What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
If I could reach out to my post-teenager self, I’d urge that guy to get the fuck out of British Columbia. Finish my education in Ontario. Break my love affair with the province, as it’s a 1-way relationship. Get my pre-education training at the Toronto Zoo. Buy property near Gilles Lake in the 1990s with whatever money I could scrape up. Join the Toronto District School Board (or if necessary, the YRDSB). I’d remind that uptight young man that there’s a more civilized country east of the Rocky Mountains. If I want to participate in commercial fishery, the Great Lakes could still offer that to me. Hopefully, I could build a relationship with TS, as she was doing the polar opposite 1988-1998 (get as far away from HER family by moving to BC). It’d be messy.
If cause-and-effect issues would destroy my love for TS… then I guess I have to stay with the current timeline. I would tell my 20-year-old-self to not regret disowning my shitbird dad. His estate just wasn’t worth it (my niece & nephew need the money more than me). Nope, he still wouldn’t be invited to my wedding — the fucker never earned that privilege. In the current timeline, he apparently always hated me for standing up to him like that. Good. Rein Neem was an evil man who died in a confused-state and unloved with his burned-out-and-weakened 2nd wife. She died within months of Rein’s death — her death was wrong (she used up her stamina trying to care for an abusive husband).
June 19-28, 2026 FREESTANDING PAVILION UPDATE.
The storm windows, door, and panels are installed on the roofed structure. We sealed off its seams with copious amounts of transparent colourless silicone caulking. Now, we have to finish off the screened soffits and add flashing between the pavilion and the nearby house. There’s still a 1-3″ gap under the storm window that’ll need to be covered by some surplus steel roofing from the original house build. Truly ravenous carnivorous flying insects can still sneak their way in from the unscreened deck flooring. I’m planning on adding additional locking hardware at the bottom of the door, to keep it shut during inevitable wind storms. The incorrectly-facing sliding windows will need to be WD40-ed every few months to prevent them from seizing up. THE END RESULT: it’s a protected venue for outside living. I plan on installing 2 outdoor speakers and a rough-and-ready HiFi amplifier in that space to make thunderous tunes. We’ll be setting up a memorial for TS’ mum in a corner. It’ll be a Sun/rain/snow room for humans. If a stupid cat escapes from the home’s south-facing French doors, their efforts will be thwarted (no bear/coyote-snacks on our farm thankyouverymuch).
JULY 2-3/26 UPDATE = DEAR FRIEND DRIVING ON UP FROM THE GTA.
I don’t make friends easily. Never have, as I’m fiercely loyal and I struggle navigating casual acquaintances (like the ones that I apparently had back in British Columbia [as they dropped us like hot potatoes once we abandoned Campbell River, BC]). GP is driving on up to spend time on the rock farm. I value that commitment to our friendship. It’s an 8h round trip for GP and it can be a very stressful drive on the tourist-cottager-choked highways. GP has his own tribulations on the go and I’m humbled that he wants to take a break at our rock farm.
GP doesn’t call our place the woodlot… nor the off-grid-house-in-the-woods. No. He uses a South African interpretation of “the farm”. It doesn’t translate easily into Canadian English. If you want to meet people who are VERY ATTACHED to their farms, to the veldt, go talk to a liberal African. All the horseshit and propaganda I accepted as a 20-something about South Africa is embarrassingly naive.
Perhaps that’s another item I’d share with my 20-year-old-self. Don’t go half cocked and denounce other societies and their geopolitics. My fellow North Americans don’t understand the intricacies of other societies. There’s more than one way to have civil society — Canada’s mindset isn’t the only way to behave, eh.
GP thinks our preparation for him is over the top. Nah, he just deserves someone to bring out the good stuff for his visit.
BCB&B, neemtree, bdb, and blog 