Now that the Christmas season is upon us, make sure you stop in the library this Saturday (November 30th) between 11:00 and 2:00. Local kids have been busy this month building up their stocks of creations to sell at the Annual Children’s Christmas Market. If you haven’t been before, it’s …
Our family’s Thanksgiving tradition since moving to Orcas Island is to luxuriate in a few days free of cooking and walk over to the Oddfellows Hall for their late afternoon Thanksgiving potluck feast (and come home to a clean kitchen!). Turkeys and potatoes are donated by local businesses and cooked …
Our tech-loving teenager saved the money he earned from working for Orcas Island Youth Conservation Corps this summer in order to buy a 3D printer. It just came three days ago and he is more than thrilled, as he’s been designing, printing, and painting a chromium atom for a school …
…at Troller Point Fisheries.” That’s what his wife, Daphne, wrote on Facebook. If you don’t live here, Troller Point Fisheries is a family fishing business, and a boat comes over to Orcas Island a couple times a year to sell their beautiful, conscientiously-caught fish from Alaska. A lot of us …
In my teens I used to wonder if people ever sat around reading the bible. I grew up in a Catholic family. We were taught to be loving and good, but we never opened a bible together, so I didn’t know if it was ever done. If people were actually …
You’re oh-so-familiar with the ferry landing if you live here. If you don’t, here’s a look at where you land when you reach Orcas Island, and where you depart from when you leave (unless you fly). My son was helping someone with their devices, so I walked around capturing the …
Except for an hour-ish walk by myself each day, my every moment since the birth of our first child has been filled. Until now. It’s been a wonderful thing, all these years. I’m all or nothing, so I was never interested in doing my own things when it meant I’d …
When I look out our windows at home, the colder November sights I see are always accompanied by the sounds of A Winter’s Solstice or Celtic Christmas by Windham Hill – a few series of CDs I’ve played since college. In my junior year, one of my roommates was playing …
At night, all is quiet in a way you can’t really comprehend unless you’ve been here. It’s so quiet you can stand out in the forest, look up at the stars twinkling through, and feel like you’re the only one in existence. Sometimes you feel like your normal speaking voice …
Clay Cafe is a pop-up ceramics-painting workshop in the public high school’s art room that happens twice a year in November and April. It is hosted by art teachers who are volunteering their time to raise money for the A-OK program. You go in, choose a blank bowl, plate, tea …
This is the last photo taken on the way home from the team’s final meet of this Cross Country season, crossing the Deception Pass Bridge after South Whidbey Island’s district championships. Sighhhhh…. What a nice team; it’s sad to see it already ending. Girls, we need some of you next …
I just love the morning fog and the sun’s rays that characterize the dawn skies in the interior part of our island. You’re almost always guaranteed some amazing sights if you venture inward between Fowler’s Pond and OrcaSong Farm.
The other day in the library, I was admiring a very professionally carved pumpkin that was sitting on the counter. “Who did this?” I asked. “She’s right over there,” pointed the librarian. The artist happened to be a few footsteps away. Her name is Laura Hanks and I asked her …
