If your lawn is sprouting dandelions and clover, your bok choy is going to flower and himalayan blackberries are sprawling over your fences, pat yourself on the back. You’re creating crucial habitat and fodder for the Western honeybee, apis malifora.
Come September, Suzanne and John Olson, Suzanne’s daughter Lola Pederson and her boyfriend Brandon Banducci will saddle up for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s two-day, 150-mile bike trek.
Island-wide, startled kids are asking: “Is it that time already?”
Yes, it’s time to start thinking about trading in swimsuits for dress code attire, frisbees for textbooks, and roadside salmonberries for cafeteria food.
Last Saturday inventors, tinkerers, energy specialists, green builders and even an Orcas Island-based national magazine gathered to swap clean energy tips, tricks and shop talk at the first ever Island EcoFest and Solar Science Fair.
Fifteen-year-old Matthew Bowen recently dusted the competition at Emerald Downs racetrack, sweeping his age division.
The event? An art competition hosted by the Washington Thoroughbred Foundation, Washington Thoroughbred Breeders & Owners Association and Emerald Downs.
Island mama Mandy Troxel might be best described as nimble.
She manages two jobs while raising a quartet of Rhode Island Red chickens, a duo of sweet, sandy-haired daughters and one extremely furry, bewhiskered dog – yet it’s rare to see Mandy without a smile and a cheerful word.
A significant policy shift written into the proposed “Code Enforcement” ordinance for San Juan County would give Community Development and Planning the right to levy civil financial penalties for code violations. Citizens of the Common Sense Alliance are concerned that as presently worded, the ordinance could also significantly expand the CDPD director’s powers beyond the limits of enforcing county code.
Twenty minutes out of the Greek port, the U.S. ship “The Audacity of Hope” was apprehended by Greek naval authorities and led back to port, and its captain imprisoned for four days.
Islands’ Sounder editor Colleen Armstrong has been promoted to the position of associate publisher. She will keep her editorial duties, but take on the responsibilities of managing the Orcas Island office.
Roughly 50 Douglas fir trees around Moran State Park’s Environmental Learning Center are currently being logged because they are infected with laminated root rot, a native species of fungus that rots the tree roots. Some of the forest giants now being felled are over 100 years old.
Orcas Island sailing is taking it up a notch, and they’re doing it with gusto – six local junior sailors ages nine to 12 took to the road and traveled to their first Northwest Youth Racing Circuit Regatta June 25 and 26 on Vancouver Lake.
The Orcas Island Food Bank invites the entire island community to a dessert-and-hot-drinks open house on Sunday, July 10 to celebrate the opening of its new building.
Orcas Island resident Victor Boede, 53, was killed in a single-car rollover accident the night of Tuesday, June 28.
Emergency responders found Boede deceased beside the Olga Road, just south of the Lambiel Museum the next morning, after a county road crew happened on the scene and called for help.
