent so we sat outside for dinner and reading. There were very few bugs this time of year and the screen tent kept the rare ones away.    Because all the kids were doing it and an our neighbour had a blow up dinghy, everyone one seemed to be down on the beach playing in the water, I actually put on the Tevas and bathing suit did too. I walked in the shallow water out into the middle of the stream where the chill water was above my neck.  They’d walled off a shallow area with rocks so thanks to the foot wear I was able to walk over that and enjoy the brisk mountain stream cool rush.  I completely immersed and it felt so good but I didn’t linger. Back in the camper I showered and shampooed with hot water.    I love this glamping!

I’d brought the new Motorino folding electric bicycle and rode it down the highway to the provincial park.  Mostly tents with the occasional small RV compared to Riverhaven with only a few tents and mostly buses and fifth wheels. Each night I’d walk the dog around the campground and look at the neighbours. People mostly barbecuing in the evening or sitting about chatting. One older couple were watching a wide screen tv that opened out of the outside wall of their big bus. They were sitting in lawn chairs and I didn’t hear any sound so expect they had it connected to hearing buds.  The provincial fire ban had been lifted so several had campfires going and marshmallows roasting. 

Laura and I read after dinner but as I had to be up early we were in bed by 10 pm.  It was wonderful to lie in the comfort of the camper queen bed looking up through the sky light at the stars poking out amidst the tall spruce trees.  I sleep so well in the country and have the best dreams of my favourite peninsula and the mansions and meetings.  

It’s been a spectacular 5 days.  Bowhunting with Laura has always been sweet with beautiful company and glorious BC fall weather and the dog.  Riverhaven RV Park with electricity, city water, sewage, wi fi and cell service has been more Glamping than Camping. I was even able to do some work though I wasn’t able to load the large company files only keep up with social media and emails.  Because everyone was using it loading pictures took too long for my patience. I did down load another western from Kindle when I finished one.  I expect some of the kids were streaming movies and games.  I expect God stopped Oscar loading to keep me from working all weekend.  Without the main program and the ability to fax in prescriptions I just took the calls and saved the work till I got back phoning pharmacies as needed. It really wasn’t onerous sitting in this heavenly campground. Several of the neighbour men were obviously doing some executive work at their camp tables with laptops, someone having to pay the outrageous high price of gas taxation.  It takes money to haul these homes about even if it is wonderful to have all the comforts of home in the great outdoors. 

Each night I barbecued . Laura made up salads. We had barbecue chicken which Madigan loved, pork and steak.  We had Hagen daz ice cream bars for after dinner.  Sleep was glorious. 

Now its time to pack up. Not much to dismantling camp. The natives in the old days could have their teepees down and horses loaded in an hour or two  and that’s about how long it takes us. I enjoy the moseying about, no hurry.   I used to go for a morning hunt on the last day but now I don’t.  I m just so glad to be off the clock and a way from the rush and pressure of work. Laura loves being out of the city where the Covid downtown is always angry with sirens and windows being kicked in.  She says there’s shouting all night and she loved the relaxation and quiet here and her wonderful sleep.  

Thank you God for a grand place and a fantastic holiday.