DO YOU EVER DOUBT WHAT YOU'RE DOING?

          As much as I like it here in New Brunswick, it's mornings like this, or perhaps I should say days, when that old feeling called doubt comes creeping around my doorstep like a stray cat and starts meowing or screeching questions like, "What the hell am I doing here?"  I've lived in quite a few places over the years like Vancouver, Prince George, Victoria, Lethbridge, Calgary, Gibsons, Comox, Cumberland and Nanaimo - I won't get into the houses and apartments where I've resided, and oh yeah, even lived on a sail boat for many years (the place I liked the most) - not sure why - maybe the sense of freedom that I could just haul up the anchor or untie the mooring lines and set sail to wherever I had a hankering to drop the anchor again.  Although I've lived a wee bit of a nomadic life, perhaps always searching for the greener grass on the other side of the mountain, these 50 acres or as I call it at times, 50 achers, in a sense has brought me back to my roots, to my grand-folks pioneering days when they travelled by stage coach and on foot from North Carolina to the wilds of BC, a place called Woodpecker and there, with the use of work horses and oxen cleared a chunk of land alongside the Fraser River and built themselves a fine log house.  As a young boy and later in my teens I once told my grandmother after we had climbed a high hill overlooking their home that when I became a man, I was going to come back and build me a fine house there.  I can still see my grandmother's wonderful smile and sparkling blue eyes (which never dulled until she was found outside on the ground at the bottom of the backstairs still clutching her broom) and if I try real hard, even after all these years gone by, I can almost hear her voice when she said, most likely knowing that it would never happen, "That would be nice Leonard, sure has a good view."
          I don't mind some of the hard work I've been doing here at the base of Green Mountain, like building a wee barn, an art studio and now renovating a baby barn I had skidded onto the property because my studio is too cramped, the workable part only about 5' wide and 8' long, so when I get 4'x8' signs to letter, it's tighter than a polka dot bikini scotch-taped to a 300 pound vixen.  When we first arrived, I also renovated the upstairs bedrooms and landings to a certain degree becauseour money ran a wee bit low - hoping to get back to that as soon as we can afford a new floor; maybe this winter if I'm lucky.  But then I'm not too concerned about getting the upstairs finished since I know it takes about 5 years after moving into a place, everything that a person wanted to do then, should be mostly completed.  Besides, I'm not a carpenter, electrician or a plumber, so it's more difficult for me, a rank amateur, and being in my 70's, as expected, it takes me longer to do a job.  Dang; some days my aching muscles and bones just scream, "Not today!  Enough is enough!  Take a break you crazy old coot!"  And I do, I mean I don't want to do any permanent damage to my already somewhat decrepit body and hell, what's the rush - living here at the base of Green Mountain where seldom a vehicle goes by, it makes little or no-never-mind that I put deadlines on my work load.
          Sometimes my body craves the westcoast of BC; the winters weren't so long and the black flies, mosquitoes and no-seeums didn't exist and spring and summer were longer than 3 months.  I also didn't have to work so hard but oddly as that seems, that part doesn't bother me because I'm learning new things and it's helping to keep me somewhat fit; the sedimentary lifestyle doesn't appeal to me in the least - sure, using my brains is a good thing but what's the sense in that if the body doesn't respond.  At this age, it's still great to have a few dreams and I've learned over the years not to shoot too high - better to reach the odd goal than never reach any of them and on that note (besides the goat needs milking and all the barnyard critters need tending to and I have to resume insulating the baby barn) - winter aint that far off) I do believe I'll end this blog - cheers, eh!