Too much stuff
It is summer and there is so much stuff to write about. I have difficulty choosing. Folks are going salmon fishing, trouting, tenting, hiking, canoeing, road tripping, and varied combinations of the above. I’ll be combining the open road, tenting, and salmon fishing very soon, along with some paddling for good measure. If you read this column early, I’ll be just waking, or drinking coffee under canvas, to start day one of our 2017 annual two week salmon fishing adventure in Labrador. Yes sir, the Big Land, always an adventure, despite casting on her majestic rivers every single summer for two decades. I love it, and you will read the details soon.
Right now I’m trying to get all my last-minute work done before pointing the truck towards the north. There’s grass to cut, last minute flies to tie, jobs to finish up, stories to write, and the list goes on. Plenty of life happens in two weeks and I have to have all my bases tagged before backing out the driveway, so time away runs smoothly.
This year I’m building a new garage to put my stuff in, and that project has had me seriously busy. I wanted to have all the groundwork done before Labrador. Looks like I’ve made it. I just came in from the last of the shovelling and raking. I’ll be pouring a concrete slab when I return.
So why am I still building at my age? That’s a very good question. I should be slowing down and simplifying my life, downsizing maybe. I fear simple isn’t in the cards for me, not for a while yet. I just bought a new canoe from a good friend, couldn’t resist, a new-to-me older classic canoe, and it requires space, 17 feet of it. I have a cod fishing boat, and an ATV, two canoes, two kayaks, a couple of inflatables, and all manners of outdoor gear. You get the picture, and I hate leaving my stuff out in the elements. And I want a side by side to cart my grandchildren in the woods. I either have to build more storage space or sell my outdoor stuff. I’m not selling my stuff. I’ll be swinging my hammer.
I don’t duck hunt near as much as I once did. But I still have all my decoys, eiders, blacks, scaups, and goldeneye ducks. Whenever we discuss storage Goldie says, “Why don’t you get rid of those bloody decoys?” But I figure I might need them. I could get myself a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever and do more waterfowling. I just might, or maybe not, but I’m not selling my decoys, not in a million years. I suppose I just like having my decoys safely tucked away in case I need them. They do take up quite a bit of space, but no more than all of Goldie’s Christmas decorations. Let’s not go there. It’s safer to build a new garage.
It is what it is. I am what I am. Some days I wish I could be a minimalist, and maybe in another life I will wander the outback with everything I own in a pack on my back, waltzing Matilda, as they say down under. It’s a romantic notion, “with dust in throat I crave”, a line from one of my favourite tunes, “Wherever I May Roam,” by Metallica. But that’s not the present incarnation of me. I need my hunting and fishing stuff, along with tools for building stuff. I’ll be starting our new garage as soon as I get home from catching salmon.
I know many of you can relate to what I’m getting at here. We collect so much worldly stuff to amuse ourselves with. Then we create so much work for ourselves maintaining, paying for, and the storing it all. My wise neighbor, and best truck fixer on Planet Earth, June Hutchings, told me a funny story that sums it up. June has a lot of car stuff and tools, so he knows. June has a big garage. Anyway, the story, I’ll get on with it.
There once lived a man of mediocre means, energy and ambition. He owned only one chicken that lived in the house with him. He lived a simple but happy life, eating the odd egg for breakfast. One day the man’s neighbor knocked on his door and awoke him from his afternoon nap. “Your chicken is out, and tearing up my newly planted carrots.” The man rose from the daybed by the stove, and ran out to capture his only fowl. It was a wild feathery scene, an hour running and chasing before the chicken was safely back in the kitchen with the man. Gasping for breath, he looked the chicken square in the eye and proclaimed with a sigh, “Happy is the man who has nothing.”
If I didn’t have so much stuff, and didn’t have to build a new garage, I’d at least be happier this summer. I could spend a lot more time floating on Gull Pond and catching plump mud trout. I could use that new fibreglass 3 weight plenty more. But some days, especially windy ones, I prefer my 10-ft 4-wt. And I could get some good use out of that timeless classic canoe. But other days I could use my float tube, or a new wooden rowboat. You do see the dilemma here, right? It gets out of control fast. There is no escaping carpenter work for me. But I like carpentry. I’ll bang in nails all day and trout in the evening. And I’ll get long term satisfaction knowing my gear is tucked away and out of the snow and cold.
I reckon we just need to find a happy medium in all this. I may still require counseling, because this is the last storage building for me. No more watercraft, I think.
“Some days I wish I could be a minimalist, and maybe in another life I will wander the outback with everything I own in a pack on my back …
But that’s not the present incarnation of me. I need my hunting and fishing stuff, along with tools for building stuff. “