Tra­di­tions and Tran­si­tions Fri­day Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ries Direc­tor Bil­lie J. Swalla’s con­nec­tion with FHL has spanned sev­er­al decades. She moved to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in 1999 as an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work and teach at FHL. In 2012 she was Act­ing Direc­tor, then became Inter­im Direc­tor and was appoint­ed FHL Direc­tor in 2014.  Con­tin­ue Reading

There’s a lot going on at the Land Bank’s Zyl­stra Lake Pre­serve this sum­mer and beyond. This 285-acre pre­serve was acquired in 2017 with goals of pro­vid­ing pub­lic access to the land and water, sup­port­ing wildlife con­ser­va­tion, and enabling com­pat­i­ble farm­ing activ­i­ties. Although not yet open to the pub­lic, the months ahead hold a num­ber  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Land Bank would like to share some of the things we’ve been doing for the com­mu­ni­ty recent­ly. At Mount Grant Pre­serve on San Juan there are now three trails open with more on the way! Instead of hik­ing up the road, two new trails (one mul­ti-use, one pedes­tri­an) now make their way through the  Con­tin­ue Reading

In the mail­bag this morn­ing, we have this let­ter from Steve Ulvi… I have been unusu­al­ly for­tu­nate to have spent a life­time find­ing deep ful­fill­ment and direc­tion for my trou­bled mind in expan­sive forests, on moun­tain slopes and cours­ing wild rivers. My youth­ful day dream­ing, fueled by adven­ture sto­ries before sleep, cul­mi­nat­ed in find­ing a home  Con­tin­ue Reading

The 2019 Gar­den Tour is spon­sored by the San Juan Island Gar­den Con­sor­tium. It’s June 8th from 10am to 4pm. Tick­ets are $15 and are avail­able now at Ace Hard­ware, Browne’s Gar­den Cen­ter and Grif­fin Bay Books. Pro­ceeds con­tribute to com­mu­ni­ty projects of each organization.

  Island Rec is offer­ing a one-day class that will vis­it and tra­verse the inter­tidal sea­weed flo­ra at Cat­tle Point. Dr. Ryan Drum will lead the day’s excur­sion to attempt to iden­ti­fy all of the dif­fer­ent sea­weeds encoun­tered! Dr. Drum is a Wal­dron Islander of 40 years and has a PhD in Botany. He has  Con­tin­ue Reading

Dear Edi­tor, Friends of the San Juans has been com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing our envi­ron­ment since 1979. Through­out those forty years, Friends’ ded­i­ca­tion to that mis­sion has nev­er wavered. This is why I sup­port the Friends and serve on the board. A major issue still fac­ing the San Juans is the sev­en-fold increase in tanker traf­fic should  Con­tin­ue Reading

Here’s an edu­ca­tion­al and recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ty for high school aged youth and teach­ers… It’s the Youth Her­itage Project (YHP) — an annu­al mul­ti-day her­itage field school that engages par­tic­i­pants by con­nect­ing them to his­toric, cul­tur­al, and nat­ur­al resources in Wash­ing­ton. YHP engages stu­dents hands-on as they expand their knowl­edge about his­toric preser­va­tion and devel­op an  Con­tin­ue Reading

Kevin Holmes shares this pho­to of flow­ers grow­ing out of the rocks at the shore­line. Tena­cious lit­tle things, don’t you think? Thanks for shar­ing Kevin!

“Can look­ing at evo­lu­tion help us pre­dict the future of human­i­ty?” — Jeff Bridges Fri­day Har­bor Film Fes­ti­val invites you to a free screen­ing of the award win­ning doc­u­men­tary, Liv­ing in the Future’s Past on Fri­day, May 3, 2019 at 7:00 pm at Brick­works. Acad­e­my Award win­ner, Jeff Bridges shares the screen with sci­en­tists, pro­found  Con­tin­ue Reading

The fol­low­ing arti­cle was writ­ten by Neil Staws­ki… As much as the skep­tics and crit­ics might try to deny cli­mate change, the signs that it’s a crit­i­cal issue are all around us. The evi­dence of glob­al warm­ing can be found in the death of our coral reefs due to the increased tem­per­a­tures of our ocean  Con­tin­ue Reading

Book Talk: Drew Harvell will dis­cuss her book, Ocean Out­break: Con­fronting the Ris­ing Tide of Marine Dis­ease. This pre­sen­ta­tion will include updates on Sea Star Wast­ing Dis­ease and salmon health in our Puget Sound waters. Drew is a local author and res­i­dent sci­en­tist at Fri­day Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ries. A book sign­ing and recep­tion will fol­low the  Con­tin­ue Reading

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the 28 com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who com­plet­ed 60 hours of class­room and online train­ing on veg­etable and fruit gar­den­ing, use of native plants, forestry, orna­men­tals and land­scape gar­den­ing, com­post­ing, plant prob­lem diag­no­sis, pest con­trol and inte­grat­ed pest man­age­ment, soils and more to become WSU Mas­ter Gar­den­er Interns. As Interns, vol­un­teers con­tribute 50 hours of  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor will cel­e­brate its sec­ond annu­al Arbor Day this Thurs­day, April 4, 2019. The pub­lic is invit­ed to join in rec­og­niz­ing the event. May­or Ghatan will be issu­ing a procla­ma­tion for Arbor Day dur­ing the Town Coun­cil meet­ing and the Parks Depart­ment will plant an East­er Red Bud on Argyle Avenue near  Con­tin­ue Reading

Grif­fin Bay Book­store is proud to announce that San Juan Island author, Thor Han­son, author of The Tri­umph of Seeds and Feath­ers, has won his third Pacif­ic North­west Book­sellers Asso­ci­a­tion award, receiv­ing the 2019 PNBA award for BUZZ: The Nature and Neces­si­ty of Bees.  Please join us at the San Juan Island Library when Grif­fin Bay  Con­tin­ue Reading

Win­ter is almost over — Spring is offi­cial­ly only a few days away and it shows. Cro­cus­es are pop­ping all over the place.