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…
Literary
In Lockdown With “A Gentleman From Moscow”
I invite you back to mid-March 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown started. It was seasonable on Vashon. But because it was not yet really spring, it was still easy to feel cold, especially at night. Most notable at that time was a sense of worry and waitfulness. An uncertainty regarding what would come next, combined…
Health Matters
Yes! Supplement With Vitamin D To Protect From COVID-19
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, or any climate that goes relatively sunless over winter, it’s important to think about vitamin D. For half the year, your body synthesizes vitamin D, thanks to the sun. But that changes in the winter, thanks to gray skies and less daylight. This winter gap is a problem,…
Health Matters
Masks For All Doesn’t Work – A Practical Dilemma
Respiratory diseases are surging again, and there is disagreement about what we should do in terms of masking. Some people are masking when they go out, some are no longer masking, and some would like everyone to wear a mask. There’s been no answer that makes sense for everyone, and this puts us all at…
Announcements
Introducing the Not Uptown Vashon Business Lowdown!
Do you have a business on Vashon? If so, are you like the majority of Vashon businesses in that you’re not located uptown? Vashon businesses are everywhere on the Island – really, everywhere. But many are effectively hidden, without the storefront or drive-by appeal that would let you know they exist. Because Vashon is not zoned…
Recipes
Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette Carrot Salad
This year, I’ve been obsessed with learning to make side dishes that capture the aromatic, vitamin C-infused flavors of summer. I’m talking about the kinds of tastes that just explode in your mouth, that also happen to have great texture, and that you yearn to experience during the autumn and winter. This grated carrot salad…
Editorial Page
Welcome To the Light and the Beautiful Dark
Autumn is here, and like always, it brings big changes to the amount and quality of daylight on the Island. These seasonal transitions can be intense – especially, it is said, for people who live in the forest and on the Westside. The twilight and eventual darkness become a constant companion, with a presence that’s…
Health Matters
It Is Reasonable To Be Skeptical
Have you heard about the “bivalent” and “monovalent” COVID vaccines? These are the old and new versions of the Pfizer and Moderna injections. The original injection is monovalent because it contains messenger RNA (mRNA) for only the Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2. The bivalent booster has mRNA from the Wuhan strain and the Omicron strain variants BA….