By Michael Shook Last year, 2023, marked 25 years since my father died. I did nothing in particular to mark the occasion, other than noting it was that accumulation of years whereby things are thought about, or spoken about because, well, because a certain amount of time has passed. And it seemed like not that…
By Michael Shook When I hear the word “replace,” I usually think of it in the sense of something or someone being gotten rid of. As in, “Let’s replace that old vacuum cleaner,” or “Bill, we’re sorry, but we’re going to replace you with a robot.” But the first definition in my dictionary is, “To…
By Michael Shook In 1972, when I graduated high school, there were about 3.4 million residents in the entire state of Washington. In 2022, there were 4.5 million residents of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties alone. The state is now home to roughly 7.8 million people, with another million estimated to arrive during the next…
By Michael Shook July marked 11 years at our property, and I feel I know the landscape now. The first trees I planted look like proper trees, rather than sticks. And the surrounding extant trees are familiar to me in ways they were not when first we moved here. To get to know a place…
By Michael Shook I finally got around to staining the gates in the back of the property this month. They were holding up well, but red cedar does last longer with some protection. So, back I went, stain bucket in hand, brush in the other. As I approached the largest of the gates, I could…
By Michael Shook I turned 69 this summer, from which it follows, of course, that next year I’ll hit 70. That’s assuming I live that long. I expect to, but one never knows. At this age, I’ve lost a number of friends that I just assumed I’d be growing old with, some of them very…
By Michael Shook By the time this is in print, the leaves of the bigleaf maples will have taken on their darker summer look, and depending on how dry things are, they might already have the first dulling of dust covering them. But for now, in June, their leaves, and those of every other plant…
By Michael Shook A few weeks ago, my wife returned from taking the Scotties on their morning walk, and informed me she had seen a squashed frog on the road. The younger Scottie, Walter, had lunged for it, no doubt to eat. She at first thought it to be a rat, albeit a misshapen one…
The most obvious method whereby I arrived here is “by boat,” which is, I admit, a dreadful and dreadfully weak attempt at humor, for which I blame a certain recalcitrant eight year-old in my head, who refuses to grow up, and who will not go away, either. I could also blame my father, who, like…