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…
By Daniel Hooker With help from our Community, Granny’s Attic, Mary Ashby Milne, and of course the Vashon-Maury Island Food Bank, I have been giving clothing and bedding away for years, and it’s been a pleasure. We need volunteers! The Vashon Maury Island Food Bank serves approximately 280 individuals and families a week, and so…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman One day, overlooking the outer harbor, Seán and I shared between us some “bean-hole beans” and some “smoked ham hock green pea soup.” Naturally, tasting these dishes brought up the usual conversation. Seán still makes those old “Boy Scout” bean-hole beans without an actual bean-hole fire dug into the…
By Kim Cantrell and Little Bird Gardens It’s been hard not to notice that this winter has been unseasonably warm, minus our little cold snap in mid-January. Many plants came out of the freeze as if nothing had happened, and then there are those that showed signs that the extreme drop in temperature was not…
By Caitlin Rothermel How can a chiropractor help someone? The main objective of chiropractic care is to get the spinal joints – which your nervous system runs through – aligned. This allows your nerves to penetrate and innervate your organs and glands and keep your system running. For many years, chiropractic just involved spinal adjustments. But our toxin and…
Once upon a time, while sipping tea (Chocolate Mint Rooibus) on the Roasterie front porch, an Islander envisioned an ancestor right there with her, and painted her. Inspired by a recent conversation with Eva about ancestors, we share that painting with you now. Illustration by Jane Valencia