The nettles are up! All over the island, young nettles a few leaves high are there for the taking. Very soon, they will be tall and gnarly. So, if you live on or near land that has not been cleared and manicured to death, you should go gather nettles soon. Nettles and man have evolved…
By Michael Shook It is February, Black History Month. I think January and February dovetail nicely, since last month we celebrated the birthday of one of the great leaders of the twentieth century, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And as I’ve considered the history of recent years, and the legacy of Dr. King,…
By Jenny Bell Under the innocuously named “tree wire project,” Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is masking an easement program that for some will result in a 10-foot-plus wide clear-cut on Island street frontages. One reason this may be happening is to move electric poles and infrastructure from their current locations in the public right of…
By March Twisdale As we hit the midpoint of the Vashon Trash Can Trial, it’s the perfect time for Islander feedback, but who do we contact? That question is a moving target, but The Loop has dug deep and we have answers! Before we dive down the nearest trash chute (a la Leia, Luke, and…
How does Canada impact our local media? Canada-based corporation Black Press (named after the Black family, currently headed by David Black) has filed for creditor protection in British Columbia, and plans to file a comparable request in Delaware for its U.S.-based operations. Black Press is the current owner of Sound Publishing, which owns 43 newspapers…
By Andy Valencia I’ll finish this series of articles with some final notes on places to make a living without a college degree. The point isn’t to supply an exhaustive list, but rather to give you a feel for where to look – and who to ask – when you start thinking about your future…
By Marc J. Elzenbeck With much care, and over months, our foster cow Leslie’s terrible wound began to heal under daily debriding and cleaning. Amazingly, what had been a deep, two-foot-long gash in her left shoulder, imitating for all appearances a hanging flank steak, gradually closed back together and began smoothing out into short-haired Holstein…
By Jane Valencia This story began overseas in the mid-1990s, in mid-Wales. With an Ordnance Survey map in hand, a friend and I sought a cairn circle on farmland in the hills. Lovely views of secluded valleys dotted with sheep opened up to us, and we passed crags of jumbled stone. I finally spotted a…
By Kathy Abascal The holidays are definitely over, and most of us are now working on trying to recover from our excesses. These excesses usually involve too much sugar, too much of the wrong fats, too much alcohol, and too many late-night meals. The ultimate effects of these excesses vary, but all involve an overwhelmed…
By Jane Valencia In May 2022, I attended a private performance of Mik Kuhlman’s one-woman show, “The Standing Nation – Remembering Our Kinship with Trees.” We gathered around an old and large Bigleaf Maple in a field. The tree itself was both theater and a centering presence, around which the show wove. Mik engaged with…