October, 2008

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

Medical dept:

“Look Ma, no baby!

As we go to press, our baby girl Cassie has not given birth. Her doctor is stalling as long as her health will allow and so we wait. If we don’t have a birth to announce by next month, I will be reporting on a medical miracle.

Meanwhile, Janice and I have wiled away our leisure hours by getting our colonoscopies done. We will die, we are told, just not from anything remotely related to…. eh… ’that’.

Finally, Janice checked herself in yesterday for her dreaded Gallbladder surgery. Other than some serious post-op nausea, it all went swimmingly and I returned her home for a period of recuperation under my tender loving care and culinary treats.

Gotta go, the hot dogs are ready…..

Projects dept:

With the economic situation being what is as of late, Janice was disappointed that we were too poor to build a 3^rd story onto the cabin so we could jump out of a window that was high enough to make it worthwhile. If this keeps up, the airlines will go out of business and we will have to take a cargo ship to Europe!

Be sure to 'double click' on this photo!

Our projects this month included sprucing up the BBQ area by laying flagstone and building a base for a granite counter top. Actually we have had the slab for 2 years but have only now gotten around to putting the whole thing together. The base is made of log cut outs from the cabin when we added the large view window.

The counter top was acquired when the granite people erred in measuring our kitchen and showed up with a slab that was 6 inches too short. Thinking ahead, we made them a silly offer they were in no position to refuse and we snapped up a matching counter top for our outdoor kitchen.

Next, I built platforms to put under our beds with 6 sliding drawers in each for storage in both rooms. Pretty handy when you realize we have no space for dressers. Finally we finished the last of our window trim and Buckskin covered window treatments in the bedrooms.

Not so fun dept:

This is the time of the year when the water levels in the river drop like a rock. While there are no tides to contend with, the river authorities release an enormous amount of water through the locks and dams throughout the summer months. The difference in the high water mark in June and low water mark when we leave in November is as much as two feet. (65 cm)

This means that as the water level drops, shoals and other underwater obstacles of every description become a threat when they are out of sight and out of mind the rest of the season.

I know this because I had an unexpected encounter earlier this month. I was cruising along on my way to the pharmacy (virtually all businesses here have their own docks to accommodate island residents) when I approached a shoal marker. Being a prudent kind of guy, I gave it wide berth but evidently not quite wide enough. I hit the submerged shoal at about 20 MPH (30 kph) with the effect similar to hitting a brick wall……under water.

Needless to say I came to a grinding stop, drifting in the middle of the main shipping channel. (fortunately “she who must be obeyed” was not with me) With no ocean going vessels in sight and all but out of power, I limped back to shore to the nearest marina. The good news was that the boat didn’t sink. The bad news was that I feared that I had torn out the entire out drive.

Quick! What's wrong with this picture?

Once in the marina, I was fortunate that they were equipped to be able to lift the boat right out of the water and swing it onshore to where the entire bottom could be examined. Fortunately there wasn’t a scratch on the bottom but the propeller was thrashed. Further examination determined that no additional damage was done to the shaft or gears. So, with a new propeller in place, I was on my way back into life in the 20MPH lane……

Business Dept:

For the past 3 years, the local property assessments here have been ‘frozen’. Like many areas, communities have struggled with rising property values and taxes that worry many homeowners that they will be taxed out of their homes.

Here, property assessments and property taxes are handled by two separate departments. Once the municipality knows how much assessed value it has to work with, it determines the tax rate and that determines your tax bill.

In the islands, that is often quite a bone of contention. Although clearly seasonal residences that enjoy few city services (No roads, water, cable TV, trash pick up, snow removal or municipal police services) we still pay all local taxes, including school taxes. The kicker is that because it is waterfront property (duh! It is an island) it is assessed at a higher value.

We know this because the new and improved assessments have just been released and ours doubled since the last one just 3 years ago. I can hardly wait to see our next tax bill….. Ironically, even with a very healthy 6 figure drop in our property value in California due to the thriving economy, our property taxes there will remain the same due to a much slower rise in taxes than anywhere else we live.

Fun dept:

Every year over 30,000 scuba divers from all over the world come to what has been dubbed ‘Canada’s Caribbean’, the Thousand Islands. Largely because of the zebra muscles, this is some of the clearest freshwater diving in the world.

Looking out from one side of Honey Bee

There are numerous shipwrecks to explore; including some you can snorkel to. Just last month one of the largest, oldest and best-preserved wrecks was discovered in Lake Ontario; the HMS Ontario, a 228-year-old British warship that sank during the American Revolution. I have to hurry up and save my allowance to pay for my airplane so that I can go scuba diving next!

Looking out from another side of the Island

Speaking of having fun, a friend of ours was commenting recently on our prolific use of home exchanges. He was saying that we are not in either France, California or at the Bee as much as 2 months out of the year. Sure we like to exchange some, I thought, but lets not exaggerate.

This is what we have to put up with every day :)

Then, we counted the weeks and he was closer to the truth than I realized. In the past 12 calendar months we have exchanged homes from Cape Cod to Spain, from England to the Netherlands and places in between a total of 9 weeks. Is this a great gig, or what?

Enough already dept:

Last month I wrote about the last of our pursuits in following the long saga of our family tree. We were done, I said.

Or so I thought.

No sooner had I put it to rest when I got an email from our daughter Mandy in the Netherlands. She sent me a copy of a document that her boyfriend Markus had found online while doing a little personal research on Mandy’s family. (Probably trying to confirm which side of the prison bars I was on.)

It seemed that he found a lengthy document containing names of people that I had never heard of but was clearly laid out in a ‘family tree’ style. Buried in this lengthy document were the names of all our immediate family including my children with many personal details about each. Since the authors email address was available, I wrote him and pointedly asked, “Who are you and what are you doing with all of my family’s information?

I got an immediate reply from a ‘long lost relative’ who I have never actually meet, but who turned out to be my fathers cousin. He explained that he had spent many years researching my grandmother’s side of the family (my fathers mother) and had some 1600 relatives on that branch of the tree meticulously cataloged going back to the 1600’s. YIKES!!

I never knew he or the results of his research efforts existed, but this has added a whole new dimension to our body of knowledge. Thank you, Cuz!

September, 2008

Just one....of our Thousand Islands
n Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

River Rats

It’s that time of the year again. September rolls around and the tourist and summer weekend people all go home leaving the river to us ‘river rats’. The boating traffic has been cut down by at least half from the summer highs. Like the departure of the geese, the other half will disappear gradually over the next several weekends and by the beginning of October the river will be ours alone. The only boaters we will see during our last month here will be the occasional border patrols. It becomes an entirely different island experience, which we look forward to every year.

All in all, we had a rather easy month. Mandy flew in from the Netherlands to join up with Janice’s mother who had flown in from California in Philadelphia. There, they took the last leg of the flight together to Syracuse NY where we picked them up. During their 10-day visit we had the clearest, warmest, sunniest days of the entire summer. We swam twice a day, went boating all over creation, BBQ’d up a storm and even spent an overnight in Ottawa to visit the capitol.

We also got the news that Janice’s mother was remarrying a fine fellow by the name of Vern who is a local resident in her park. We had met him on our last visit home and he is a great choice for her. They will honeymoon in Australia and Fiji in November. It was a super visit.

The day we drove them back to the airport they had their respective flights home 6 hours apart, so Mandy had time to do a little more clothes shopping. (She showed up with the clothes on her back and a backpack and returned with two suitcases and a roll on with 130 pounds [59 kilos] of ‘stuff'). Heading home within minutes of leaving the airport, Janice suddenly had a serious gallbladder attack. You will recall that she has been seeing her doctor regarding this for the better part of the summer. She has had blood and urine tests, ultrasounds and more recently a cat scan to try to positively confirm that this was in fact, the problem as her doctor was still hesitant about the source.

Janice said that is was the most pain that she has ever had in her life. Pain beyond 2 ‘C’ sections giving birth and more pain than chemotherapy. Although she was scheduled to see her doctor the very next day to have the latest results read and to make a decision to proceed I put the pedal to the metal and off to the emergency room we went. As we walked in, I could see about 60 people in the waiting room with all manners of pain, injuries and trauma. This was not looking encouraging. When the receptionist saw Janice bent in two in pain and crying she called the nurse over and he quickly had her in a bed in one of the emergency room bays for further examination.

They drew blood and took a urine sample and sent it to the hospital lab for analysis. Then we waited……and waited…….and waited. Her attack subsided after about two hours and 10 ½ hours after we arrived the doctor said that the results did not indicate a bursting gallbladder or anything else that was imminent. He said that since she had that previously scheduled appointment with her doctor in 6 hours (it was now 3 AM) we should see him for further treatment. So, we went home for a few hours sleep and returned to see her doctor that same morning. Prognosis? Gallbladder! Her surgery is scheduled for October 14th.

Of course, all of this pales in comparison to our little man Christopher who underwent yet another cranial surgery this month to relieve pressure within his skull. Doing better afterward yet again, he seems to have no limit on what he can endure and ‘keep on ticking’ like the proverbial Timex watches. There will be a very special place in heaven for that little boy some day.

Last but hardly least is our baby girl Cassie Anna. She has developed a condition in her pregnancy called ‘preeclampsia’. It is a pregnancy-induced hypertension in association with significant amounts of protein in the urine. As a result, she will be induced 3 weeks early, on October 3^rd. Boy even when they grow up and go off they still manage to keep you up nights…..

More news

This has been an easy month with little productive done around here. We did put a little backsplash in the kitchen. It is made of polished river stones that match the Brazilian Maranace granite counter tops.

And you thought Michael did all the work....

Then, our TV died. Poof! It had been a great TV that had been donated to us by my mother a few summers ago when she moved to California. It had some years on it but worked fine. Coincidentally, it died a few weeks after my sister in Toronto generously offered us a 36” much newer TV as she was replacing it with another flat screen HD TV. (Must be nice, huh?) So, on a weekend visit we loaded the 175-pound (80 kilo) beast on our boat trailer and took it home.

I had two friends help me take our old TV to shore on the back of my boat and while they prepared the new one to be off loaded from the trailer, I removed the straps that held the old TV to the dolly we had carried it on. It promptly slipped and went off the back of the boat into the water. I never would have believed it but it floated like a cork. Donning a swimsuit I keep in the boat for emergencies (floating TV’s) I quickly got it to the dock where the fella’s helped me get it up before it sank. I never take anything I carry on the boat lightly but you can be sure that we were wide-awake with the new load going back.

New and improved!

Last fall I wrote about an improvement we made of sorts, with a new location for a shore slip. It was a better, closer location and considerably cheaper. This year, we had the chance to explore our options some more and have made yet another big stride. We found a place that is a little lower on the food chain in opulent luxury and amenities (read basic) but is closer to fitting our needs. Starting next summer, our shore dock and winter storage will be on the US side of the border.

This has many distinct advantages for us. First, it is about half the price of what we currently pay. Second it will allow us to do virtually all our shopping (groceries and other) where we like to go without having to clear customs (both US and Canada) by car where it tends to be a little more time consuming. We will continue to have to clear customs, but with a new system that allows us to phone in instead of reporting in person it should go a long way towards simplifying the process. We continue to be dumfounded how 100 meters can make such a huge difference in the price of everything….from gas to groceries to services of all kinds. We rarely see less than a 30-40% discrepancy in prices between the US and Canada. Yet, few Canadians immediately on the border seem to want to take advantage of it. Understandably it is less practical for those who live inland.

We have a number of friends on both sides that seem intimidated by the process of crossing back and forth. Going ‘to’ Canada or ‘to’ the US, depending on which side they are to begin with, seems like an event for them. We do it so often that it is merely a formality (an important one though). It does tend to minimize the cross border excursions for many though and it’s a shame as it cuts down on commerce.
September 11^th changed everything.

The Epistle August 2008

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

The Thousand Islands

Doesn't this just make your heart go pitter patter?

4 rnt: 2 br lg cbn on pv Is

As we have come closer to wrapping things up (construction wise) we have wanted to give ourselves a few weeks each summer to travel somewhere on the East coast. So, Janice and I had been considering the possibility of making the Island available for rent the weeks we are away, maybe starting next year. Following the success we have had in renting out our house in France during our absence, we thought it might be nice to kill two birds with one stone so to speak, by having someone here pay a hefty share of the overhead (taxes, insurance and marina fees) while we are gone anyway. We decided to limit it to two weeks per summer maximum, as we want to spend the rest of the time here ourselves.

Of course we initially thought this would only happen when we were ‘finished’ with everything so it would be next year at the earliest. Then, Janice thought “what the heck, let’s advertise it this year and see if there is any interest at all. We could rent it cheaply to start as we still have bits and bobs that are not finished in the cabin and we can increase the price next year if we see that there is any demand. After all, we only want to rent it for two weeks…”

So, on a lark and without even a web site, we put a little posting on line just to see what would happen and to get a sense of the level of interest, if any. Within hours of our posting, ‘WHAM!’ we had someone who wanted to rent it for a week for their honeymoon. Shortly thereafter we booked the second week and continued to receive inquiry after inquiry—more than we had for the house in France.

We have stuck to our two-week limit but it would appear that we will have little difficulty in booking two weeks every summer while we will be off traveling. The island thing is clearly our gig but it was heartwarming that our first renters have described the property as “absolutely magical”. To take a peek at our little posting and see many updated photos of our little cabin in the woods, click on the link below:
http://www.ontarioclassified.com/webpages/cottages/383.htm

On the road, again…

We have been away a few weeks in the past month. We spent one week with family North of Ottawa, beside our current rental week. Predictably, we lined up home exchanges (the only place we exchange is our home in France) during our rental periods. So far, this summer’s travels have taken us to Stowe Vermont where we stayed at a terrific cottage (Click on the link below)

http://www.beckwithrentals.com/html/properties/Stowe/1Guest/SteepleCottage.htm

(scroll way down on the link to see tons of great pictures of the place) with the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory nearby.

We also stayed at a breathtaking penthouse loft in historic old town Montreal, overlooking the St Lawrence River. To see it, click the link below....

http://www.homeforexchange.com/Canada/Quebec/6020-Charming-gardenview-loft-in-old-Montreals-old-port-historic-district.html

Old Montreal in front of our penthouse loft

Last winter I wrote about visiting a few villages in France where my ancestors had come from in the 1600’s. At the time I had also mentioned that I had read in the family genealogy that there was a creek named after my g-g-g-g-g-g-g-grandfather, the first Laprade to come to Canada from France, just outside of Montreal. I had looked it up on the Google map and sure enough, it’s there. So, while in Montreal we took a little drive and found it.




Safe to say it is out in the boondocks, beyond the dark side of the moon, but it is there. “Rang Ruisseau Laprade” is not only a creek but also a 1 mile long (2 Km) rural road. I now feel that I have gone full circle on the genealogy gig and will now give it a rest.

Every year Montreal hosts the international fireworks competition. While there we were fortunate to be able to have a front row seat (from our rooftop patio) to Australia’s display. The competing countries go at it until there are 10 finalists. Then over several weeks during the summer they each give it their best shot to determine the winner.

After rounding up our two nieces Jessica and Emily (my sister’s kids) we drove to Pennsylvania where we currently are, for a week long home exchange there. Staying at a stunning home in an upscale residential area of New Hope, the girls had a 2nd floor suite with bedroom, bathroom and private lounge with TV, sofa and reading area.

The girls at you know where

Using it as our ‘pied-a-terre’ we visited everything from covered bridges to steam powered grist and saw mills. We walked the tow paths along the Delaware river's adjacent barge canals and where George Washington crossed with his troops in 1776. We walked through a Revolutionary war battle site. We toured Philadelphia where we saw the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall where the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were signed as well as visiting Benjamin Franklin's digs.

In New York City we took the ferry ride to Ellis Island to visit the Statue of Liberty. We then drove to Manhattan to stroll 5th Ave, Broadway, Central Park, Times Square and ground zero. Being paid to be on vacation is hard to beat. Is this a great country, or what?

Timberrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Last summer I had wanted to do some serious pruning to our 80 some odd trees on the island but like my appetite, sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach and I didn’t get around to it. I don’t think the trees have ever been pruned and many still have visible damage from the big ice storm of 1998, which snapped the tops off of many trees and broke limbs off others. There are a number of ‘widow makers’ hanging by a thread.

After getting an estimate on the cost of having them all pruned (several are in the 30 to 40 foot range [10-13 meters]) Janice decided it would be much better for me to risk life and limb and do it myself. So, I bid for and ‘won’ a complete set of professional tree climbing gear including climbing Gaffs (the spikes that strap onto your boots and allow you to climb a tree ) on E-Bay and instantly became a self appointed lumber jack.





Now armed with everything but rippling muscles, experience and common sense, I am ready to trim the big fella’s down to size. Like all boys, I have climbed my share of trees but I must admit that it has not been with 25 lbs (12 kilos) of gear and seeing just how high I can get before I hear the last “crack!!!” ……. I will ever hear. It reminded me of my sky diving days in college. I loved every jump but as I would prepare to take the big plunge I would quietly ask myself “remind me again, why are you jumping out of a perfectly good airplane?”

While visiting my aunt and uncle’s cottage last month I decided that it would be a perfect opportunity to practice with a little adult supervision. They had a number of trees that were dead that needed to come down and there were enough of us around to get the job done. I spent a lot of time yelling “TIMMMMMMMMMBERRRR!!!!” ---- sometimes because a limb I had cut was about to fall but most often just so that anyone in the area would know that a real lumberjack was at work. After all was said and done I believe I have found yet another occupation that I have no intention to pursue.

The Epistle July 2008

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

The magnificence of the Thousand Islands

What’s not to love?

How can anyone possibly not love a place with names like “Molly’s Gut”, “Lover’s Lane”, “Lost Channel”, “Devil’s Oven”, “Fiddler’s Elbow”, “Smuggler’s Cove” or “Needle’s Eye” to say nothing of the world renowned “Honey Bee Island”? With shipwrecks in waters shallow enough to be visible to the naked eye, the area never lacks a sense of adventure and wonder.

North America certainly falls short of Europe in the history department but many important historical dramas played themselves out in the region. People in the area are very protective of what they feel they are merely stewards of, which is the whole river and Island scene. There is a sense of community here unlike anything I have ever experienced anywhere else.

Daughter # 4

Our youngest baby girl, Cassie Anna, recently announced that she was expecting in November. She is healthy, working hard and living in Oregon with her partner Matt. We wish her and baby an easy delivery and we are looking forward to seeing them all upon our return. YIKES, this will be grand baby # 6!

Project update

This was a very good month for our moving forward. After quickly building closets for each bedroom, we managed to get the carpet installed, allowing us at long last to move into our master bedroom. We had been sleeping in the guest bedroom, as the master was where all our building supplies were stored and where the “work” was done. It seems incredible that while we bought the property in 2000, this was the first time we slept in our own room. “Ridiculous” some have said. Well, we are nothing if not determined, focused and patient. “Keep your eye on the prize” we are fond of telling our kids. Ours is slowly revealing itself every day.

Carpet delivery, island style

We were pleased to begin finally tossing a few pieces of furniture out the 2^nd floor window (1^st floor for Europeans) and smash them up for firewood. Virtually all of our furniture here are tacky hand me downs, castoffs and rejects that we started off with and brought from our home in California. In some cases they were the first set of furniture we had for our younger kids. Can you say ‘dated’? It was the kind of stuff that you would expect to find in any self-respecting homeless shelter. Little by little, it is being replaced with appropriate ‘cabin’ styled upgrades. We have a long way to go.

The first order of business was to build a custom Maple office desk. I had to build it due to the limited space and specific configuration I wanted for our room. This resulted in yet another celebratory furniture smashing frenzy and bonfire event as we could finally get rid of the sorry excuse for a computer desk we have been using since we first set foot on the Island.

Next, we set out to begin wrapping up the endless little details that finish work entails. Completing little bits of trim here and there, hanging our storage area doors, connecting lighting and decorating the rooms; it all needs to be done. Then we put in vanity cabinets with sinks in both bedrooms to lighten the load on our lone tiny bathroom. This is awful important when you have a house full of women visiting as we did recently.

I don't mean to whine but building this place ('remodeling' would be an understatement) has been quite a challenge. In California, I have a 24 X 30 foot workshop with all the tools I could ever need. Here, I work like a caveman. I have no workshop so I work in whatever part of the house (or outdoors) has enough space to spread out my materials.This creates a much bigger mess for Janice to clean in all parts of the house.

I have no work bench so I pile up wood pallets and lay an old door on the top for a flat surface. I have some tools but frankly they are inadequate to the task so I am forever "making do" and improvising to get the job done. Besides, I would not have a place to store larger tools even if I had them.

The end result is that getting anything done is slower, harder and often an exercise in frustration. It is one thing to do general construction like framing, electrical or plumbing this way but building furniture? Gimme a break. It is like trying to cook for a banquet with only a child's cook set to work with. Still, I am grateful for the oportunity and think...."what a problem to have"

Here they come!

Our first ‘official’ overnight visitors arrived for a 4-day visit recently. My mother, sister and two nieces joined us for a spell on their way to Montreal. As small as our abode is, we could actually sleep 10 people in beds (3 doubles, 4 singles) although I doubt we will need to too often. We BBQ’d up a storm and boated all over the area with perfect island weather.

We are bracing ourselves as we are scheduled to have a fair bit of company from all over this summer, curious to see what we have done here after years of… “We are not quite ready to have you visit overnight yet”.

Too close for comfort

While we were in California recently, Janice had her usual yearly checkup with her Oncologist. Shortly after we arrived at the Island she got the results and they were not good. Her blood test numbers were not so wonderful and she was advised to see a Gastroenterologist as soon as possible.

Uh-Oh.....

Being a 10 year cancer survivor, Janice naturally thought the worse but resolved to get all the re-testing done and see where she stood. The possibilities were all over the map and ranged from Hepetitus C (usualy fatal) to Liver Cancer (you're toast!) We told the kids what we knew and worried together. Blood work, ultrasounds and the like followed and after the usual interminable waiting the results came in. The news was not good, but could have been much worse.

We don't borrow trouble but are not good at denial either. Believing that you have a real chance of loosing your mate, even when it does not come to pass, has a way of kicking the pucker factor into high gear and focussing the mind, the heart and the relationship you inevitably take for granted after years together.

Janice will need gallbladder surgery and will likely be scheduled in September.

Whew..

June 2008

Photo of the Thousand Islands courtesy Ian Coristine

California dreaming

Every time we come home we ask each other if we are ready to reintroduce living in California into the mix of our lives. For the past 3 years, the answer has always been no as we felt that we could not get enough of the novelty in our lifestyle that retirement has provided us. This time we began to ponder the thought. No, we are ready to make the change yet but we are, for the first time, beginning to think of when. We are committed to renting our home out for 2 more years until Mandy finishes law school, and we figure it will take one more additional year of rental savings to make a dent in the expensive renovations that will then be required. After the past few years of minimal maintenance and the fact that the home is pushing 25 years it is going to be time for re-roofing (no mean feat on a geodesic dome), carpeting, re-tiling the kitchen, landscaping, repainting, yada, yada, yada.

Home in California just before we left on our big adventure

Every six months, as we transition from North America to Europe and back, we spend a week or so doing maintenance work on our home and 3 acre (1.2 ha) property trying to maintain it. At best, it is all we can do. While the interior of the house is in great shape, the property has never looked worse. I don’t mean 'bad' but just not anywhere near the level of care we had left it in. Our renters are 3 single guys who are rarely home. One is a model that does shoots all over the world, one lives with his girlfriend nearby but like to keep his own place as “back up” and the 3^rd is in and out a lot. But, they each have 2 cars, Jet Skis, surfboards, multiple trailers, a 6 person portable spa (in addition to our built in hot tub) and lots of construction tools and equipment as one guy is a contractor and all around pack rat. This does no harm to the house of course but makes the place look like a used car lot and outdoor storage facility.

We love that they are completely settling in, ensuring that we will have steady renters until we decide to pry them out with a crow bar. However, they don’t lift a finger to maintain the property in the manner that we do when we live in our home and it annoys me when we are there. I can’t help but feel like asking, “what are these people doing in our house?”

Anyways, we miss some of our old haunts. Just because California is on the bleeding edge of technology and societal evolution doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some fascinating ties to Americas past. A short distance from the house lies the town of Pozo. Well, “town” is a rather generous description as the population is only 30 people.

Pozo saloon. The only changes are the paved road and cars

Established during the gold rush, its current claim to fame is it’s remaining saloon that caters mainly to motorcycle clubs and veeeeeeery lost tourists. The ceiling sports a few bullet holes and the “hanging tree” still stands at its entrance where justice was served to a horse thief during its colorful past. Within a short drive, we also have a few past stagecoach stops, which have been converted into restaurants.

Murder Inc.

No sooner had we landed in Seattle that my grandson Alex asked me if I would like to go a few rounds of paint ball with him and some of his buddies on a 5 acre vacant property. Never one to pass up an opportunity to try something new, I enthusiastically accepted. The guys soon got into it as to which team was going to get "stuck" with grandpa, who had no experience to boot. They joked about how he would be the first to be slaughtered.

Evidently, my 3 years as a military policeman including leading a military SWAT team attached to the secret service detail during a presidential visit to the refugee camp where I was assigned, or my 'expert' marksman ranking could not hold a candle to the tactical expertise of these trained killers and paint ball aficionados.

All of the players, except ... ahem, me, wore full camo uniforms. I was the funny looking old fart in jeans and a funky shirt who might as well have a red bullseye taped to his noggin. As we got underway, I low crawled my way to a dense brushed area and proceeded to make a poor mans ghillie suit by having twigs, leaves and foliage hang out of every area of my clothing and face shield that I could manage.

Now as close to invisible as I could make myself, I proceeded to stalk my prey. Since they all looked alike, I used the time honored principle of "kill them all and let God sort them out". The good news was that I managed to "kill" 4 out of the 7 players, suffering only a leg wound from a stray shot. None of the kids ever saw me coming, including the one I took out with a head shot from 8 feet away. The bad news was that I killed both my team mates. I guess I am better suited as a lone ranger....

The business end of things

Days before we pulled the plug and bailed outa-here at the Island last fall we went through our yearly ritual of having our “holding” tank pumped out. On any habited island that does not allow for a septic system and leach field (like ours), a composting toilet (which we chose not to have) or a holding tank stores the waste until it can be pumped out. Our tank is a 2000+ gallon (7500 liters) tank and with the addition of an ingenious gray water system it is sufficient for our needs for a whole season.

Phone company making a service call

It is amazing to me just how many services are available to the island community. Much like the phone company who shows up by boat for a service call, these guys just show up on a barge, snake a 4-inch line to the tank, fire up the pump and a half hour later are on their way. It is just like having our septic tank occasionally pumped out in California, only by boat instead of by truck. This pump out turned out to be particularly profitable for us.

As we spoke with the young business owner, our conversation turned to our ongoing search for a cheaper way to secure a shore boat slip for our regular trips to the mainland. Since we bought the property we have docked our boat and parked our car at two different marinas that are primarily intended for much larger boats and / or people who live on their yachts at the marina and use them as a floating cottage. Read “expensive”.

Our need is simply for a parking space for our car, boat trailer and 20 feet of dock on the mainland that we would use very little. To make a long story short, he ‘just happened’ to have a spot available at his family’s property that could not have been better located for us, at half the cost we had paid in 2007. This news became all the sweeter when a few days later we got an email from our now “ex” marina owner. He announced that due to improvements and upgrades that had been made to his marina, if we came back for the 2008 season, our fees would double. Talk to the hand…

Opening the cabin this year was no picnic. While everything in the house was basically OK, last year saw several new systems being added; Reverse Osmosis water filtration unit, an icemaker in the refrigerator, a dishwasher and a washing machine. This was in addition to the existing water pump, hot water tank, pressure tank, ultra violet filter, commercial sediment filter, shower, toilet, sinks and outdoor faucets. No big deal per se but in this environment …… a big deal. Since we do not heat the cabin in the winter and it freezes harder than a constipated Rhino, any water remaining in any machine will cause pipes, valves or pumps to burst. I have gone to great lengths to research just what I needed to do to protect the systems from freezing damage and it almost worked.

Technicians and manufacturers never expect their equipment to be in an unheated home so they are sometimes at a loss to know all the little nooks and crannies where water can hide and yes, they missed a spot. A few drops remained in the washing machine inlet valve and it ruptured. Of course we found this out when I turned the water on and it began gushing out of the machine all over the kitchen floor. That detail has been added to the checklist and hopefully won’t be an issue next year.

Then, just to keep things interesting, we picked up our boat from it's warehouse where I hitched the boat trailer to the car and drove the very short distance to the launch ramp. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that the boat trailer hitch was only resting on the top of the car trailer hitch receiver and was not properly seated on the ball.

My bad.

We got a few hundred yards down the road when we heard a 'clunk' as the trailer came off the car's half of the trailer hitch and began just sliding down the road behind the car. Of course the safety chains were attached (did you think I was completely dumb?) so the trailer just bounced off the back of the car trunk and bumper as I was trying to slow to a stop without dragging the trailer, yet without having the boat end up in the back seat. Yes there are a few minor dings and scratches but no worse than the scathing scowl I was met with from my co-pilot.

Thank you, Ian

Every month while we are in Europe I always use a photo of a local Chateau as part of my Epistle masthead. Then, when we are at the Bee I try to use photos that show off the area around the islands. Last year we became friends with a local photographer whose business is selling photos of the area, many of which were taken from his airplane. He has generously allowed me to reprint some of his photos in the Epistle and I will be using those during the summer months while we are here. They will be easy to spot. They are the professional looking ones that take your breath away and do the area justice. To see his whole collection, go to his web site: http://www.1000islandsphotoart.com

Whatcha doing?

Just because we don’t have any huge indoor projects left to do doesn’t mean we are sitting on our thumbs. After settling in, I set out to finish a bunch of loose ends such as window and door trim and laying acoustical insulation panels on the bedroom floors in preparation for the carpeting being laid. I also installed some architectural hand forged eye candy that I made this past winter in France and brought over. (and you wonder how we can have 200 lbs (92 kilos) of luggage!)

Widow trim and treatment that we finished upon our arrival after

cutting through the log wall and installing the view window last fall.

A lot of what we will do this summer will be getting rid of little piles. Piles of rock that I will use to close the space under the outer edge of the cabin walls. A little pile of insulation that I will use to finish insulating under the floor of the main cabin. A pile of logs that I cut out of a wall when I installed the dining room view window that will become the base to the outdoor kitchen prep area for the BBQ. A small pile of hardware cloth that I will wrap around more trees to protect them from the beavers. Each little pile that is used up makes the place tidier and finishes incomplete projects. But first, it is time for lemonade and to go ponder it all at the dock………..

May, 2008

Chateau Bonne Fontaine

Chateau Bonne Fontaine lies along the Couesnon River, at the frontier between Britanny and Normandy and is a fortified castle built by Duchess Anne de Bretagne's chancellor. It was erected around 1547 when King Henri II gave the authorization to Pierre de La Marzelière to build a fortification. I find it ironic that many of these castles seem to be situated out in the middle of nowhere. By today’s standards they are magnificent but not where you would necessarily want to live. Often, they are not near any big city, (but some are) beach (but some are) or any place where the neighborhood is such that you would want your castle near (although some are).

It is privately owned and this is as close as we could get. I had to climb over a fence and slither up to the tree line to get this picture. [Note to all the legal beagles in the family: this was not trespassing but merely exploring and recording France’s historical heritage so that I could share it with you…..]

On the road again….

As I signed off last month, I mentioned that we had just arrived in England for a 2 week break (from what?). Once again, we felt that we scored big time with a magnificent home exchange on the Ouse River in Bedford. You can take a sneak peek of the house at:

http://www.homeforexchange.com/England/Bedfordshire/1540-Riverside-town-house-and-narrow-boat-with-shared-island-Non-Simul-Exc-Poss.html (You can see the cantilevered deck with flowers off our bedroom above our canal boat in the photo).

Once settled, Janice and I first toured the Cathedral in Peterborough. Built in 665, this is where two Queens were buried: Katherine of Aragon and Mary Queen of Scots. Then, we caught up with 2 of my coolest aunts and uncles (Pierre and Kimberly) who had arrived from Arizona to join us.

Windsor castle

Together, we visited The Royal Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede (where the Magna Carta was signed). Here, 20,000 names of lost air crews from WWII whose remains were never found are inscribed. An uncle whose name I was given, was presumed to have been shot down off the coast of Spain after failing to return from a mission in WWII, is memorialized there. Being only a few miles outside of Windsor we decided to tour the Castle and see if perhaps her Majesty would care to join us for lunch. (She had a prior engagement)

As part of the home exchange, we also had a 30 foot (10 meter) canal narrow boat available to us so we took a daylong cruise downriver through the countryside traversing a number of locks. There is no staff to control these locks so you are entirely on your own. It is a very different kind of boating for us as this bad boy had a top speed of 4 MPH (6 km/ Hour)

Warwick Castle grounds

Deciding that we needed to pick up the pace, we took the train to London for the day. We visited Churchill’s underground bunker war room where he directed his forces during WWII, had dinner and took in an evening theatre show.

Shakespeare's house

Throughout the week, we visited Cambridge, a water mill in Stotfold, Warwick Castle (one of the best collections of medieval weapons in Europe), Stratford-upon-avon (Shakespeare’s birthplace), Ely and the 5000 year old Neolithic flint mine at Grimes Graves (flint from this mine was used in the flint lock rifles in the US revolutionary war).

We may have been having a blast but time was up for the working stiffs so we ran them out of town on a rail (they took the train back to the airport). While we missed them dearly we managed to raise our spirits by visiting the ruins of a roman villa in North Leigh and spending the day in Oxford. Rounding off our visit of the “Midlands” we toured the Bronze age museum and ongoing dig at Flag Fen, visited Nottingham castle on the edge of the Sherwood forest and the Canterbury cathedral.

Warwick Castle's collection of medieval weapons

Every trip has many positive aspects but there are bound to be a few less positive observations to be made also. On the minus side, I have 3. I have always known that England has a plethora of CCTV cameras but we don’t recall seeing nearly as many when we last visited some 14 years ago. This time I was dumbstruck by the sheer number of them and how “watched” I felt everywhere. It should not matter, I suppose, since I was not doing anything wrong but somehow it did. It is 1984 in 2008.

The second is my ongoing whine about the cost of living here. I had been warned by our Brit friends that the UK is very expensive, and shezam!, were they ever right. At first blush it seemed expensive but not horrible. A $6.00 glass of wine in a restaurant, $15.00 to $18.00 entrance fee to many castles and museums, $4.00 / hour parking in public lots,$5.00 a gallon for gas, even a $7.00 hamburger at McDonalds. Then it hit me. I was not paying in dollars but in Pounds. Double all the above figures.

Finally on a related topic, was parking. I have never seen such a fanatical emphasis placed on the subject. It soon became obvious that this is a big deal here, as we often could not find an available space in public parking lots (parking on the street is all but out of the question) and even residential areas are metered. Generally, people pay for the time they want to park in advance and place the receipt on the dash so it can be seen. You cannot “add” time to it later without buying a new ticket so you need to be precise in knowing how long you will be gone or pay extra for time you won’t use. Even restaurants and department stores charge for parking in their own lots. The kicker is that the parking enforcement police hover like vultures, going through one ticket book after another as fast as they can write.

We discovered this when upon our return from visiting Windsor Castle we found that our car had a metal “boot” clamped onto the front tire as we were 6 minutes over the grace period for our prepaid parking allotment.

Did I mention it was only 6 minutes……?

The fine? $250 (£120 or 158 €). Cash only, please.

Leaving England, we ferried back to the continent and took a little detour home by driving to Mastricht in the Netherlands to spend a week with Mandy before leaving for the season. Ferry rides can be pretty boring but ours was thrilling, to say the least. As we approached the French coast on a clear sunny day our ferry veered suddenly to starboard (right side), listing at an angle sufficient to send every glass, wine bottle and stack of dishes on the bar nearby crashing to the floor. I immediately told Janice to brace herself for the collision that I believed would surely follow when the boat veered as much to Port (left side). Mentally I began to plan for our exit strategy from a boat laying on its side but there did not appear to be any good options. Passengers began to point outside and when I looked I could see the wake from our boat with a large 10 foot (3 meter) steel oceangoing buoy right smack dab in the middle of the wake. We had run over a buoy and there was not even an announcement made.

Staying at---where else--- yet another home exchange at a large farmhouse just outside of town, we had a chance to see Mandy’s room, her University and her town.

3 borders meet: Mandy is standing in Germany,

Markus in Belgium, Janice in the Netherlands

Mandy’s beau (Markus) accompanied us to Aachen to visit the throne in the Dom (where Charlemagne’s coronation was held in 800) as well as the museum in the basement vault that contains gold encased relics that we saw including - it is said - Christ’s belt from his robe.

A particularly thrilling experience for me was when Markus took me to his glider club on base at the Geilenkirchen air base, home to NATO’s AWAC planes in Germany. His instructor strapped a parachute on me (reminded me of my college skydiving days) and took me up. They use a winch with a 4500 foot cable (1500 meters) and pull the glider from a dead stop to 100km / hr (60 mph) in 3 seconds. Not quite the jolt of an aircraft carrier launch but similar to a Formula 1 racecar. Additional excitement was provided when the cable broke mid takeoff. Unusual but not unheard off, it caused my flight to be cut short while the pilot bled off altitude by spiraling into tight turns (we were at about 900 feet [290 meters]) taking us back for final approach. Wow, dude! What a kick.

We wrapped up our visit with Mandy by visiting the caves in Remouchamps

http://www.mondesauvage.be/grottes/fr/point.htm

Safe to say we have seen our share of caves over the years and have seen some bigger (Carlsbad caverns in New Mexico) and longer (Mammoth caves in Kentucky is the longest in the world at a staggering 365 miles [587 kilometers]). Like Chateaus and Castles, they are all different and each has it’s own special little something. This one was no exception with -according to their web site- the longest subterranean boat trip in the world. It was a very impressive way to visit a cave.

Finally we spent the day in Wuppertal Germany with our friends and Mandy’s former high school host family Ulrich and Annegrette. One big last goodbye to Mandy and we drove back home to France.

We now have a half dozen home exchanges under our belt and have absolutely loved them. We have much better and larger accommodations than we would have had if we stayed in a hotel, at no cost. Since we have our own car here, that’s pretty much of a wash also. This is our 4^th winter here and we have put 70,000 km (44,000 miles) crisscrossing the continent. It has done exactly what we wanted when we bought a home here, a chance to travel all over Europe and get our yearly fix of culture, travel and history in manageable doses, returning to our maison-away-from-home for periods and catch our breath.

The home exchanges however, have gone wild. We have exchanges lined up in Maine before we leave the East Coast in the fall, a stunning Chalet in the Swiss mountains as well as a wonderful place in Bordeaux in the South of France next Spring to share with family and friends. An exchange for an absolutely spectacular home in Helsinki (Finland) had to be put on hold due to projected inescapable liquidity constraints, demanding wholesale fiscal discipline, necessitated by the aeronautical savings kitty. In other words, we’ll go broke and won’t have anything saved for an airplane. We get an average of two exchange requests per week for Australia and regularly get some from Brazil to Hawaii (We had to turn down Maui ….grrrr!) It is a good thing we started this retirement gig early as we have a lot of ground to cover.

The Memphis Belle

Recently, Janice and I re- watched the movie “Memphis Belle”. It was interesting to us because we have visited her in Memphis a few years ago. If you are not familiar with the Belle, she became a famous bomber in WWII because during the war, the air force had set 25 missions as an incentive for air crews to go home. Morale was extremely low because 80% of the bombers were shot down during the first three months of America's combat flights over Europe. The Belle was the most famous because she was the first heavy bomber in Hitler's European war theatre to complete 25 combat missions and keep her entire crew alive without a single major injury.

No major injuries to the crew maybe, but that didn’t mean to the bomber. In that time span she was bullet-ridden, flak damaged and had 9 engines replaced, both wings, two tails, and both main landing gears.

The BELLE shot down eight enemy fighters, is believed to have destroyed five others, and damaged at least a dozen more. She dropped more than 60 tons of bombs over Germany, France and Belgium. During her 25 missions she flew 149 hours and covered more than 20,000 combat miles. She is the only B-17 to have her own file in the Air Force Film Depository.

The movie caught our attention because of the number of bombing runs made in our neck of the woods here in Brittany. She laid waste to several cities including that of Brest, which was and remains to this day a large naval and submarine base. During the war, the infamous U boats sailed out of there.

Boneheads

Janice and I like to think that we are a couple of smarty pants, having made some good decisions that have paid off. Sometimes though even the best of us seem to be vying for the dumb and dumber award.

We take our airline flight times very seriously and make a practice of showing up quite early, but this time we cut it a little close to catch our flight from Paris to Seattle. Ehhh…actually a little too close as we arrived 10 minutes after they “closed” the check-in counter even though our flight was not departing for 1 hour. They were quite understanding, rescheduling us for a flight 24 hours later (US Air only has one flight per day out of Paris). We were forced to schlep our 200 pounds (92 kilos) of luggage to an airport hotel and cool our heels. Airline fees, fines and hotel: $650. Lesson learned: Priceless.

This being 6 and 10 minutes late business is getting a little pricey so we are going to have to straighten up and fly right. I just wish there was someone we could blame, other than ourselves ……

God Bless America!

As we go to press, we have pulled the plug for another season and have just flown to Seattle Washington. We had a blast in Europe, but God is it good to be back home in America. At some point you just have to get real and take a break from ‘adjusting’ to everything all the time. Occasionally we would see TV documentaries of San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur or some other place in California that is the center of the Universe and I must admit I would feel a little homesick and long to drive the PCH (Highway 1 in California is called the Pacific Coast Highway) to Santa Barbara or Ventura. It is not to be - yet- but it will come. It is hard to describe but here everything feels so….. “je ne sait quoi”……normal ! After making the rounds to see all the kidlets and their hatchlings, we will be back at Honey Bee on June 1^st. Yahooooooooooo!!!!

Meanwhile, we were introduced to our newest granddaughter Megan Grace, a real doll.