Mukai Farm & Garden’s fifth annual Haiku Festival will kick off on April 1, 2024. Each year, the event draws hundreds of haiku submissions from Vashon residents and poets from abroad. In 2023, Mukai received over 500 hundred haiku submissions from Vashon residents, as well as poets from 13 countries. According to Leah Mann, Mukai…
February 2024, Health Matters
Interview with Vashon Chiropractor, Dr. Cori Bodily-Goodman
By Caitlin Rothermel How can a chiropractor help someone? The main objective of chiropractic care is to get the spinal joints – which your nervous system runs through – aligned. This allows your nerves to penetrate and innervate your organs and glands and keep your system running. For many years, chiropractic just involved spinal adjustments. But our toxin and…
February 2024, Recipes
Cabbage Salad with Warm Shallot Vinaigrette
By Caitlin Rothermel When we first moved to Vashon, we had the pleasure of working with Len Wolff, one of the most professional and responsive realtors on the Island. Recently, Len and his wife Nancy started a new venture with the magazine, “Good To Be Home,” which is how I first came across this recipe. …
Editorial Page, January 2024
Team Osprey
By the Vashon Loop Editorial Board At The Vashon Loop, it is hard for us to not take certain issues very seriously these days – that’s because these are serious times. Last year, The Loop took the opportunity to dive deep into the structures of several local administrative organizations. The experience was so eye-opening that…
December 2023, Health Matters
The Vashon Health Care District Hasn’t Talked to Us in a While
By Caitlin Rothermel The Vashon Health Care District hasn’t talked to us in a while, and people have definitely been asking questions. But that ended this November when they met to present and pass their 2024 budget. It’s important to talk about the VHCD now because their proposed plans substantially change their original mandate, with the…
Editorial Page, October 2023
A Mousetrap for Billionaires
By Caitlin Rothermel It’s a serious sign of how culturally messed up we are that we so often defer to experts – sometimes even refusing to take advice from anyone who’s not an expert – while allowing wealthy generalists to claim they have real expertise across a number of areas. This is a big-picture problem…
Editorial Page, Health Matters, October 2023
Health Disclaimer
By Caitlin Rothermel Last month, the Loop Editorial Board reviewed and updated the “Health Disclaimer” run in every issue. We made changes based on input from a writer who pointed out that its language – applied to be legally protective, and typical of what you would see in a health disclaimer – was actually off-putting…
Commentary
VIFR Levy: Con
By Caitlin Rothermel The Vashon Island Fire and Rescue levy (Proposition 1) is coming to a vote this August. If the levy is voted in, the VIFR annual budget will grow from $6.7 million in 2023 to as high as $10.4 million in 2029. In our population-stable community of 10,866 people (based on United States…
Children, Gardening
Gardening with Children – Late-Season Carrots
By Caitlin Rothermel It can be challenging to garden when you have young children, but you also want to get them excited about growing things. It’s a dilemma. It is totally possible to introduce small, focused projects that can be fun for everyone. Like carrots. They can fit into small or otherwise hard-to-use spaces, and…
Terms of Concern
Public Health Messaging – Incentives, Nudges, and More
Because public health is an increasingly (and unexpectedly) in-your-face part of life, it’s a good idea to understand how public health “talks” to and sends messages to us. While I was working on my public health degree, I was never given the impression that our kind would emerge with any sort of genuine authority or…