What was expected to be a normal day, began as a normal day, as normal days generally do.

Normal days here begin with an early start. Hours of drinking coffee followed by my trek up to the garden at 8 am for a day’s worth of puttering. E, back from walking the dog was working on what will be the bunkie site, you know if we go through with building it.

After a friend stopped by with a rock drill which E needed and the said friend’s daughters spent some time feeding our fish, E went to my sister in laws to borrow an additional tool he is going to need. He spent a good deal of time chatting to neighbours along the way. We may not have stores on this island but we have plenty of neighbours for lending and borrowing and chatting. All very normal indeed.

Just as he got back to the bunkie site at high noon, hot sun, I received notification from an observant member of our community that there was smoke coming from a property where there was no one at home. He said he was going to need some water and some help.

I called our volunteer fire department chief and texted every member of the fire committee who I knew to be on the island. I won’t go into details here but the gist of it was someone had a burn pile and left it on Sunday presuming it was out. Today, four days later, it was still smouldering and had grown to reach the perimeter of the larger burn site. If it had continued unnoticed it would have met the adjacent forest and it would have been a disaster.

E, as a member of the volunteer fire department didn’t get back to the house til 330 and still had to drill his holes in anticipation of the concrete pour. We had to return the borrowed drill by the end of the day. Suffice to say it’s five pm and he is having a nap….

Long story short, it was a normal day. Coffee, work, borrow, lend, chat, garden, dog, community response to an emergency, beer, nap, dinner, sunset.

You

know, island normal