Hinterland- Who's who?

Our society has for many years given wild animals a alter ego if you will, Disney first and foremost has 'cartoonized' our perception of the wild. Children for a few generations now has come to learn and love the cartoon version of wild animals. Aside from the marketing bonanza of stuffed animal and T-shirt sales I'm sure there are some other positives of the absurd objectification of the real world around us. On the negative side, sighting like this are all too common in our neck of the woods.  City folk who stop in the middle of the highway to jump out and look at the pretty animals.

As head shaking as it is to witness people putting themselves and the  animals that they so desperately want to observe and make some sort of connection with in danger, I too find myself doing the same thing.

 Take for instance the other day, as I arrive home from work to find the chicken legged brown bear milling around Fillmore.

 Although I knew better, I couldn't help myself and found myself drawn to see what he was up to.

Patch and repair. Over the years through various additions and subtractions Fillmore had some chinks in his armor, and the wild beast in the photos was busy patching the holes.

 As dangerous as it was to be this close, I couldn't help but think that maybe all this guy was looking for was what we are all looking for really, a safe place to call home......of course he said all he wanted was a pot of coffee, a bacon cheese sandwich and some quality .030 welding wire that doesn't spit and spatter.....but I think that really was a metaphoric call for help.

The rhino in the room

It's not my place, it never was, it never will be...but I care like it is.
Many times we have an invested interest in something that we really perhaps shouldn't be meddling in. People fall into that trap at work, watching how a co-worker executes a project. That in itself isn't a bad thing but when you start giving your unsolicited two bits....then that is when trouble arises.
What the heck am I talking about? A thesis for a masters in architecture. My baby brother now has surpassed me in post secondary education and has more letters of secret code at the end of his signature than I do.
To say that he does anything conventionally is a good chuckle, so the fact that completing the published copy of his thesis was a screaming race down to the wire should be no surprise to me. It's not how my super anal dentist brain works, deadlines in my mind are hard not soft. I don't understand how exactly his mind works but it works for him. It's not my place, it never was, it never will be...but I care. So I have just watched his journey with admiration and wonder at how his creative mind works.....its border line scary really.
None the less, the real point is that it is a time of celebration... Shawn has completed everything and is now about to enter into the working world.

BUT! Before he does I managed to convince Shawn and his lovely, much too good for him,wife and partner in creativity Adele to come out to Bragg Creek and spend the last few weeks of summer working on Fillmore.

Only Shawn would teach the kids how to use a CAD software program (Rhino) for their computer time!

But poor Shawn, not all is fun and computer games, I did put him to work fabricating a new rear end for Fillmore, a use of the engine cradle that sits proud of the rear skirt. The plan is to use it as a lower support for a ladder, currently being fabricated by George in Texas, that will crawl up the back of Fillmore

While Shawn generally made things dirtier, Adele made things prettier. We put the boots to the SS panels, trying to remove all the years of grime and damage of the past 65 years.

Shawn puttered away, making lots of noise reshaping the damaged portion of the rear skirt.

All the while Anna was put to the task of removing the interior. Wood walls come down to allow us to remove and paint the interior window wells.

I am so excited, even with a little spit and shine I can begin to see the potential for Fillmore. We have just over a week before Fillmore goes in for paint....