Literary

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
Literary

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

Kate Moore is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of “The Radium Girls.” A British writer based in London, she has published numerous Sunday Times bestsellers, writing across various genres including history, biography, true crime, and humor; her work has been translated into more than 12 languages. The Radium Girls was the winner of…

Rose Hip and Snowberry – Part 4
Literary

Rose Hip and Snowberry – Part 4

In a time when technology has fallen away, Islanders are rediscovering the ways of the forest. In a frenzy of excitement and discovery, two children, Rose Hip and Snowberry, have yanked quantities of moss and licorice fern from a tree. When a licorice fern-being named Sweet Root berates them for their lack of consideration, the…

In Lockdown With “A Gentleman From Moscow”
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…

Cowzilla
Literary

Cowzilla

In last month’s “Farming Is Easy,” we introduced our foster cow Minnie, the purebred yearling Holstein whose name was upgraded on delivery to Leslie Lou Minnie Moo. Standing barely shy of six feet at the shoulder, my personal code name for her, “Cowzilla,” was rejected by one and all as too negative, human-centric, and bovine-shaming….

Farming is Easy
Literary

Farming is Easy

Empty pastures are like the vacuums which nature abhors. If you happen to have one, fenced and reasonably capable of growing grass, things will appear to fill it.  Soon enough, someone is bound to notice, and ask, “Would you like a slightly used goat? How about two?” If you respond, “Yes, but only if you…

Carla DeCrona’s Lyrical Poetic Moments
Literary

Carla DeCrona’s Lyrical Poetic Moments

My Mom was a lifelong writer, artist, musician and wonder-filled being. Before her transition to the life that comes next, she was blessed with the opportunity to go through all of her diaries. Boxes and boxes of them. The vast majority, dating as far back as her early 20’s, she released. A few, she kept,…

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm and Other Lost Treasures!
Literary

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm and Other Lost Treasures!

I grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Long before high tech games and distractions became ubiquitous and childhood changed in so many ways. Gone are the days when children burst forth into their neighborhoods, playing Red Light, Green Light in the streets, dodging slow-moving cars headed home as the work day came…

Literary

Haiku

The coconut treeThick tight clusters at the topUs at the bottom ~ Benson carved a faceSubjugation in BelizeEver blowing wind ~ The end of the rainy season — stray dogs wander wet ~ Famished, I crawled home Embarrassed at the party My sins he forgave ~ Some haiku from Belize and one from last week’s…

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