Deja Vu All Over Again.

   Well just like happened back in December, we've had a banana monsoon going on again for the past couple days, washing out the roads and causing slides and making a nuisance of it self again.

Its jumped the culvert once more out behind here. After they just spent 5 grand fixing it from the last blowout. Numerous spots between here and town are causing problems, although the road is still open, theres rocks on the road and creeks flowing across and fun stuff like that.

The creek down at the hot spring is up. It does this now and again under conditions like this.

Runoff from the old road above jumps the culvert and pours over the bank into the hot spring pool, which in turn cools off and overflows onto the lower area.

I had taken a shovel down with me in anticipation of this, and managed to collect the run off in a small ditch and divert it off and away from the hot spring source. It will take a day or two for the water to get up to temperature again.

And oh ya, I'm running on back up  power around here again. All my pipes and stuff got blown out of the intake pond up the hill again, and I just fixed it a month and a half ago the last banana monsoon. And its still raining. This is going to be some long-weekend, campers beginning to arrive down at the hot spring, and my first batch of guests just pulled in for the trailer and cabin facilities here.

Doubters...ha.

     I remember a dismal attempt or two at composing words when I was young.
I had decided to write a fiction novel when I was like 8 or 9, but I'm sure not going to embarrass myself  here with the subject storyline, plot, and predictable ending. Parts of which I still painfully recall all these years later. My reasoning was that I would be excused from school to stay home and create my potential Pulitzer. It was worth a try, nothing else was working. Thankfully the publishing world was saved an unknown fate by a bad case of writers block, when my active little mind just kind of dried up. It happened somewhere on about the third paragraph, right after I had covered the unbelivable story line, flimsy plot, and predictable result. It was probably the particular genre I chose, I've never liked fiction, and still don't. But I wisely made the decision to leave the book writing to others, and became an avid book reader instead.
And I do still read, every damn day.
   I gravitated towards biographies and such, to see who people where in life, that always interested me. As did history, and books by old timers that had taken on the frontier, and had a story to tell in their own particular style. I always liked the idea of writing a book about your life though, it seemed to me something that you would naturally do when your an old bugger, and have your own story or two to tell. 
   For a period back in the '70's, I was living and working on a small cattle ranch on the not too distant outskirts of civilization, and found myself front and center with a certain incident involving a broken water reservoir. Rains and a high creek had filled the dam to its brim, and seeing it was going to eventually overflow and breach the dam that held back a considerable sized reservoir, I tried what I could, including rounding up an old buddy Fred, who had some diving experience. I somehow convinced him to strap on his tanks and mask, tie a long rope to his leg so I could haul him back out of there if I had to, then slither into the muddy water to try and blindly find the outlet pipe somewhere down there and ensure it was clear of debris.
   The time of reckoning had arrived, and to my horror, standing there in the pouring rain, the dam spilled over, washing out a chunk of earth and a wall of water went..., well never mind. But you have to admit it was a dumb idea to put in a subdivision downstream from a cattle ranch in the first place, especially this outfit. I'm bringing this unfortunate series of events up only because it was this particular mishap that inspired my writing career. With all the resulting legal action directed at my employer, and as the sole defense witness, I was asked by his office and formidable legal team to write out a brief statement of events that day.

   A day or so after the event, I sat in my trailer up on the mountainside, overlooking what was left of the subdivision lights incidentally, and began to write, by hand, in great detail, about my minuscule contribution to the flooded streets and basements below. Due to the serious nature of the report, I started off straight enough, as I thought a statement should, and continued for a boring, stilted paragraph or so. Suddenly, my brain appeared to take on a mind of its own, or maybe it was just the spiced up coffee. In spite of my aching left hand, one page led to another. It came out on its own, and I let it go, stopping here and there to laugh at something that had spilled from my pen. From my heated efforts to drain the pond, to interactions with the irate inhabitants of said soggy subdivision. A considerable number of whom were already mad at us over that time before when the road was blasted into the mountainside with dynamite, and a whole row of picture windows over there fell out from the concussion.
Oh well, they're the ones who wanted to live in the country.
   The witty adventure story/legal statement ended up being a volume of about 10 pages. I believe I even enclosed a detailed hand drawn map of the disaster area for reference, with a little cowboy hatted stick person, representing myself, standing innocently in the general area of the broken reservoir dam, and a whole bunch of little stick people over in the adjoining subdivision, all jumping up and down and splashing about with exclamation marks over their heads. I proudly turned my manuscript over to the engineer at head office, whom was still convinced I had something to do with the dam breaching in some way, and as a budding writer, was about to receive my first literary rejection.

"We didn't mean for you to write a goddamn book, just a few facts for court!" he says, then slumps back in his high-back office chair, swivels to one side, and begins to thumb through the pages.

"What the hell...?" he soon says, stopping here and there, reading brief passages. 

Pretty soon he begins to smirk, in spite of his cranky self, and broke out laughing.

"I don't think we better call you up in court as a witness, if we can at all help it." he assured me.

   My report was copied and sent out to the various departments and lawyers for use in the case, and I found out later more copies had been made and distributed out to friends and associates, sent on not as a report, but as an entertaining read. I felt I had finally found my niche, maybe I could be a writer after all. I didn't carry on with it at the time, my energy went into other ventures, but the bug was always there, to be brought out on occasional long letters from some remote job site or adventure some place to friends and family back home.

   Back in the 80's, I became involved in my spare time with a small upstart motorcycle magazine. I started writing about events, stories of interest, and had my own regular feature called, Technically Speaking-With Mr. T., a nom de plume I used back then. This was all pretty bush-league, and we learned as we went along. One of my more memorable Technically Speaking articles, explained in plain language, the workings of a motorcycle front fork suspension. The article was called, and I cringe now, Fork Your Brains Out, by Mr.T. It started as a working title, and I had hoped something better would have come to me by the printing deadline. It didn't, and I soon found out the power of a well intentioned, but ill conceived heading title.

You probably think I'm making this up.

   The buxom, overbearing mother of one of our shop sponsored riders, a devout member of a local church and a few of her hen friends were the first to complain, arriving at the busy motorcycle shop one afternoon so I could hear all about it in front of a group of snickering and giggling customers. Several of the hard to come by advertisers started raising questions about the magazines somewhat shady editorial staff. I don't know if any of them actually read the article, but eventually the matter was forgiven, but since then, I've always put a lot of forethought into a suitable title.
But in the end, it turned out to be advertising for the fledgling magazine that money couldn't buy.
   Not entirely related to the incident, I eventually resigned from the magazine, and moved from the area in general. I kept up trying to get things down on paper, and began to think if I was going to consider myself a writer, I had at least try and look like one. I began to take long walks with my dog around my country home in the waning evening light, wearing a cardigan sweater and cap, like I pictured a writer would, contemplating life and imagining future book signings and intellectual television interviews. It didn't appear to help my writing career a whole lot, but I did manage to get quite a few pages spit out of my electric typewriter with no little amount of effort. These literary efforts, such as they were,  unfortunately flew from my desk and out the back of my truck during a move and lost. I have to wonder if someone walking down the side of the road later came across some loose pages, put them back in order, and started reading..."What the hell...?"

   I had a dry spell until I came out here to the hot spring, where I had the time in the Winter and was full of fresh adventures after my return from Central America. These jungleventure stories were always well received, and I was much encouraged to follow through in print then, but somehow I always got swamped down by the business end of producing a book, and got busy working around here instead.
The question had come up many times over the years from family, hot spring users and the like, I'd always say, "Uhm, its in the works!"

   A few years back, without a whole lot of forethought, one day out of the blue I decided to start my Hotspring Lodge site here, as an outlet for my active little mind, and busy little camera.
Looking into the world of self-publishing, I began to think something in book form might be possible after all, and you can't put these things off forever. At any rate, I'm sure I fall well into the category of 'old bugger' now, and have a story or two of my own to tell. So, to all you doubters out there, past and present, you know who you are, that thought I was only hot air and would never get around to it, ha! I'm here now to tell you this... Well, uhm, its still in the works. But it has progressed considerably in the recent months and slowly becoming a reality.
*There is about a third of the content stored away, cleaned up, formatted and ready to go for final structural editing. Some stories no one has seen before, while some chapters were originally written 20 years ago. I'll draw from the pages of Hotspring Lodge here and there too of course, no use shooting myself in the foot and wasting some good stories on all you free loaders out there. Some of the more memorable will, including this one maybe or parts thereof, be re-edited to be included in their new and improved, and in some cases, possibly un-censored form. And it looks like I need to make up some new ones too, for filler. So if I'm not here, that is often what I'm doing.
*I've decided on a font, font size, interior artwork and page design.
A book needs to be readable for folks of all ages. Especially when I'm in the not too distant old folks home, attempting to pawn off unsold copies to everyone there.
*The cover art is secured, and the cover design is pretty much sorted out for now.
A successful book cover needs to stand out from the rest. Especially when its piled in with all the other hot-sellers in the huge discounted Walmart bargain bin.
*Mail order copies will initially be available from the Hotspring Lodge Bookstore.
Copies signed on request, and postage stamps licked by the actual author at no charge.
*There will be a reader version available from an on-line retailer.
*The book has been issued an ISBN. (so I have to follow through now)
*I have a publisher. Sparrow Creek Publishing, you probably haven't heard of them, I'm not going to have much luck getting a large advance out of this character. In fact, this outfit and its rather shady editorial staff have never published a book before. Oh well, may as well start big I say!
I'm not giving away anymore information about it for now, I've told you too much already.
But I'll give you a quick look...

I came up with a better title for it than that of course, I learned that lesson years ago.
Stay tuned for further developments, and to the doubters..., once again, I say ha!   

Report For The End Of January.

    Well the weather has sure been nice. Freezing at night, the fog burns off and nice during the day, and the last of the remaining snow is going fast.  

Full moon coming, so going to be some cool nights ahead.

 The last lone fish in the creek spawned out finally.

The local critters came around at night to check. Bobcat track and an older rained on cougar track on the right.

Things going good down there at the hot spring too it looks like.

A nice time of year.

     I wrote awhile back about that huge rain we had in December, the one that really came down and closed the roads and stranded folks out here and made my lights go out. Bastard. There was a considerable amount of fine material washed down the creek behind here, the same creek that powers the pelton-wheel generator. There was the usual sticks and branches, moss, needles and roots etc. getting washed down and raising hell with my intake, but this time there was an extraordinary amount of a course material come down, quite a bit of it building up down here below in front of the cabin when it finally hit slower water and settled out. Of course the sudden, unexpected influx of this material in the creek got sucked into the intake pipe down the hill for the power system, anything minus half inch anyhow. This material had an adverse effect on the piped nozzle at the pelton-wheel, and the wheel itself suffered more wear and tear that it has in the last 13 years. I'll get a little fine sand once in awhile, or a slurp of grit now and again and it has caused nominal wear, but I can tell theres been some really nasty material firing through the nozzle at the cupped wheel. 

   The steep creek channel down the mountain gets washed out pretty regular, so this amount of decomposed bedrock grit that came down could only mean some major event upstream. Either a slide, or an access road washed out, the latter being the most likely culprit, and a culvert being it's weakest link. So as soon as it was a nice enough day to break out the Honda, and the snow line had got high enough I was itching to run up the mountain behind and see what the hell the problem had been up there. Or get as far as I could.

It was a nice day to go for tear anyhow.

 There had been water running over the access road and washing out the fines in the normal places, but it does not reach the creek. The road only crossed the main creek in a few spots, two short span log bridges, and a culvert or two way up high that where installed a couple years back during some logging up there and the road was extended a few km. higher.

The Honda kept going through the bad spots and chugging up and up and was I surprised there was no snow, even along this narrow shaded section up high that I figured would be clogged up and the end of the road for sure. 

 The end of the road came not too far beyond, about where I half expected. This small (usually) feeder creek had a large enough culvert put in, but had become overwhelmed by the flood and jumped the road in a big way. It looks like what happened is large rocks clogged the upper end.

It was a heavy rain, and started coming down on frozen ground, so things got out of hand pretty quickly. It happened early in the storm, obviously, before I even shut the machine down and resorted to the back-up genset. It jumped the crick' and over the bank and down the road for quite a ways. Once in the steep, fast moving, narrow creek channel the majority is washed straight down probably 2km, swirling around in the intake pond on the way by with the intake screen slurping in 250 gal/min. Ouch. So this one spot here accounted for about 80 percent on the crap in my system. After I shut the system down, material, probably the majority continued to come down the creek. When the water went down a week later and I could get in there, my intake screen had been flattened out on the bottom of the intake pond, and I had to shovel gravel to get to it. Bastard.

    I don't blame the loggers, ...really. Sh*t happens.We need to log someplace, and it helps out the locals with improvements to the main road etc. If I didn't generate my power from up there, I'd hardly know they had even been up there. And certainly, that road they built up the mountainside has made access to my screens etc up there easier, and saves me a pile of steep hiking. There were I think two smaller culverts up further on small side creeks, but this guy would be the worst of it I would think

    I wasn't into trying to fill in a spot with rocks enough to drive the quad across. That was a lot of back sore work for not much. This culvert could, and will probably sit like this for a year or several, at least until the next time someone decides to go up and haul a few more loads out. That's fine with me, the culverts open enough for normal conditions, and the channel is cleaned out for the most part, it may take years for it all to come down. So for the time being, the washed out culvert is not much of a concern to me. I was sure wondering what had let loose up there though. No real harm done, that rugged mountain road helps me out quite a bit actually, and me and the loggers are still pals.

Lodge Decor

   These two old drive sprockets from a 1950's bulldozer sat for years out under the hydro line. They weigh between two and three hundred pounds a piece. I went out one day years ago to bring them back here for interesting yard kitsch, and just about wrecked myself getting just one out to the road and into the back of my truck. I kind of lost interest in going through the whole process all over again, and managed to get by with just the one around here for a few seasons. One day my nearest neighbor out here ran across the other sprocket while hunting deer. He recalled the one set by my steps and decided to bring the other as a present, just so I could have a matching pair. He arrived here with his gift, he was sweating and his eyes were bulged out, "Seemed like a good idea at the time!" he quipped. Due to their weight and ungainly design they never got moved around very often. We flipped them out of the way when the addition was put on the main cabin back in 2001, then stood them back up against some skirting over on the orchard side of the place. There they sat all these years, I often thought about moving them to some better location, but I always managed to come up with some other, less strenuous project to do. Eventually, I put them to good use due to their proximity to the fruit trees, as a spot to keep bear stones. 

   Bear stones are handy to have around here in the Fall. I like to keep a selection of sizes there, so depending on the size of the bear, whether it was just there 10 minutes ago and got hit in the head with a smaller variety, or your level of frustration at that point, I always had something suitable at hand.

   The sun came out a few days ago and I started looking around for some quick jobs to do outside. I pondered moving those sprockets over to the steps I re-did last season. It began to sound like a lot of work and my back began to hurt just thinking about it. I decided to just go have a tea on the front deck instead. Heading towards the steps I couldn't help but notice those poor old cat wheels leaning there and not living up to their full potential as yard kitsch.

Being considerably brighter than I was the last time I attempted to move them, I got my much abused little wagon over and stood it up against the sprockets and attached a strap.

Laying the wagon back on its wheels it was a piece of cake to maneuver these works of art around into just the right spot.

There, I can scratch that project off the list, and they never need refinishing.

Road Closure, Again.

      Decided to go to town today as we were running low on cat food and gummy-bears around here.

An outfit has started a contract to upgrade a couple kilometers of the road along the lake, it was improved on either side in the past few seasons, and this remaining section will tie it all together. With the drilling and blasting and buggering around going on they close it for two hours at a time.  These two hour closures have become almost normal out in this country the past few seasons as they continue to upgrade the road in sections here and there. Its a pain in the ass alright, but I'm all for road improvements. I have a pretty good idea of how long it takes to get there without having to wait too long, and pulled out of here at 9 to connect with the 10 o'clock opening.

Didn't have to wait long, and spent 10 minutes chatting through the window to my pals Charlie and Vern before someone came and removed the barricades.

This was an interesting deal, and the first time I've seen one used. I stopped and asked one of the guys, he said it was an environmental measure, floating there somewhat like a net to retain run-off and silt to protect the lake during work along this narrow section here. Maybe they are going to fill in the corner a little and churn things up.

When you get to the traffic that is waiting at the other end, you get to wave to everyone you know!
Ran around Pemberton shopping, eating, filling up the truck and Jerry cans with that cheap gas we have right now and hit the road back, allowing an hour to the 2 o'clock opening, and arriving home just after 3, with groceries, gummy bears and cat food enough to last a couple weeks out here.

The Great Diamond Caper

    I was out in the guest cabin a few weeks back, installing a new baseboard heater. I had moved a few items and rolled the carpet back, and was laying on the floor fighting with the wires and reached around for the pliers when something caught my eye.  A shard of glass I thought, and the range was just right, it is a wonder I saw it at all, sometimes I have a hard enough time finding my tools.
I'm staring at it and it kind of stared right back, that's a pretty fancy looking piece of glass I thought, and just had to pick it up and bring it in close.
Well I'll be damned if it wasn't a diamond! 

   Well it sure looks like one to me, not that I would really know,  but any fool can tell a diamond, and look at the size of that rock! Must be worth thousands, and somebody must really be missing this.
I went on-line to see just how good a windfall I had here. I sat down and googled...'how to tell if you have a diamond', and came up with a series of simple tests anyone with any sense is supposed to be able to accomplish. I wasn't the least bit surprised when my diamond passed in flying colors.
More or less.
Wow, this was some find compared to some of the stuff I've found in there. I figured I'd sell it for cash, and get something useful, like a new lawnmower or something along those lines.
Pretty soon my conscience began to pick away at me, some poor woman somewhere is completely heartbroken I'm sure. I went back through the emails with people who have stayed in there in the past while, asking them to 'check their settings' as I had found this very valuable diamond in there.
   Nope, no one missing a diamond, especially one of this magnitude. It was probably those rich Russian gals a few seasons back I convinced myself. They were all dolled up with expensive looking jewelry and probably knocked something loose on the fridge door, and I'm not sure how to get hold of them.
   A long shot, I thought of Jeanne, the weekly guest out there, you might remember her from the Attack Of The Grizzly Mouse post last June. She wrote back and said she wasn't missing any of the Queen's jewels, but would check with her co-hort, Ravleen.
   I pondered I might sell my diamond and get a new set of tires, a truck to put them on, and go on a party with the rest of the money.
I gave my huge diamond a name, The Star Of Skookumchuck. I may just open an interest bearing account and live a life of leisure, even more so than usual.
It sure pays for a man to have keen eyes, and a sharp mind.
  Jeanne, recalling the Attack Of The Grizzly Mouse post herself I'm sure, and hee-heeing to herself couldn't wait to email back later. She stated Ravleen had got back to her, and was not missing any valuables, although she recalled having a small, inexpensive rhinestone she had placed on the counter above the baseboard heater last visit. She noticed it missing, but had not bothered to look for it.
I promised I would keep an eye out for her rhinestone next time I'm in there...

First Storm Of The Year. *warning, may include references to power system.

    They had forecast a major snow event for southwestern BC right after New Years.

I was out in the Okanagan, and if theres one thing worse than being snowed in out here, its being snowed out of here. I got an early start for home and hit the connector in the direction of lodge country.      

Still staying ahead of the snow I started off down the final 2 hour stretch of gravel road home.

I arrived back sometime mid-afternoon, just as the first flakes began to fall.

The fangs of Winter set in with a steady fine wind blown snow for a day or so, the type that never amounts to much. Probably a couple feet came down, but the wind keeps it out of the trees and packs it down then turned into freezing rain so there isn't much more than a foot sitting around out there now, which isn't so bad. I was expecting quite a dump. When the snow comes straight down out here in big flakes is when it can really pile up.

There was some folks camped out at the hot spring that got a little stranded, their tents had collapsed under the wet snow, and they were in a couple of small vehicles that would to have to wait until the grader made it out. They ended up in the guest cabin and rather enjoying the whole thing, so maybe stranded isn't the right word.

I cranked up old Alfie to clear out the driveway then went down and made a pass or two around the hot spring campsite to open the place up. I'd a gone down and dug out the neighbors but old Alf started dripping transmission fluid, so I'll have to get under there and see what the hell.

I almost hate to bring it up but your probably all curious how the new intake screen fared up the hill.

It wasn't cold enough to form frazzle ice in the pond, but the fine snow falls in the creek, which is only a degree or two above freezing and it doesn't all melt. This slush all ends up circling around in my intake pond before it finally clogs up the screen you might recall from my last post. Just before dark after 24 hrs of snow I lost pressure in the penstock feeding the pelton wheel. I managed to get up the mountain in my pickup, but just barely, and it was still snowing like hell. I got down to the small dam to find the screen was a big blob of slush. Holding the flashlight in my teeth I pulled it off the inlet and dragged it up on the bank, and I can see it is sucked right flat from the suction! So when that happens I run the inlet open, I'm not concerned about sticks or anything going down the line this time of year. The water is clean except for the suspended slush, which when it goes down the line it just gets blown thru the pelton wheel nozzle. A worse case scenario would be for the slush to clog up the end of the inlet in the pond, that would entail a nasty hike up the mountain to clear as the road wouldn't be passable. Its possible to clog up at the nozzle too, but can rectify that at the machine. I had just climbed into bed one night and opened my book when the lights dimmed and the whole place went black. So I got dressed again and went over and opened up the valve a bit to clear it out. It worked fine until the next afternoon when I could tell something was not right, I went over and opened the valve again and a great bunch of built up slush spit thru the nozzle and the machine has worked great ever since. It gives me the creeps knowing theres no screen on the end of the intake, so as soon as the snow settled enough I attempted to get up the hill on the Honda.

 I could only get up the hills by going as far as I could then backing down, packing my trail down and getting another run at it, making another 20 feet or so then back down pack the trail and try again. I'd get up one hill and figure theres no way I'm going to make the next one. She's a good machine and got me up there once more, surprising the hell out of me and saving a long nasty hike.

Poor screen got pancaked by the suction, I patched it up and pulled it back into shape with a hooked rod then submersed it in the pond and worked it onto the end of the intake pipe.

Well it was sure easier going downhill.

So everything is back to normal, for around here anyways. So hopefully, that's the last either one of us will hear about the power system for awhile.
Did I hear something about some cold weather coming?