Shell Games

Straw Bale House Update: My youngest son, Curtis, made the train trip from Victoria to give me a hand on the house last week. Tax time, lack of help and a dose of the flu had slowed progress. But, we were able to strap most of the existing roof and hang the upper floor collars while the weather cooperated. Roofing material quotes are in the works.

I'm not much for meetings, but I dragged Curt to a public hearing regarding the expansion of a shellfish tenure on Baynes Sound, (the western shore of the island). Most of our western shoreline is shellfish tenure and I personally don't have a problem with the farms themselves. Two things do concern me... First is the amount of garbage that washes up on the beaches from the farms. To me this makes them bad neighbours. If every time the wind blew someone dumped their garbage in your back yard, that would make them bad neighbours, even if they offered to pick up the big chunks. Every year, hundreds of pounds of plastic debris is collected from our beaches, mostly by the residents themselves. Secondly, I have this really strong adversity toward modified or foreign species of life being test-driven in our forests, lakes or oceans. (The hybrid species of scallop to be farmed is outlawed in U.S. waters). The high point at the meeting, was when a representative of Edgewater Foods, (a Nevada based company) stated that their product was helping with the 100 mile diet concept and that "they were just trying to grow some food". This cracked me up, (I guess you had to be there.) I had another chuckle when I later checked out their website to find their biggest customer is in France.

The weekend was spent at an intensive fire-fighting course in Comox. I have a whole new respect for my protective gear, as there was no lack of heat in the "burn house". It peaked on a basement fire scenario on Sunday afternoon, where no less than 5 visors were melted off their respective helmets on the way down the stairs, (mine included). Tough on the gear, but a great confidence builder.

March 15th is " Zeitgeist " day, where millions of people will be watching this thought provoking movie.