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 Hugh Lord How do you start a fire without a lighter or matches? Well, at the Vashon Sportsmen’s Club Kids Camp, that is one of the things they teach you. Even once you know how, it’s still not easy, but if you keep practicing it starts to seem easier. Until it rains, then like in Fallout (a…
By the Footloose Foodie Hello friends and neighbors! I have returned from summer adventures. Alaska, crabbing on the Peninsula, visiting family, and embracing new friendships. The last I wrote the plan was to visit, breweries on Vashon. I tried, but was disappointed. One was not following posted business hours and the other, well, was less…
By David Earle Vashon, along with many other established communities in western Washington, has a serious housing problem. Land hoarding is a thing. For instance, the Reed family of Tacoma owns 770,000 acres of land in Washington State. There are many landowners in the United States who own more than 1,000,000 acres. Our property tax code encourages…
By Shannon Smith My grandmother always lived on Vashon, that’s how it felt as a kid visiting, and it still feels like that. But I really didn’t start to hear all the old stories of Vashon until my parents broke up around 1996 and I moved to Grandma’s. Not that she shared many stories, but…
By Deborah H. Anderson “Do you see where the break is?” … The surgeon asks. Pointing to the x-ray, I look at the diagonal line of a femur once shattered in two places, now fused into solid bone. “Yes”, I tell him, nodding my head. “Now look at the other leg,” he continues, “See how…
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 Marc J. Elzenbeck Cattle were domesticated from wild aurochs starting about 10,500 years ago. Roughly speaking, an auroch is to a farm cow as a timber wolf is to a cocker spaniel. These were amongst the biggest, baddest land-borne mammals left over from the Pleistocene, so by “domesticated,” what they mean is “captured and…
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 the Footloose Foodie I am especially excited about the subject matter of this month’s article. I love a good burger! Footloosing it, I meandered uptown in search of a good burger. What makes a burger good? There are as many answers to this question as there are burgers! Everyone has a personal set of…