By S.E. Reid Editor’s Note: Ferris Island is “located right at the elbow where Puget Sound meets the Salish Sea,” with “some strange hidden corners and a very unusual history.” Please enjoy this tale of an island similar in many ways to what we Islanders like to speak of as our own “Old Vashon.” For…
Island Voices, June 2026, Literary
Parallel Lives – Lois
By Richard Odell Some among us get trees like a disease. Big boys are especially prone, but big girls get it too, sometimes. The psychosis might simmer for years, before it really starts to roil. I’d always been a plant guy, and I liked trees well enough. Wanted to see more of them, hated to…
June 2026, Literary
The Lake
By S.E. Reid Editor’s note: For your summer reading pleasure, we have an island tale by local author S.E. Reid. Ferris Island is “located right at the elbow where Puget Sound meets the Salish Sea. The inhabitants are normal folk, just like you and me…except that the place where they live has some strange hidden…
December 2025, Literary, Memoir
A Solstice for Cowzilla
By Marc J. Elzenbeck When we last left our 3,500 pound purebred Holstein flight risk, we had upgraded the 4 foot high fence she had jumped, topping and criss-crossing it with electric wire. The group that hated the 100 mile-rated Zareba Energizer’s power included Leslie Lou “Minnie” Moo, her new calf Nettie, our dogs, their…
Gardening, Literary, October 2025
Harvesting Stones
By Jane Valencia A reflection from 25 years ago, when our family lived on the Island’s west side. We are deep into autumn – on All Hallow’s Eve, it so happens – a day whose crone eyes decree decay and change, and spark with new beginnings. The apples on the old tree in our front lawn…
June 2025, Literary
On the Go With Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“I have never been so much my own self as when I have set out on foot and alone. There is something about walking that animates and activates my ideas. I can hardly think at all when I am still; my body must move if my mind is to do the same. The sight of…
June 2025, Literary, Poetry
Mukai Haiku Festival 2025 Winners
Mukai Farm & Garden is proud to announce the winners of the Mukai Haiku Festival 2025. The festival received over a hundred haiku from twelve countries around the world. The prize winners and their haiku are below. Youth 5-13 1st: Aiden Hermmans Jungle Green, leafy, wet, coolIt is an ecosystemCanopy of life 2nd: Peter T….
Literary, May 2025, Poetry
Violet – Lore, Poem, and Herbal Litany
By Jane Valencia In Catholic faith tradition, flowers have a treasured place in devotions to Our Blessed Mother Mary. Since the earliest centuries of the faith, flowers (and other plants and trees) have served as nature’s “icons” – expressing the virtues, character, and mysteries of Our Lady, as well as other spiritual truths and tales….
Literary, May 2025, Poetry
A Poem
By Jo Ann Herbert These fragrant historic roses have not opened yet this season. My garden’s past beauty has suffered damage as the poem references, but as all of us age and life unfolds, I hope we remember what of beauty and joy we have expressed created and shared in this life. I just went…
