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The Flying Dutchman & Other Tales
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1327
Meanwhile...
The days, crisp and sunny, wet and snowy, sometimes a fine mix of both...
Days, too cold, too wet, too slippery to go far, then, some days just right. Head off with Chris, exploring above the fluorite seam, find an old silver mine (another one, this mountain, it's a swiss cheese filled with them), shallow adit that ends in perhaps 30 feet. Interesting growths - crystals forming on the ceiling.
Going through the tipple, some shiny crystals, at first Fluorite (I think), but no, then Calcite (but too hard), take them to Brad at the Chamber of Mines. "Quartz" he tells me, only, to my eye, they're a bit different than quartz, and first of all I mean the weight, more an "Ore" weight than a quartz weight, heft it in your hand and you'd know, but - until I have better information I have to defer to his expertise, and I should, really, but - heft it in my hand again - the weight, surely it must be something else - a transparent silver ore? Hmmmm.
When the snow is melted walk the beach, look for arrowheads, none, but this:
Remains of a blue crayfish, invasive most probably, but a vivid, electric blue...
To the valley, other things to be dug for, exploring to be done. But no, get out of the car, walk to the cliff, find yourself waist-deep in snow, unable to move. Lake level is dry, but only a few meters off the road and things can get hairy in a hurry. Other locations, similar results, too much snow still to do any finding. Back to the sapphires, crawl into the crevice that leads behind the pegmatite, a narrow squeeze into a tight cavern filled with icicles, trying to squeeze my way out crushes my phone, a hundred bits to be glued and taped back together...
The blue-jays, now 16 in total, word spreads, wait in the tree every morning, a few, more vocal, hop along the rail, try to wake you up, it's time for breakfast!
The evening, moon-dog, my camera on the phone isn't up to getting the shot, maybe there's some pro-settings I could adjust, but I'm not finding them, play with the settings, results vary, are the same, it's just a blobby of light in the sky with what appears to be a lens-flare.
Bringing us to yesterday. Morning, snowing - again, 4 inches already and there's a raging blizzard of sorts, white caps on the lake, trees bending and ducking, the blue-jays have hidden themselves away for the day, hunkered down. And enjoying my first cigarette, looking out over the lake - where the falling snow meets the white-capped waves there's a boat...
Small fishing boat, cabin, you can just make it out, who would be on the lake at this hour? In this weather? And so I watch it, it's going up lake with the waves, now turning, again, and again, I try to take a picture but it's disappearing into the horizon, too far to make out precisely. It spins, and again, bobs, it's not manned, clearly, there's something haunting to watch a boat come unmoored dancing on the edge of the foreshortened horizon, spinning, to be carried up to a further shore or to capsize and sink, these speculations already irrelevant as it's disappeared...
The Valley Squatcher
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1158
Amusing story from friend about a legendary former co-worker. We'll call him "Sun-Ra", (not his real name, his "real name" is another Kootenay Alias), he had met the people from the workshops he had in the valley whereupon you'd learn all about Sasquatch, he was something of an expert having published books upon the subject, conducted seminars, offered instruction on psychically channeling these misunderstood hairy men of the forest...
By "the people" of course I mean the people with the "machine". He would, you'd guess, be a natural for this sort of work, his own beliefs and ideologies running as it were somewhat tangent.
I'm curious, I don't have his real name but find it easily enough, there are surprisingly few Sasquatch experts out here, most are dilettantes or pundits, this guy, he's the "real deal". Website, Facebook page (I follow him, why not? Why be here if you don't meet the locals?). Poorly drawn pictures of Sasquatch surrounded by flying saucers ornament the covers of his book. I have to find a copy and read this.
Anyways, back to Sun-Ra, he'd come to work for the company at the behest of the owners, his expertise in Sasquatch implying a scientific rationale that would no doubt be well suited to explaining the machine to potential clients. And first thing he'd do was go for a walk up to Oso, grab a coffee, have a joint, get lit, spend the day there in the garden lecturing and informing his disciples on 'Squatch etiquette and lore, flying saucers, government conspiracies...
Eventually, (by which I mean a year and a half later) they fell out (I gather, amicably enough), he went his own way, back to the valley to doubtless to continue his research, still, something of a legend amongst the old-timers there, no hard feelings but the spirit-guides were a bit off on that one weren't they Martha? A hearty laugh, as dark as they'll ever get.
The owners, since then, have been a little hesitant about hiring True-Believers, a bit of skepticism is fine if not voiced, this job, like an awful lot of jobs nothing like it but like it in every other way, depends on discretion, the ability to quell all reasonable dissent or query, just put your head down and get it done...
Naps, High Waves & Turtles
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1350
The first nap, I dream that people have let themselves into my place while I'm having a nap and babysitting the kids. My kids, younger, and these people, I don't know, friends of a friend maybe, and I should get up and talk to them only I'm trying to have a nap. The lake, it's got huge waves today, towering 20, 30 feet in the air, I can see them below the deck, the water's heavy, but not rough, the waves aren't breaking, there are no whitecaps, merely large heavy waves reaching up into the darkening sky...
The people, eventually they leave, then there is another group that let themselves in, they're waiting for a bus, I know them, took them on a prospecting tour of the Kootenays, friends of Marks, still, I'm trying to nap, and eventually they too leave...
And it's time to get up, and I dreamed that I was trying to nap...
****
That I'm somewhere near Creston, the marshy plains before ascending the Kootenay Pass, there are signs explaining the Turtles, the area, I have the urge to go prospecting, above the marshes is a mountain that I recognize from other dreams, with tea-huts and caves and crystals and gold...
But for now I'm reading the signs at the foot of the marsh, reading about the wildlife and first discovery of the area by John from Halifax and I'm wondering if it's the same John from Halifax I knew some 30 years ago back in London....
Now my desk, wooden, small oak desk like you see in every second hand store, it's on fire, there's a cold blue fire flickering around it's a foot on the base, I'm wondering if I've kept any liquor in the drawer that might have started this, trying to put it out...
****
And so, fragments of dreams poorly recalled and that make little sense.
Find the Content
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 1333
Pretty much every page on the internet nowadays. Play "Find the Content". And it's a hell-of-a lot worse on your phone, lemme tell you.
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