When Tyson Balcomb and Chapin Hemmingway met at Orcas Island’s Camp Four Winds in the summer of 1999, the young boys instantly shared an interest in cinema. Unbeknownst to them, they would continue their friendship for the next ten years, founding their own film company during their college years. In the summer of 2007, the young men returned to Orcas Island along with a small cast and crew to film the majority of their first feature film, Last September.
Enjoy ten recent Iranian films in eight weeks at Lopez Library as a student in the Skagit Valley Community College course, “Contemporary Iranian Cinema,” which begins the evening of October 7 with Lopez instructors Russel Barsh and Madrona Murphy.
She was believed to be the oldest whale in the Southern Resident Killer Whale community. The Center for Whale Research, who estimates her birth year as 1910, designated her K7. She was given the name “Lummi” through The Whale Museum’s Orca Adoption Program. Lummi was a great-great grandmother – the leader of a five-generation intact family. Sadly, she did not return to the Salish Sea with her Kpod family this year.
“Savor the San Juans – A Medley of Food, Art and Culture” will take place during the month of October on Lopez, Orcas and San Juan Islands, thanks to the Cultural Tourism Committee of the San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau.
The eighth annual Lopez Island Tennis Open was held August 22 through 24.
Please join The Whale Museum in welcoming Thomas White for a special lecture and book signing on Friday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m.
Lopez photographers Anne and George Willis have just released their second book of the summer: “Under The Influence: Life on Lopez Island.”
Robbing the Bees reads like a novel, a memoir, a history and biography of bees. The author backed into beekeeping with no previous experience with bees or even honey. Her obsession and reverence for the bee may have required professional assistance, but her lyrical style and passionate research shine through every fascinating page of this celebration of the world’s most delectable food.
How do you learn to farm? If you didn’t grow up with farmers, you could apprentice yourself to some. That’s what Eleanor Burke and Andre Entermann have been doing with Ken Akopiantz and Kathryn Thomas at Horse Drawn Farm on Lopez since March and plan to continue doing for another year and a half.
Have you ever seen the San Juan Islands from the air? They really are beautiful. It’s almost like flying around in a postcard. I recently took in the panorama from an Airlift NW helicopter. It probably would be more relaxing to view it from an airplane, but if you are in the middle of an emergency, Airlift NW is the way to go.
Chimera Cooperative Art Gallery – Chimera Gallery presents new work by Linda Rose – weaving, especially new placemats, and Shelia Simpson Creps – paintings and ceramics.
A life-long outdoorsman, photographer Peter Fromm has explored caves, climbed rocks and mountains, rafted white water rivers, sea kayaked, ski toured and sailed aboard many vessels. He makes his home aboard his floating gallery and the sailing vessel “Uwila,” mooring in Friday Harbor over the winters and often in Reid Harbor at Sucia Island over the summer or anywhere else his imagination takes him.
When blood comes out of the wrong places, people get upset. And really, why shouldn’t they? Blood belongs on the inside. Not all bleeding needs to be investigated, but some does. Here is a brief guide for the evaluation of dripping, seeping, oozing, leaking, flowing, spurting, gushing red stuff.
The 10th Annual Steve Braun Memorial Triathlon in Moran State Park on Orcas over Labor Day Weekend was fun, comfortable, and had lots of positive energy.
Griffin Bay Bookstore is one of 60 selected bookstores across the nation to participate in a live interview on Tuesday, Sept. 16 with noted author Philip Roth on “Indignation Day,” when his latest novel – Indignation – is released.
In mid-August the San Juans played host to masters of the sitar, Pandit Shivnath Mishra, his son, Deobrat Mishra, and Marco Zonka on tabla.
Chimera Cooperative Art Gallery – August is group show month at Chimera. New work from our members will be highlighted. Join us for our energetic opening from 5-7 p.m. on August 9 in the gallery, located in Lopez Village.
Are you allergic to a food? And if you are, is it actually an allergy or is it an intolerance? Are food allergies dangerous? Are your kids allergic to foods? Do you need testing or can you figure it out yourself? What happens if you keep eating a food that you are allergic or intolerant to? The answers are I don’t know, maybe, yes, I don’t know that either, yes and no, and I’m not going to tell you.
“I know it’s spring when I can buy Christine’s greens again,” a friend said at the end of last winter.
The self-serve bins of Christine Langley’s Local Harvest Lettuce Blend and Island Greens appear in early April at Blossom and Lopez Village Market, and the greens keep coming until November.
Gather the family at Pelindaba Downtown on August 21, 5 p.m. to celebrate a brand new picture book about kids, horses, and the magnificent San Juan Islands.
For 60 years the model used for psychology and psychotherapy was a disease model. It asked: What’s wrong with me? Some positive outcomes came from the disease model: a science of classifiable mental illnesses was developed; previously non-treatable illnesses became treatable or sometimes curable; drug and psychological treatments were designed and tested; miserable people became less miserable. There are also costs to this model. Sufferers of mental illness can feel they are victims of their pathology. The disease model forgot the improvement of quality of life for normal and high talent people.
Island Museum of Art presents illustrations from The Land of Smaerd, a newly published children’s book by authors Angela Russell and Andrea von Botefuhr, painted by San Juan Island artist Bryn Barnard.
Riki Shumacher of San Juan Island says, “I’ve always done some kind of art since I was a teenager.” Shumacher started out painting and drawing as an art major in high school. Later she worked with stained glass and pottery. She attended Western Washington University, majoring in graphic arts and communications. After careers as radio advertising executives in Seattle, Shumacher and her husband Fred retired to San Juan Island 10 years ago.
Thank you to all who rolled up their sleeves to donate at the Lopez Island Blood Drive on July 29.
by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
There are many reasons that people quit smoking. Some can quit just because they learn about the dangers of tobacco, or because they have a health scare. Increasingly, tobacco use has become a workplace issue: in the recent past, the desire to protect workers from second hand smoke resulted in a new state law that banned smoking in and within 25 feet of any building.
The first annual Orcas Island Writers Festival will be held on September 4–7 in Moran State Park on Orcas Island.
The goal of the festival is to create an enriching experience for writers and readers through classes, workshops, lectures, readings and informal gatherings.
Hope ... Hum ... Stomp ... Strum ... This is the sound of TWIRL. Original music composed by sister-brother duo Grace (most recently starring as Belle in Orcas Center’s production of “Beauty and the Beast”) and Clint McCune. This band, with 15 years of touring and performing under their belt, brings an integrity and magic to the stage.
The beat goes on ... maybe
Garden and yard chemicals used by San Juan Islanders are likely to reach some water body in the islands within 48 hours due to our geology of thin soils over rock.
Drive along Baker View Road on Lopez toward Spencer Spit and it’s likely that you’ll see a car or two pulled over and people taking pictures of Ken Akopiantz leading a team of oxen yoked to a cultivator and Kathryn Thomas sitting on the cultivator guiding it through the rows of vegetables.
Each year depression affects about six million American men and the number may be much higher, as men seem more reluctant than women to seek help with this condition. There are several varieties of male depression: major depressive episodes, chronic, less severe on-going depression, and bipolar or manic-depressive illness. All of these conditions are highly treatable though many men don’t recognize or acknowledge the symptoms.
A new report points to the progress the residents of the San Juan Islands have made in ecosystem protection efforts – and how those efforts can be a model for the restoration of the entire Puget Sound ecosystem.
