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Wasn’t it just summer a minute ago? I was going to go even farther and say, What happened to fall? We’ve gone straight to winter!, but that’s not quite true. Yes, I did have to pull out socks a few … Continue reading
Shannon Page
Late one evening last winter, a tree fell down behind our house. It was at the edge of the back meadow, and had been ailing, though that had not yet been apparent to us. Weirdly, although that meadow is RIGHT … Continue reading
*(with apologies to Spencer Ellsworth) We knew there would be trade-offs involved when we decided to move from Portland, Oregon, to Orcas Island. We’d be leaving behind so many dear friends. There would be no more walking to Trader Joe’s … Continue reading
Photo by Infralist.com on Unsplash As I searched my mind (and my phone’s camera roll) for an interesting story to tell you about “island life” from these past few weeks…I came up kind of empty. And that is because these last few weeks … Continue reading
Photo by jaimy van kessel on Unsplash It was a strange sound, an animal sound. Perhaps even an animal-in-distress sound? It wasn’t a bird, we thought, probably, though it was a little screechy-chittery like a bird. I heard it when I got up … Continue reading
West Beach at sunset. Not Oprah’s place. Well, technically, Oprah never lived here; but she did buy a pretty nice house on the island three years ago. It was big news at the time, and we islanders enjoyed speculating about … Continue reading
That’s our island, Orcas Island, in the distance there–those middle lumps. I took this photo from Cypress Island, last week. We were invited to Cypress by relatives who have a cabin there, and we went by “water taxi,” which is … Continue reading
One of the first things I remember from visiting Grandma Cleta’s house was the beautiful curio cabinet in her living room, filled with precious mementos from her and Grandpa Larry’s travels. Of course, we children were never allowed to touch … Continue reading
We have a deer fence on our property, which encloses the house, the front lawn and garden (and part of the pond), the back lawn and garden, and what I like to call the “back forty.” The back forty is … Continue reading
Our back garden path, currently. Nine percent. I just checked the level on our propane tank, and it’s down to nine percent. Just a few days ago, when I started this essay, it was eleven percent. Eek! Propane powers our … Continue reading