Archive for May, 2010

Arcticle on the Arctic Sea Ice

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Here is an interesting article on the Arctic ice and the NW Passage.  I hope to give everyone an unbiased first hand account of what I find.  One thing for sure is things are changing and they are changing fast.  

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/arctic-sea-ice-heading-for-new-record-low/article1575212/

Progress Report

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Progress Report

I’m fast eating up my wiggle room, but progress is being made. Ol’ Thumper is road worthy again. The cosmetics lack perfection. After all it has been an armature face-lift, or in this case “butt lift”.

She’s just been too good to end up in the scrap yard. So the insurance company sold her back to me as salvage. I budgeted one week and of course it’s taken two. With all the other things she survived, the blizzards Ken and I braved to get the CAP’N LEM to Minnesota, hitting the deer in Michigan and the wild ride through downtown Manhattan with Josh and Tiny, how could I just let a tow tuck haul her away without at least trying to put this humpty dumpty back together.

So with hacksaws, saber saw, table saw, band saw and of course sawsall, with hammers and drills and lots screws I cut and beat and braced until crumpled became flat and concaved became convex and slowly, so slowly, she once again took her former shape.

But lets let the pictures tell the story:

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A Minor Set Back

Friday, May 14th, 2010

a-motor-home-resized

 

 

 

 

It is one of the basic lessons of life that other people’s action can have profound effects on us totally independent of intent and knowledge.  Recent events bring this home to me with a bang.

 

It seems some 50 years ago the land I live on was logger and some logger unknown to me (and I to him) used a certain young fir tree as an anchor.  He put a choker of some sort around the base of the tree.  So it did what chokers do and choked the tree.  But, that simple act reached into the future, my future, to become a stumbling block to my returning to Labrador! 

 

The young tree took offense at being choked and reacted with a deformity of growth by growing outwardly below the choker and outwardly and upwardly above the choke but not at that point around the girth of the tree.  It was a bad defect but not too bad because the then young tree continued to grow into a now old tree withstand wind and rain and the comings and going of men through the years.  Well, not too bad a defect until last week, when in a creak and crash, it came down to thump “Ole Thumper”, the motor home, a fatal blow.

 

Once again Mister Murphy and his damnable law came knocking on my door.  Because things that can happen will happen and at the worst possible time, I am once again convinced to the core there is no such thing as luck!  You see, using luck to explain away events always stops short.  I’m not unlucky because the tree fell on motor home anymore than I am lucky the tree didn’t fall on me! It is just what happened, caused by unknown events long ago that took this time to reveal themselves.  My challenge is how will I deal with this?  I chose not to waste a moment of time blaming my “luck” but rather adjust my schedule, make the best repair I can and get on the road to Labrador by next week.

 

What I do see in all this commotion is the opportunity to grasp yet one more lesson in awareness.  I talk to myself, (I’m 64, I can do that now) …”Tommy” I says to me, “there will always be the unknown and unknowable.  You are attempting to go into a very hostile environment, you best be ready old son, you best be ready”.