Blackwater MC Rides Again.

   My mates and I have been spending a lot of time the past month working on some new material and getting polished up for an important gig. A battle of the bands coming up next week-end where the winner gets a spot up on the big stage at July's Pemberton Music Festival, one of biggest around,  and we submitted a studio recording along with our band bio.

Singer-songwriter front-man Josh Fairbrother went into the studio first to lay down a scratch track, or one that won't be used in the end, but gives us something to play to, at a 90 beat per minute click-track we all have to follow, especially me. The song is another of Josh's original rockers called 4x4, through his lyrics he extolls the virtues of 4x4 pickup trucks, favorite songs, small towns, and your best girl with no clothes on, and "giving you love by the truck-load".  Works for me!

Only slightly freaked-out, I went in the next week and recorded my bit. 

I had a beautiful kit of drums there to use, but even with my cymbals it is always a different feel than playing your own. All the mics and head-phones are a trip too. 

Most of the mayhem occurred between takes. A good man in the country, but a clumsy bugger in the studio, I kept standing up and bumping my head on the over head mics, or else put my big foot on the head-phone cord and stand up yanking the plug out, or inadvertently clobber one of the expensive drum mics with a wildly misplaced stick.

"And don't swear when you make a mistake...," Jay advised, "the over-heads pick it up." 

Satisfied finally, after 20 takes, and probably hoping to spare his drums and studio equipment any further abuse, Jason proclaimed the drum session complete. 

He went in later during the mixing process, and made it sound like I knew what I was doing almost.

 

 Our engineer/producer Jay, of Bunker 7 Productions.

Ross Edwards tuning up for his session, the other old codger of the band, he nailed his part in 3 takes.

Between the drums and bass, there is about 126 years of experience in that rhythm line.

Nate and Josh went back in last week to do the final guitars and vocals, and we left it in the hands of the staff at Bunker 7 Productions for the final mix.
I hear Josh stepped on the cord and pulled the plug out of the head-phones a few times also.

We've been getting together out here at the MC clubhouse several times a week if we can working on the set. I've found if you ever want to be in a cool band, just have a really cool place to practice.
Blackwater MC started right here in the shop, a true garage band.

 Josh and I, during our successful 2012 Farmers Market Tour, where we got paid in vegetables.

 We bumped into Ross at a jam up there too and became a 3-piece.

   We had some down-time over the Winters when Josh would go off and work at his trade that not surprisingly, pays a lot better than being a musician. But the upside was he always came back in the Spring with spare time and some new songs.

   Last Fall I heard a rumor in the valley the new teacher at the small remote school out here was, 'a bit of a guitar player.' I'm a little short of people to rock out with in this neck of the woods as you can imagine, and I thought it was just my rotten luck, someone would move out to the valley with a guitar, and it would turn out to be some school teacher.

Somewhere along about the same time, the new teacher heard a rumor that character over at the hot spring had, 'a bit of a drum kit'. "Just my rotten luck," he probably thought, "...a drummer way out here but turns out to be some old guy."

   Leroy, one of the local boys out here, roped me into getting together with him and this new teacher to play a fund raiser dance for the school last Winter.

Having a cool spot to practice in paid off again, and the guys showed up here a week before the school dance to work out some songs. 

They didn't have teachers like this when I was in school, and turns out he is an experienced guitar ripper extraordinaire. Nate Dillon as it turned out, had a twenty year career in the music industry, toured the continent with countless big name acts, and drank beer with Tommy Lee,...etc. He's been teaching for a few years in out of the way places, leading a more laid back lifestyle and wound up way out here where he probably thought he had literally come to the end of the logging road musically.

   Josh arrived back a couple months ago with some new material, and he couldn't wait to come out and hash them out in the garage.
I couldn't wait to surprise him with our new best friend Nate!

Before the evening was over, the Blackwater Motorcycle Club had a new member, and we became a 4 piece rock and roll band, his guitar and vocals have taken our music to another level already.

   The deadline for the battle of the band entries was a few days ago. We've all been working pretty hard on this whole deal, and when I started puttering on this story, we still didn't know if we were going to be chosen, and I had to consider several possible endings to this post.

I just got word today, we made the final cut. Out of the original 40 odd bands, BMC was picked as one of the final 8 that are going to sort out the pecking order next weekend on-stage at a swanky golf course in Pemberton. Third place gets some money, second place gets some money, but first place gets some money, and a gig up on the big stage at the Pemberton Music Festival, including VIP passes so we can lounge around eating catered food and drinking Perrier, etc., with a bunch of big name musicians.  Provided we win of course.

 Going to be some battle of the bands, and we're ready to ride in and kick some butt.!
                           

                                I'll let you know how it all goes.

Link here to listen.
https://soundcloud.com/blackwatermc
http://www.mountainfm.com/2015/06/22/be-the-best-play-the-fest-lineup-announced/

Invasion Of The Booger Plants.

    I can appreciate a flower, even though I'd have a hard time identifying one by its proper name, but they need to know their place. A few posts ago I wrote about the full-time job mowing lawns around here during the Spring growing season. I neglected to mention that at one point, to my relief, the grass growth slows down to a tolerable level, then the booger plants appear, seemingly growing to your knees overnight. I suppose theres a fancy name for this vegetation, some might even call it a flower. To me, and anything else that pops up on the lawn falls into the same category, Booger plant. Not to be confused with Jigger bushes, that I have an on-going battle with that try to take over the far end of the clearing, thats another story.

 

Booger plants (dandylinus paininthe assus)

Don't let their mild demeanor fool you, they are out to take over the world.

I suppose the effect is not entirely un-appealing.
Booger plants come in several colors. Theres the common yellow booger, and the not so aggressive white booger, that has more sense and tends to grow in areas I don't mow. I suppose theres another name for the white boogers too, I'm tempted to say...Daisy. (daisyus paininthe assus)

  Well, you are probably thinking to yourself, what the hells so bad about flowers/boogers popping up in your yard. I have to admit they are a bit entertaining, they close up at night and open bright yellow when the sun comes over the mountain, and follow as it crosses the sky then close up again. The problem is when they close up, it just looks like you have a scraggly yard. People tend to drive in when its in this state, often remarking,"Whats the matter, your lawnmower broke?"

Then after they leave it breaks out in color like an alpine scene from The Sound Of Music.

It gets difficult to walk around, especially if you are wearing open toed shoes. If you ride your motorbike down the airstrip you come back with your foot-pegs all loaded up. And eventually, the boogers have done their seasonal thing, and just become nasty looking weeds. 

  I usually put up with them for a week or so, then one late afternoon, when they are closed up so they can't look at me, I fire up the ride mower. That takes the boogers down to lawn level for another week before they come back with a vengeance. Eventually, they will cease to be a concern, just like in past years. Then the grass will begin to grow again.

An old softy, I mowed around and left one. I can appreciate a flower.

A Thoughtful Spot, No Tools Required.

 The water level out front has dropped, earlier this year than it usually does. 

During these hot afternoons it is rather pleasant to hang out close to the water, and as hard as it is for you to believe, I do on occasion take time out of my busy non-schedule for a reflective moment here and there. I found down the bank out front here works pretty good if the need ever arises, but I got tired of standing around during periods of extended reflecting.

I sat down the other night to design a bench for down there next to the water. 

I decided to spare no expense, and figured a custom made low bench with arm-rests would be just what I needed for my periodic mental wellness. 

I went shopping for supplies at the junk wood-pile over by the big fire-pit.

I found pretty close to what I needed in stock and piled it on the wagon. ChYk helped, then escorted me over and supervised while I hucked it all over the bank to the construction site below, and began to install it as per the instructions.

My 'low bench with arm rests' didn't turn out quite as I had expected.

I discovered it worked better if I installed the arm rests on the bottom.
You should see me trying to assemble Ikea furniture.

Location is everything. The water was several feet deep there a week ago, amazing how fast it can drop.The fact this area floods several times a year probably explains what happened to the last 'thoughtful spot' bench

Yes, I think this may work just fine for the occasional break from my non-schedule, if the need ever arises. There looks to be just one thing missing though...

A Pain In The Grass.

   I don't know who's bright idea it was to have a lawn around here.
It was certainly never considered in the plan. It just kind of happened on it's own actually.
I had grown up around an extensive lawn, and seems quite a pile of my childhood memories revolve around push-mowers and best case scenario, a ride-on. I did my best in later life to avoid all of the above as best I could, and would often chuckle when I saw some poor slave to his yard out there sweating and pushing a mower around in his spare time.

   In the Fall of 1994, after the clearing had been done and the area cleaned up here at the hot spring property, some smarty-pants told me it would be wise to spread a reclamation mix around. So I foolishly brought home 400 lbs. of reclamation seed mix, which is what they  use on road right of ways and under hydro-lines I was told. I had a careful study of the list of ingredients on the bags, making sure 'lawn' wasn't listed anywhere on there. I figured I'd spread all this around and a forest and wildflowers were going to pop up. I had one of those seed spreaders you turn the crank and cast the seed as you walk along. It was quite a job I recall walking and cranking the entire length of the clearing, then turn around, move over a little and walk all the way back only to repeat the process. By my calculation, I put on more than 10 miles walking back and forth cranking and stumbling over roots and I was glad when it was completed, then waited for the new forest and wildflowers to appear. A couple hundred pounds of clover seed was procured and spread down the air-strip and around the cabin as well. Someone said that would be a good idea too.

   The next year the forest and wildflowers had a good start.
By 1996, my 'forest' had grown up quite high around the cabin which made it hard to wander around.  I came home from town one day with a weed-eater to beat it back a bit.
I don't know what I was thinking, but the next year I came back from town with a goddamn lawnmower of all things to beat the bush back just a little further. I knew this was a mistake right from the start and should have known better. And in a weak moment, I think I may have spread around a few bags of grass seed to fill in some of the bare patches in my budding forest.
Then I made the mistake of bringing home lengths of garden hose to operate a sprinkler...or two.
Things began to go seriously to hell from there on.
I must have had too much time on my hands as well, because on occasion I would log another clear-cut with the weed-wacker, and make an extra pass or two around the perimeter with the goddamn push-mower to extend the area,  like it needed it.
   It wasn't too much longer I began to eye-ball the landing strip, which had grown back in clover about knee high. After considerable looking I came back with a scythe. A scythe is a pole with two handles that you swing a long sharp curved blade with, commonly used by peasants and pioneers that didn't know any better, and it didn't take me long to figure out why those peasants and pioneers died so young. I managed to thrash down a tent-size patch of air-strip and realized despite the fact it scored really low on the old fun-meter, and was considerably more exercise than I thought I needed, it was going to take me all summer to do. The scythe received a coat of oil, and was hung up for display on the side of the guest cabin, where it has sat unmolested for 19 years.

I stewed over the situation for a few weeks, then against my better judgement manged to track down a ride-on lawnmower that had seen better days, hauled it out here into the wilderness and tackled the landing strip. It was grown high with clover and that first mow took me about 3 days, and thought I was going to burn up my new old mower.

   That poor old mower received 17 more years of abuse before finally calving a few years ago and I pushed it out in the bone yard back of the shop, then began to price out a new replacement.
Well that scared me and I drug the heap out and resurrected it once more, getting another awkward season out of it. This poor mower lived quite the life, and should go into a mower museum, I'm sure theres one someplace.  I came across it in front of the equipment dealer in town, a recent trade-in. Before I got my hands on it, the previous tormentor had caught it on fire, as evident by the paint bubbled off the hood and engine compartment, fueling while it is running being the usual cause. After it survived that first air-strip ordeal, I painted the hood, cleaned it up and it looked like new.  When the time finally came to paint the hood again I took it off with all good intentions, but I never did get around to painting it, or putting it back on for that matter, anyways, it looked kind of hot-rod without it. Over the years I wore out several sets of tires, countless blades, and about every moving part on it, twice. Something with the wiring went haywire one day and I spent 16 years jump starting it off my pickup to get it running. I had to by-pass all the factory safety features and re-wire to my own specifications so it didn't turn off on me every time I got out of the seat. Somewhere along the line it developed a problem with jumping into gear too if you didn't get it all the way into neutral which turned out to be problematic at times. Like that hot day I was mowing the yard and landing strip and I decided to pull over to the cabin for a cold drink. The muffler was rusted out, so I needed to wear hearing protection, which I never bothered to take off. I pulled up to the front deck and jumped off, leaving it running there while I ran in for a drink, which turned into a drink and a banana, and probably a trip to the little room. Refreshed in several ways, I wandered back out on the front deck to my waiting ride-mower, only to find it not there any longer. I took a horrified look down the bank and into the river expecting to see bubbles. I pulled my ear-muff deals off to go down and poke around the water with a pole when I hear the mower popping away on the other side of the yard in reverse, and about to head into the bush backwards. By the time I got there it had run itself in there aways before butting up against a stump and sat there digging a hole with one wheel.
Another life used up, good thing it slipped into reverse and not forward.
   Eventually the machine got just used up, and I was satisfied I got my money out of it. It cut grass all wonky and I had to pump the tires up before I jump started it to get it going, and half the time I got off it, I had to go looking for it. The steering was so loose it was a challenge to go in a straight line.

 Finally, running low on oil one day last year it ground to a halt, and was pushed to the bone-yard for the final time. I'll hang onto the wreck to resurrect it in the form of a wagon or something one day.

   As I was fearing all along was going to happen, I was in the market for another machine. I found my new victim, a new one, in front of the same equipment dealer up in town. This dealer and I, well, lets just say we have some history, and not much of it good. But it saves me driving another two hours to deal locally. The money was coming right out of savings, which was upsetting enough, but for a frigging lawnmower.  You can imagine my delight about a week later when I received a message that (in his haste to complete the transaction and get me out of the store) he had failed to punch the proper amount into the debit machine. Sure as hell, I had a closer look at the bill of sale and indeed my new hydrostatic drive ride-on mower had cost me $20.85! After a suitable period of savoring the situation, I informed him I would take care of it next time I was in town. Sometimes I don't go in very often, and can drag it out for a considerable time if required. I went in once, but figured he was probably busy. I went in another time, but decided I hadn't quite enjoyed the whole thing enough yet. I did finally sashay in there one day at my leisure, casually writing his book-keeper a cheque for the remaining couple of grand.

I call this my orange mid-life Corvette. Its about as close as I'm going to get.
This new sport model I picked up last summer has made the job considerably easier, the hydro-static drive lets you get in around in places in the orchard I couldn't with the old one and I should have traded it off long ago before I buggered it completely. All the rough work was done by the previous one, and I'm not interested in pioneering more area, so I can take better care of this one. If I could get it down on the terrace by the river I'd hardly need a push-mower. As an added bonus, it starts on its own, and the tires stay inflated. It does have an annoying habit of shutting down every time I get off it though.

As if a king-size front yard with a landing strip and orchard is not bad enough, there is a long section of the gold-rush heritage trail that runs through here I maintain. When this trail was surveyed by Lt. Palmer of the Royal Engineers in 1859, he had no idea that one day, some character would driving up and down it on his ride-mower, listening to his mp3 player.
   I usually manage to put off mowing until sometime the beginning of May, but this year was unusual in that the first mow was April 1. So its going to be along season this year, and right now its all I can do to keep up.

For a guy that swore off lawns years ago I seem to have created a monster out here.
But I suppose its worth it.

 August 1966, no matter how much things change, they appear to remain the same.

New Planter Box, Bear Inspection.

   I was persuaded recently into putting some thought into building a planter box. I thought about it right up until planting season then went out and dug around in the lumber pile to see what I could come up with. Foremost on my mind was to do it without costing me any money of course. There was a pile of 2x8 around I had been keeping to build an outdoor stage from some day, but hauled a wagon-load of them over and proceeded to dream up a planter box. It had to be somewhere that the bears don't have easy access, right up front of the deck seemed to be the right choice.

I notched all the joints to save on nails.

And it all stacked up and interlocked as planned.

It was still a bit wobbly so I tacked on some end braces.

I put some discarded old decking from the hot spring on the bottom and tacked on some of the old garden fence I still have around.

 An application of linseed oil and a couple wheelbarrow loads of leaves and I was ready for dirt.

Apparently you can't use any old dirt, and if there is one thing this country is short of, is good dirt, so I headed for town in search of store bought super-dirt.

"Say what?!" I remarked when the young fella at the topsoil place told me the going rate for dirt these days.

"That's for one cubic yard" he tells me.
I asked him if he could get that cubic yard into the back of my truck without scratching his machine.
"I'll be careful." he assured me.

By the time I arrived back here the high priced pay-dirt had settled down to about a half load, and I was wondering if I should have brought home more. It took every last crumb swept out of the back of the truck to fill, and I wish I could take credit for factoring all that in there, but I really didn't know how it was all going to work out in the end. 

 While I was shoveling I looked up and noticed the first bear of the season, grazing away down the field.

 

One vegetable planter box, ready for the planting crew.

                                                                **********

So I go out this morning with a tea and the cats standing around admiring the planter when I noticed some strange marks on one brace that were not there the night before. Well bugger if that bear didn't come back later, when no-one was watching and checked out the new planter. Attracted by the scent of linseed oil wafting down the airstrip I assume, he (her) had a good look at my engineering, then bit down hard on one brace, leaving four tooth marks in the wood.  

I hope he (her) has satisfied their curiosity.