Surviving the Bruce Trail

Got home in one piece from our Bruce Trail adventure, which is more than can be said for my shoes. The trail is littered with markers reminding me of the frailty of my elderly digestive tract. There's "Big Dump," "Half-a-Dump,"and, my favorite, "Wish-You-Had-a-Dump-Yesterday." Also, beware of the two-storey outhouses conveniently located about every eight hours along the trail. I played it safe and stuck to the upstairs units. These back-woods loos are notable for lacking two features commonly associated with the modern bathroom - running water and electricity. When is the last time you visited a bathroom that didn't have a sink? Perhaps for budgetary reasons, the folks responsible for the trail haven't got around to fitting their outhouses with bug screens. As a result, hordes of hungry mosquitoes descend on you just when you drop your drawers. If nothing else, this ensures no one lingers in the loo longer than absolutely necessary. Sleeping accomodations along the trail are somewhat spartan. Rest your weary head on a randon piece of driftwood found on the beach, and you're good to go. Thanks to my old pal Tom for organizing this adventure. It's been in the planning stages since we met at the University of Guelph 40 years ago. Now that we're crowding 70, we figured the time was right. After all, like so many things in life, wilderness hikes are mostly wasted on the young. By my calculations, I've now completed about 8% of the Bruce Trail. At that rate, I should have the whole enchilada under my belt sometime in the next 400 years or so. It's good to have goals!

Hiking the Bruce Trail

Right off the top I have to apologize for the fact that the last few posts appear as run-on gibberish. Normally I at least try to compartmentalize my gibberish into paragraphs. But the fucking cat walked over the keyboard the other day, and I have no clue how to undo whatever the useless fur-bag just did. So here we are. Here at Falling Downs, we’ve got various strands of the Bruce Trail in close proximity. This morning I set out to explore one of those strands just on the other side of Bass Lake. To get there, I had to hike about a quarter mile east and then make a right at Lundy Road, cleverly named after the only family that lives on Lundy Road. What is essentially their very long driveway is maintained by the municipality, which is a good deal, but it’s also part of the Bruce Trail. The Lundys hike the Bruce every time they walk down the driveway! But enough about them. Walking is part of my mindfulness regimen. These are stressful times, and a little mindfulness helps dull the pain of the relentless mind-fuckery we are inundated with every day through our screens. I find it helpful to have a mantra you can repeat to yourself, something that keeps to the rhythm of your walking. I’m partial to Gregorian chant, but anything you can bend to your pace, even Bieber lyrics, would fit the bill. So I’m motoring up the Lundy Road and into the meadows beyond, the walking sticks a-flailing, talking to myself, and as I tend to do, I eventually go “off piste.” I’d done the trail that skirts the south side of Bass Lake, and at some point crossed a logging road. The Bruce Trail continued ahead. The logging road seemed to head in a vaguely westerly direction. I once did a lap around Bass Lake on my mountain bike. I figured it should be possible in hiking boots. I keep walking and chanting and inhaling the forest air. I’m in uncharted territory here. I emerge from forest trails into open pasture. More forest trails, more pastures… I’ve long since lost sight of the lake. I come to a fork in the logging trail. I bear right, because that should take me back towards the lake. Then there’s another fork, and I take the right again. More pastures, more logging roads, I’m totally in the zone. I got full mindfulness going on… About three hours into my hike, I had a sudden realization that the meadow I was traversing seemed uncannily familiar. Not only that, but I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to Bass Lake. I’d been walking around in circles. But here’s the thing. By the time I got home, I’d spent four hours out in the fresh air and away from the laptop. There’s still snow on the ground around some of those trails. The lake itself is mostly frozen. If we can get a spell of warm weather, the lake will thaw and the water will still be high enough I can take my canoe from my place right to the very end of Bass Lake. Just have to adapt the mantra to the paddle strokes.

Left libertarian

When I was taking a Macro Economics course at the University of Guelph a few lifetimes ago, I had a TA who felt sorry for me and helped me get through the more mathematically challenging aspects of the curriculum. His name was Tom, and he went on to become a professor of political science at a legitimate university in Canada.

He's the guy who pegged me as a "left libertarian."

I liked the sound of that, but the other libertarians sure don't. "Left" libertarianism  does not exist in the world of the purists. Leftist tendencies are met with everything from condescension to death threats.

But even Hayek waxed wise about how much support is due the indigent. You can hate government all you want, but scraping human feces off your shoes after a walk in the park will make you pay attention to homelessness, and that ain't a problem the market has been able to solve.

Anyway, I'm still in touch with the guy who gave me that label, and we're tentatively planning to hike the Bruce Trail, Wiarton to Tobermory, this summer.

Ya, two guys crowding 70 are gonna tackle the Bruce Trail.

What could go wrong?

Worst case scenario; the big orange helicopter airlifts you to the hospital.

Read this before taking a crap in the woods

I was out walking The Big Boy this morning. As the weather cools he's been going a little further. A couple of times I've already had him to the end of the side-road, and that hasn't happened since May. Once there's snow on the ground he'll be happily galumpping right to the end every day.

The guy across the way came by with a round bale on the front of his John Deere, heading out to the pasture where he's grazing a couple of dozen head. Ya, I know that doesn't make sense. If they're grazing, why do you have to bring them hay? Always happens the last few weeks of the season. Once the snow flies they'll drive them back to the home farm to winter.

He stops in the middle of the road and shuts off the motor, and we catch up on what's new. Last week was deer season and I wondered how he'd fared out. Pretty good, it seems. His party got three, including a 12 point swamp buck.

Not being a hunter, that doesn't mean much to me, but he seemed quite chuffed.

"I've seen it on my trail cam, but I never thought we'd get it."

Trailcam?

"Ya, a little solar-powered camera. You just spike it to a tree and you're good. I can watch it on my phone. I've seen him in the marsh across from your place, and down by Bass Lake."

So you move that camera around?

"Hell no. I got a dozen of 'em. Got them everywhere. I can see all the pastures right there on my phone, and all the deer yards too. By God, one time down where the Bruce Trail meets the north pasture, some hiker takes a crap right in front of the camera. That's way more than you need to see when your checking on your cattle, I tell ya. What an asshole. Next time somebody does that to me I'm gonna put them on the internet."

If Louis C.K. can make a comeback, Tony Clement can too

Spent the afternoon hiking with the hounds. The Bruce Trail folks bought the neighbour's place last year, and they've blazed some fresh trails through that property that hook up with the trail that already runs up the escarpment along the Cole Sideroad. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon when we set out, and getting dark when we arrived home.

I've hiked that area numerous times over the years, long before they put in an official trail. They've cleared a path through the Hawthornes that have taken over the meadows on your way up the escarpment.

The escarpment trail itself is somewhat challenging. It's not for the first time hiker, nor is it for fourteen year old dogs. While you don't have to do any actual rock-climbing, it gets pretty dicey at points.

So I get back home and click on the news and... guess who's back?

Tony Clement! Yup, the veteran right-winger, alum of both the Mean Mike Harris cabinet and the Harper gang, figures the country needs more public service from him. You'll recall that Tony disappeared into the mists of opprobrium when it was revealed that the esteemed Tory member was revealing pictures of his member to certain of his Instagram followers not that long ago.

Well, I say welcome back Tony! We've all made mistakes...


Hell, if Louis C.K. deserves another chance, so do you.

Can a newspaper be judged by what's not in it?

Took the hounds for a turn down the Bruce Trail the other side of Bass Lake this morning. Turns out the new pup is quite the water-girl. She'll fetch sticks out of the lake that the old girls turn their noses up at. They like to see a decent splash before they commit. The new girl will chase anything.

Lots of good stuff in my Globe and Mail this weekend. I see where the Trudeau gang are screwing over our PTSD-addled CAF vets by cutting back their medicinal marijuana allotment by two thirds. I thought maybe they'd make good on their promise to treat our vets with a little more respect after the lost decade of the Harper years, but it's not looking good.

Freeland's trip to Bangladesh gets lots of coverage. My sense is we're being prepped to open the refugee floodgates for the Rohingya, and why not? After all, according to Saunders' thesis in Maximum Canada, we'll be also-rans on the global stage and in the world economy till we hit that critical mass of a hundred million in population. A million Rohingya will give us a goodly boost in that direction. Let's just hope the Housing Matters crowd succeeds in it's quest to have lots more lux condos put up; we're gonna need a lot more luxury high-rise developments in our big cities to create enough trickle-down affordable housing for a million newcomers.

Made it down to the funeral on Friday. Is it actually a funeral if the guy's been cremated? Instead of a big old hardwood casket, there was just a little box with his ashes up on the altar. Saves on both wood and pallbearers, I suppose.

The deceased always prided himself on his immigrant heritage. He was from East Prussia. How fitting then that the officiating reverend spoke in a noticeably accented English, although I think it was perhaps more East Punjab than East Prussia. No matter; Werner would have been the first to point out that we're all equal in the eyes of God.

Elsewhere in the paper we've got a bit of fluff about the royal wedding and some obligatory drivel about the latest twists and turns in the saga of 45. Giuliani and Stormy Daniels figure in the reportage today. Ya, I know, but apparently it sells papers. That's the thing about Trump. A creation of the media from the mid-seventies on, anyone who follows media, entertainment, and politics will realize that the trajectory of Donny J has been a self-fulfilling prophecy for a society that has for far too long been amusing itself to death.

While Trump hasn't quite made America great again, he's sure given SNL a new lease on life, hasn't he? And I just learned today that Alec Baldwin used to be a busboy at Studio 54 back when young Trump was honing his pussy-grabbing skills at the notorious disco. Hmm...

Aside from a lengthy article about Syrian refugees in Lebanon, (a mere pit-stop on their way to Canada, I'm sure) there was utterly no news about the Middle East. Is that an oversight? A crooked cop in Hamilton gets eight feet worth of column inches and the most explosive tinderbox on the geopolitical map gets next to nothing? How can that be?

The Globe brain trust rightfully found room for a 3/4 page spread on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. That's something we never want to forget.

But not a word about what happened in Gaza yesterday or last week or last month.

That's something we don't want to know.

Welcome to the Kemble Emporium

Here it is.



This is a vacant storefront in the heart of Kemble. It used to be the general store in Kemble, but it has long since given up the ghost in favor of the Walmarts of this world.

I've been brainstorming like crazy with my pal Susan M, a Kemble lifer, on how we might be able to repurpose this old general store into a tavern/roadhouse/wine bar.

It's on offer, along with the house next door, for a paltry $129 thousands.

We been brainstorming pretty hard, and we can see the Kemble Impouring'em rising. First of all, we'll be the only liquor establishment between Owen Sound and Wiarton, at least if you take the scenic route. That's gotta be good news not only to thirsty locals, but to the folks from away en route to their million dollar summer homes on the water.

Secondly, that second house on the property really opens up some options. That could be a B&B. We're thinking we could offer up a special deal, where every hundred dollar bar tab gets you a free night's lodging at the Bed and Breakfast next door!

What a brilliant cross-marketing strategy! Don't worry about your excess alcohol consumption; we got a free pillow waiting for you at the end of the evening!

The Farm Manager is aboard too, and she'd be a valuable asset. All I know about wine is some is red and some is white. She actually knows all those fancy French names for them.

Like Peeno Greejio and Shablee and shit.

That looks to me like a space where you'd have more than enough room to have a little live entertainment, and the local area is chock full of A1+ musical types. Within a half hour drive we got everybody from the Becketts to the guy who played keyboards on a couple of Pink Floyd albums. Open mic night is gonna be spectacular!

Here's another salient fact; depending on how you read the maps, we are hard by the Bruce Trail! Just imagine all those super-thirsty and extra hungry hikers trekking past the front door! Hell, we could charge twenty bucks for a bag of Doritos and a bottle of water and they'd be thanking us!

And here's the coup de ville; the unsuspecting tourist stops in for wings and a jug of beer on Friday afternoon, and before they know it, they're waking up in their "free" lodgings on Sunday morning, and the Kemble United Methodist Pentecostal Unitarian Catholic Church is a mere lurch across the way!

Yup, we got you covered at the Kemble Emporium!