Have you driven a Ford lately?

I'm thinking maybe quality wasn't Job 1 or at least this particular feature wasn't one of Ford's better ideas. When we left Airdrie Marilyn noticed that she didn't have a signal light on the right rear on the Exploder. In my usual fashion I procrastinated dealing with it until this afternoon. Procrastination isn't always bad though because by the time we got here I had ruled out the connector on the cubevan and had zeroed in on the light assembly on the truck. That wasn't all that difficult because I happened to notice that we didn't have a signal light even when the truck was being used by itself.

So today I tore it apart and it didn't take long to figure out what was going on. If you look closely at the picture you can see a couple of little wires that have rotted themselves away from the little clip on ends that are supposed to attach them to some pissy little diode affair which in turn attaches to the light assembly. Those little crimp on ends are notorious for corrosion failure which would be why they are never used by OEMs. Apparently in this case they were used and closer inspection of the picture will reveal why. This truck apparently has a wiring harness intended for the European market where they have 3 light assemblies rather than the 2 light assemblies we use here (we combine brake/signal lights - they have separate brake, signal & tail light filaments). Evidently the Ford bean counters must have figured out that they could save $2.37 (or less) per vehicle by cobbling together the boogy setup in the picture in order to avoid using a 3-light assembly. Sheeeeesh. Don't worry about the fact that this setup is guaranteed to rot out. I can only imagine how fast they rot out in climates more conducive to rust. This truck has spent most of its life in a very dry climate and it rotted out in 4 years. They must have been failing under warranty in more moist climates.

This may very well be the last Ford I ever own. Make that the last North American vehicle I ever own. I've been a vehement advocate of a buy North American attitude all my vehicle buying life but enough is enough. GM & Chrysler deserved to go broke. If the government had any brains they would have let them disappear. How Ford managed to avoid bankruptcy is a complete mystery to me but I suspect we haven't heard the last of that one either. When I look into my crystal ball I see an old diesel Mercedes in our future.

Frieda's vegetable soup and silverware

The big treat for us when we hit fresh young vegetables is Marilyn's mother's special spring vegetable soup. Everything has to be young and fresh - don't try this from the crap in the supermarket. You need little carrots that still have the dirt on them, baby beans with their tops and tails still on, peas that you have to peel yourself and potatoes with that tissue paper skin that they get fresh out of the ground when they are still young. I had to scrape the potatoes last night because they were organic crap - in this land of the granola crunchers that's about all we can find so they had a lot of scab on them because the eco-freaks don't know about disease management. Other than cleaning the scab off the spuds you want to leave everything as natural as possible to get all that sweet spring flavour.

• cube the potatoes into about 3/4 or 5/8 inch cubes and start them boiling but just barely cover them with water
• start sauteeing some chopped green onions but be careful not to burn them - they should be just barely showing some brown when you add them
• add the carrots next in about 5/8 or 3/4 inch pieces
• top and tail the beans and cut them into the soup, you should have the peas shelled already so you can add them at the same time
• add water as necessary but don't get carried away because you are going to add cream at the end
• chuck the sauteed onions in whenever they are ready
• use as much chopped dill as you want for flavour. This is a Marilyn addition and we like a lot of dill with new potatoes - Frieda's original recipe didn't include dill so suit yourself.
• when the potatoes are cooked mix a flour paste to thicken the broth slightly
• when you are ready to serve add creammilk
• obviously salt and pepper to taste - I like a lot of fresh ground pepper on it

Here's a recipe you won't find in your average cookbook.

• you'll need an aluminum foil pan or just a piece of aluminum foil
• mix equal parts salt & baking soda - roughly 3 tbsp of each to do the pile of silver in the photo - dissolve in some water.
• put the foil in the bottom of the sink with the silver on top of it or put the silver in the foil pan and put the whole works in the sink.
• cover the silver with hot water from the tap
• mix the dissolved salt and baking soda into the water with the silverware
• pour a kettle of boiling water over the whole works and watch the tarnish disappear before your eyes.

If the silverware is really bad you may need to wash it first to clean it up so the salt and soda can get at the tarnish. We use our silver every day so all Marilyn does is pull it out of the drawer and let the chemistry go to work. For those of you who are worried that some mysterious chemical reaction is going to destroy your silverware consider this: would you rather abrade the tarnish off along with some of the underlying silver using a conventional silver cleaner or would you rather use chemistry to remove only the tarnish?

Mark O'Reilly this one's for you

We've had some issues getting our awning to work properly but its all good now. After Marlan & I worked on it at Whispering Pines it was extended until we left Mara and it has been out ever since we got here. I've actually even sort of stopped worrying about it when we leave - I've got it tied down and it seems pretty stable. This campground is extremely well sheltered but this morning the wind was up pretty good and the awning came through that just fine.

This afternoon we drove over to Abbotsford in search of a U-Pick. We found a raspberry patch with the most amazing huge berries. They were so thick on the canes that you could actually see the red in the rows from about 150 yards away. We picked way more raspberries than we should have because it was just such easy picking and then we gorged ourselves on about 2 quarts of them on the way home. Which barely put a dent in what we had picked. On the way home it started raining and by the time we got back to camp it was raining pretty hard. This was the first time I have been able to stand under my awning and watch it rain.

Back in the days B.A. (before awning) when the O'Reilly and Sparrow families still came to Mara Mark used to sit under his awning on those rare rainy mornings that we would sometimes get. He would drink his coffee, read the local newsrag and taunt me about the fact that we didn't have an awning. "Hey Evans - what's it like over there under the awning. Ooops - forgot - you don't have one do you?" would ring out over the whole campground. Well today I got to watch the water drip off the awning while I stayed dry and life was good. It would be better if Mark was here so I could enjoy the dryness with him but its pretty damn good anyway.

Moving to BC

We're not quite tree-hugging, granola crunching, left coast hippies yet but we are getting closer. Today we got an official BC address. Tomorrow I expect somebody to drop by with our supply of medical marijuana. We still have to convince Canada Post to redirect our mail to here which will no doubt turn into an ordeal. Earlier this week Canada Post asked for a Power of Attorney from our dead mother in order for my sister to deal with them. The limits of the collective stupidity of that institution are hard to fathom. There must be some critical mass of stupid past which it becomes self sustaining and Canada Post has clearly passed that point.

Yesterday we left Whispering Pines - with great difficulty. We've been going there for so long that it was really hard to leave. That was compounded by the shower of gifts we received as we were leaving. We took several people wakeboarding and they felt compelled to repay us with alcohol. We'll cope.

The night before we left was a classic Whispering Pines evening. Gil and Larry's cousin was there. He's some kind of musical prodigy who presently teaches music somewhere. Gil and Larry are pretty musical themselves but this guy was off the scale. He played guitar several times during the week we overlapped with his visit. On the last night we were there Ron Watson showed up with his keyboard and the two of them put on a tremedous show around the campfire. That went well into the night so we weren't too lively yesterday morning. That in turn meant we were pretty late getting to Chilliwack but we got settled in to the Thousand Trails campground before dark and then went back into town for a little reconnaissance and some groceries. Its a pretty cute little town and very green. Marilyn is going on and on about the ferns and general green-ness.

The weather hasn't been great since we got here so we haven't been in any big rush to get on the lake. The little lake here looks like it probably gets thoroughly thrashed on the weekends during the summer. There are a lot of people that hang out here between cabins and campgrounds. If they all end up on the lake on the weekend there won't be an undisturbed drop of water to be found anywhere.

A life wasted

The news this morning is one drawn out tribute to Michael. Whatever you think of the freakshow that his life turned into, it is impossible to deny his talent. The tragedy of his life is that he allowed his personal peccadilloes to overwhelm his obvious and undeniable musical and entertaining genius.

The contrast between Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett who died the same day is telling. Farrah took a limited amount of talent, combined it with a life well lived and made the most of what she had. Michael took a surfeit of talent, combined it with a life of excess and squandered the gift he was given.

Rest well Michael - some of us will miss you less than others.

Rolling on the river

Later this week we will move to Chilliwack. We're really looking forward to the new adventure, discovering how the Thousand Trails and Holiday Trails camp systems work, meeting new people and discovering new terrain. If anything makes us regret leaving here it will be the Shuswap River. We have so much fun on the river it is hard to imagine that we won't miss it terribly. The only thing that is making it at all easier is the fact that the water level is very low this summer. Typically the river level will drop at least 10 feet between mid June and late August. Right now we can travel from Mara Lake all the way to the Grindrod bar but by early August it will be dangerous to go even half that distance. Last year we left the first week in August but even by then we were clipping the prop on rocks on the river bottom. I spent a couple of hours this spring straightening the prop and it should be tuned and balanced professionally.

This morning we hit the water again with Marlan and Janine Rushton. Marlan only got to ride last summer during the time he spent with us so he was making the most of his time today in case it doesn't happen again this summer. Janine turned into a fairly regular rider while Marlan was out this year. She's does really well - we've had her out with us before. We always make sure to get her mother out as well. Running a campground is all consuming for the Rushtons. This year Bernie is commuting between here and his regular job in Drayton Valley so the load on Sharon is even greater when he is "out". We figure that makes it all the more important for us to get Sharon away for a break and she seems to enjoy it too.

From Summer 2009

This afternoon Marlan left to return to Medicine Hat but he is taking the long way round. When the kids were little we used to spend time in the Kootenay Valley. Marlan will be taking a trip down memory lane as he wanders through the interior of BC from Vernon to Nakusp, south to New Denver, over the highway of ghosts to Kaslo, across Kootenay Lake from Balfour to Riondel on the ferry, down the lake to Creston and then out through the Crowsnest Pass.

From Summer 2009

The videos aren't very good quality but they do show a bit of our wonderful river.

Vitamin I

We've been hitting the river hard the past couple of days. Marlan arrived here late in the day on the 30th. There were so few people here at the end of June that we were able to ride on the lake but starting today we had to spend our time on the river. The tourists have arrived.

Yesterday we went for a quick ride on the lake and river. Then we headed down to Kelowna to celebrate Dan's (Marilyn's brother) 60th birthday. We stopped in at her other brother's place in Winfield and gave Fred some of the stuff that we had saved from the house. He let us pick fresh cherries from one of the trees in his back yard. That would be a serious plus about living out here - fresh raspberries and cherries. After the party we hustled back to Whispering Pines, loaded up Sharon and her kids and headed into town on the water to watch the Canada Day fireworks.

The water is finally starting to warm up but I still wore my drysuit today. Marlan thinks we are sissies but I think he is just too embarassed to ask to wear the drysuit. Marilyn is doing the sport of fat old broads and loving every minute of it. Advil should sponsor the ski tour. After a hard day on the water about 4 Advil or the generic equivalent is a pretty good plan if us old guys want to ski again in the morning.

Today Marlan & I took the awning down and repaired it again. Clifford gave us a free awning but it hasn't ended up being entirely free. I haven't added up everything that I have in it but it is somewhere north of $600 now. When I ordered the replacement arm that I had shipped to Verde Valley I also ordered an idler end for the roller. It was sticky from the start but we were making it work. It finally gave up the ghost at Airdrie and in the process of discovering that it was dead I managed to pull off the strap that unrolls the awning. That meant that it was a little challenging to unroll it today and then after we got the mechanical part drilled out and the new one rivetted in I had to get out the needle & thread. It all appears to be working well now and it sure is nice to have an awning. Too bad Mark isn't here so I could stand under it and gloat.