April 18th, 2012, by Margie Doyle
Inter-island Garden Projects: Lopez Island Garden Work Party and Creature Parade, April 22 10:30 am-3 pm
Lopez Creature Procession 2011
From Callie Blue
We need your help!
Our community garden which is located in the middle of the Lopez Village is shared in nine plots amongst 20 some people (including their children). We also have two chicken flocks in the garden. We are onto our second work party of the season and we are looking for help!
We will mainly be setting fence posts and taking out bushes.This is great opportunity to connect with some of the Lopez Community over hard work. A potluck lunch will be provided by the Lopez crew.
Later in the day is where the real fun begins when we all get dressed up in our species costumes to be a part of a great Lopez Earth Day celebration! At 4 p.m. the Procession Of The Species will gather and commence in the field across from the garden. This was so much fun last year! Even if you choose not to participate, staying to watch the parade is totally worth while. Over a 100 Island folk came last year dressed to honor their favorite species and it was fantastic! We played music and danced through the streets in a huge procession. It was a fun and exciting way to celebrate the Earth and I recommend everyone joins us!
Ferry Schedule: Leave Orcas 9:15am gets to Lopez at 9:50am (enough time to get coffee at Isabel’s) Leave Lopez 7:30pm gets to Orcas 8:45pm
What to bring: Water, Instruments, Work Clothes, Plate/Bowl/Spoon (if you remember), species costume (eg. I am going to be a flying squirrel, Kyra is going to be a Amenita Muscaria Mushroom), your lovely self and all your friends!
The first Procession of the Species Celebration in 2011 was sponsored Read more…
April 18th, 2012 |
April 18th, 2012, by Margie Doyle
Saturday April 21 from 8:30-11:30 p.m. at the Oddfellows Hall
Bring your dancing shoes and get ready for another fun night of dancing sponsored by Orcas Community Dance! The theme is World Music and the dance will feature a combination of salsa, reggae, and other highly danceable beats provided by local DJ’s Bruce and Jyoti Pavitt and Jay Kimball.
Orcas Community Dance is a local group formed to promote dancing on Orcas. With every dance, the emphasis is on having a good time and helping build community. The dances are always low cost and all proceeds go to benefit a local non-profit organization. $5-10 donation.
Proceeds from the April 21st dance will go to support F.E.A.S.T. (Farm Education And Sustainability for Teens) which is currently gearing up for another season. F.E.A.S.T. is a community supported and community taught sustainability education program. Though the program is designed for teens, who receive high school credit for their participation, some of the summer classes will be open to adults. The curriculum is intended to empower youth and other community members with sustainable living skills such as growing food, seed saving, animal husbandry, blacksmithing, permaculture, wild harvesting, bee-keeping, alternative energy, mycology, and more!
For more information contact Learner Limbach, Program Coordinator, foodmasters.orcas@gmail.com or visit the F.E.A.S.T. website http://feastprogram.org/ . We will also have more information available at the dance.
April 18th, 2012 |
April 14th, 2012, by Lin
Sunday, April 15, 2–3 p.m., at the Bullock’s Homestead
from Learner Limbach
1:00-2:00 Potluck with Bullock’s Community and Visitors
2:00-3:00 Topworking Demonstration with Q&A
James Most will topwork a tree, showing how to graft new varieties onto an already established fruit tree. Q&A during and after.
This is an excellent primer for those wishing to delve into the world of fruit tree grafting, whether you wish to start new trees or to switch old established trees over to new varieties.
Cost is $10.
Directions:
Take Deer Harbor Rd. Just before Deer Harbor turn right on Channel Rd.
Stay on Channel until you see a sign for the Bullock’s Homestead on the right
Please Note: The hands on class that will take place earlier in the morning (From 10:00-1:00) is FULL. Please let me know if you are interested in a 3 hour hands on grafting class. If there is adequate interest I would be happy to try organizing a second class in the near future.
April 14th, 2012 |
April 13th, 2012, by Margie Doyle
From Crosscut.com and Green Acre Radio
By Martha Baskin
As spring turns a warm corner, there’s no better place to experience it than a wetland, alive with swallows and the chorus of frogs. One wetland, once the former “Naval Air Station Seattle at Sand Point,” is about metamorphosis — of both creatures and place.
Miriam Preus knows the wetlands at Magnuson Park very well. A wetland gardener, she’s the one who maintains the marsh ponds and frog ponds where once there was a naval air station. “My greatest joy here is that it takes more imagination to imagine this site as a jet runway than it does to imagine a wetland being on the site,” she says.
Preus takes a break from thinning cattails — they jeopardize biodiversity, she says.
Nearby barn swallows and blue violet swallows, recent arrivals from South America , outfly raptors on the hunt. Their calls mingle with frogs and other wildlife who find the wetlands a perfect breeding ground in spring and a refuge all year long.
(To read the full article, go to crosscut.com/2012/04/13/In-Magnuson-Park%2C-tadpoles-swim-where-planes-once-landed/
Martha Baskin is an environmental reporter, whose work on the subject began with a project for the King Conservation District. )
April 13th, 2012 |
April 12th, 2012, by Margie Doyle
Cherry blossoms, tulips and iris in an ikebana arrangement
By Joan Stamm
The Spring Ikebana class will begin Saturday, April 21 at 2 p.m., and will also meet on Wednesday April 25tat 1 p.m. Class meets regularly April through October.
Beginners are welcome, and no previous experience is necessary.
Cost is $15 per class and will include some materials. The class is taught by Joan D. Stamm, author of the award winning book Heaven and Earth are Flowers: Reflections on Ikebana and Buddhism. You can find out more about her work at www.JoanDStamm.com.
Students bring most of their own plant/flower material, and clippers. Joan provides flower holders, water containers and extra flowers if needed. Class includes a short centering meditation and individual instruction.
Joan has studied ikebana in Japan and Seattle and holds Shihan (authorization to teach) from the Saga School of Ikebana located in Kyoto. For pre-registration and more details, e-mail Joan at jstamm@seanet.com or phone 376-1035.
April 12th, 2012 |
April 9th, 2012, by Margie Doyle
To the Editor:
I wasn’t aware that the Food Bank had a Website and it has all of the info anyone would need to donate. Thank you again!
The following is from the Orcas Food Bank Website for all those who wish to help! Thank you all for your generous support!
Spirit Eagle
Serving Orcas Island Families since 1984
FOOD BANK DISTRIBUTION:
116 Madrona Street, next to the Orcas Island Community Church
WHEN: Tuesdays, 12:30 to 2 p.m. and Thursdays, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
FREE LUNCH: Every Tuesday, noon to 1:30 p.m. This lunch is hosted by several Island churches and is served at the Orcas Island Community Church next door to the Food Bank building.
OUR MISSION:
To gather and share grocery products with neighbors in need. The Orcas Island Food Bank is a bridge between America’s food bounty and those who cannot provide for themselves.
HOW TO HELP:
Food Donations:
• Drop off at Food Bank when open
• Leave in the drop box outside the Food Bank left entrance any time
• Boxes at Orcas Island Senior Center, Orcas Post Office, Deer Harbor Post Office, Key Bank
Cash Donations:
• Checks payable to Orcas Food Bank and mailed to PO Box 424, Eastsound, WA 98245
• Donation jars at Ray’s Pharmacy, Kay’s Antiques and Wood’s Cove
Sincerely,
Spirit Eagle
April 9th, 2012 |
April 8th, 2012, by Madie Murray
Orcas School Garden continues to grow!
By Madie Murray
Thanks to more than 50 volunteers on March 3, the posts are up, stabilized, and all the ground has been tilled at the Orcas Island School Garden, in front of the Nellie S. Milton Elementary School.
On Saturday, March 31, Ezra Richardson and Pablo Nunez spent most of a very cold day putting up wood bracing (donated by Andrew Stephens) between the posts that will secure the fencing given by Bill and Peggy Griswold and enclose the expanded garden area.
April 8th, 2012 |
April 6th, 2012, by Lin
from Lenore Bayuk
It’s spring and time to think about gardens! The San Juan County Master Gardeners invite you to the Spring Gardening Workshop on April 21 in the Friday Harbor Middle School.
Graham Kerr, internationally known author, chef (“Galloping Gourmet”) and speaker will headline the event.
Want to know how to build a rain catchment system? a year around vegetable garden? arrange those flowers you’ve just cut? 15 workshops designed to give you practical gardening skills, fill out the day.
Registration Information: WSU website: http://sanjuan.wsu.edu and at the local WSU Extension Office, 378-4414.
April 6th, 2012 |
March 17th, 2012, by Margie Doyle
From the Friends of the San Juans
Friends of the San Juans has received competitive funding through the National Estuary Program to study threats to shoreline habitat, private property, and public infrastructure from rising sea levels and the cumulative impacts of shoreline modifications in San Juan County. The results of the study, which will include new erosion rate and sea level rise models and maps, as well as ways to reduce risk, will be applicable throughout Puget Sound.
Shoreline modification poses one of the most significant risks to the long-term health of our nearshore ecosystems, including those for Southern Resident Orcas, Marbled Murrelet seabirds, Steller sea lions, and Chinook salmon. In San Juan County, over 20 miles of local beaches have already been armored by roads and residential and commercial bulkheads. Nearly one third of the Puget Sound basin’s 2,500 miles is already armored, and every year additional miles of shoreline are hardened. If this trend continues, it is anticipated to make beaches more vulnerable to climate change by shrinking or fully submerging them. Beach habitat is an important part of marine food webs, essential to the spawning fish that feed seabirds, large fishes like salmon and ling cod, and marine mammals.
“It’s really important to start asking the tough questions about which special places for fish, wildlife and people are going to suffer increased flooding. Without this basic information, we can’t move forward as a community to figure out how to reduce the risk through modified development techniques or locations,” noted Tina Whitman, Science Director at Friends of the San Juans.
Friends of the San Juans will complete this innovative shoreline protection project with Coastal Geologic Services, Inc. of Bellingham and a technical team of local and regional experts. For more information on shoreline habitats and sea level rise, contact visit the Friends of the San Juans or visit the website at www.sanjuans.org.
March 17th, 2012 |
March 7th, 2012, by Madie Murray
A line of "de-fence" digging up the ground before posts were placed.
By Madie Murray
A Virtual Army Showed Up!
Fifty-plus men, women, kids and even dogs spent the day Saturday digging, pulling, turning, de-rocking, chopping blackberry bushes, setting posts, making scratch pizza, and sweating for the school garden…and the outcome was enlightening, dazzling, gratifying, enormous, delicious, beautiful and unbelievable. There just aren’t enough words to describe this incredible outpouring of energy and love for our public school garden. Volunteerism is certainly alive and well on Orcas Island.
Those who poured their heart and soul into the project know who they are, but I’ll try to mention a few in this limited space. This is the dream of Chelsea Cates, the Farm to Cafeteria school garden keeper who wants to
Sam Sutton gets his John Deere Wheelbarrow to collect stones removed from the turned soil.
turn it into an area of growth…not only of the plant kind, but of the human kind. She envisions a garden that will ultimately include an outdoor classroom, weather station, water catchment system, drying shed, a huge new area to grow food and herbs for the school cafeteria, a topiary, edible flower garden, and multiple themed mini-gardens…all under and around the graceful and watchful limbs of the beloved maple tree. Last fall, with her enthusiasm, drive and just plain cuteness, she got the approval of the School Board and started “planting the seeds” for her dream. Saturday was proof that dreams can come true.
Learner Limbach picked up the mantle while Chelsea was with her Dad in India opening a medical facility. He helped summon a fleet of workers and made sure all the elements of success were in place.
Then along came Geddes Martin who brought his cob pizza oven to feed the workforce. What a treat! Many people were so focused on the task at hand that kids were sent carrying plates of pizza to tell people to stop working and eat!
Behind the scenes and leading up to this party were these unbelievable people: Learner and
In the end it was Jorgen Harle (the island's blacksmith), Evan Allred, Chelsea Cates and two enthusiastic youngsters staying past 5 PM to provide the late afternoon heroics needed to set the last of these monster split-cedar posts.
Ron Thompson felled a cedar tree from Syd Exton’s land. Learner cut the logs and split them into posts with help from Chelsea, Evan Allred and Tom Gosset. Bill and Peggy Griswold purchased wire fencing for the whole area. Ezra Richardson helped with the fence design and layout, Ken Wood and Sea Island Sand and Gravel supplied gravel for post setting, Justin Paulsen provided a mechanical post-hole digger, and Andrew Stephens milled custom wood for bracing and raised beds. Student, Lexi Cuthbert filmed the whole event, and a link to a slide show of photos taken by Audra Query has been put on the www.orcasislandf2c.com web site photo gallery page.
Prior to this party, Erin Bennett organized one last spring which garnered additional enthusiasm for this one, and Phil Heikkinen of Sustainable Orcas Island backed the expansion prior to school board approval.
Then there are those mighty volunteers who showed up to lend their backs to the task which included a crew of WWOOF volunteers from Doe Bay and a gaggle of Lopez ladies who came over specifically for this event. It was a joy to behold.
I think Didier Gincig summed it up when he remarked, “This is one of the most beautiful things that has occurred on this Island.”
March 7th, 2012 |
Martha Farish 
H.S. Wright III 
Steve Garrison 
Frank and Jan Loudin 
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Thank you for the update about the website. Fresh produce is especially in short supply in winter months,and the “pick two” shelves, when I go, are often devoid of anything healthy enough to consider as “food.” I often don’t go through the line for just a few canned items that I already have. For those of us wishing to eat organic for health reasons, we rarely get lucky. The workers try to help us and look out for us, and we appreciate that so much. But they can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat… unless you’re first in line, you get no greens or organics – if there are greens or organics.
This is NOT a criticism of the Food Bank, its donors, its board, or its volunteers; I hope it is not taken as such.
Farmers who donate what they have cannot fill the need, because many more people need food in the winter, when work is scarce to non-existent.
Island Market generously donates, as do many individuals and associations. But for those with food allergies, special needs…