The San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank received a spec­tac­u­lar gift on Decem­ber 28th, 2016: an 80-acre dona­tion on Hen­ry Island! Sarah Hart is gen­er­ous­ly donat­ing the under­ly­ing fee inter­est in the prop­er­ty to the Land Bank, along with a con­ser­va­tion ease­ment to the San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust. The new Pre­serve has two shore­lines extend­ing over 3,100  Con­tin­ue Reading

Mas­ter Gar­den­er Foun­da­tion Annu­al Native Plant Sale  Hap­py New Year! It is time again for our Annu­al Native Plant Sale. Vis­it our web­site for a com­plete list of plants and descrip­tions. Fill out your order form (online or hard copy) and mark your cal­en­dar for Sat­ur­day, March 11. NOW is the time to think about what  Con­tin­ue Reading

Find­ing time to get out­side can be tough, and fig­ur­ing out what to do once out­side can be even tougher. The San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park and the Land Bank are mak­ing it easy in 2017 with the San Juan Island Fam­i­ly Nature Club, a free month­ly out­door explo­ration club for fam­i­lies. What’s a  Con­tin­ue Reading

This is Jan­u­ary’s edi­tion of the UW Labs’ Tide Bites, writ­ten by Andrea Din­geldein… When you have a ques­tion about some­thing you see in nature, a research sci­en­tist pro­vides you with an answer in words. My expla­na­tion, on the oth­er hand, comes in the form of an image. My name is Andrea Din­geldein, and when peo­ple  Con­tin­ue Reading

Cam­paign for Mount Grant Pre­serve Reach­es Fin­ish Line We did it! After two years of fundrais­ing, the $4.2 mil­lion Cam­paign for Mount Grant Pre­serve has come to a suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion. The 141-acre ridge­line, which includes open grassy knolls and state­ly old-growth Dou­glas firs, is now per­ma­nent­ly pro­tect­ed. The San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank made an ini­tial invest­ment  Con­tin­ue Reading

We had a good time out on Sat­ur­day count­ing birds for the Audubon Soci­ety’s 117th Annu­al Christ­mas Bird Count. More infor­ma­tion on counts around the coun­ty will be com­ing soon.

Nation­al Park Ser­vice and North­west Youth Corps announce that their Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage (ASL) Inclu­sion Con­ser­va­tion Crew has been hon­ored with Corps Net­work Project of the Year Award. What: San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park and North­west Youth Corps (NYC) announce that the NYC Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage (ASL) Inclu­sion Crew is cho­sen as one of four  Con­tin­ue Reading

Hel­lo Oakies! It’s hard to believe we’re enter­ing into our last work month of 2016 — thank you for all the prun­ing, limb­ing, haul­ing, and cama­raderie this year. Your sup­port is great­ly appre­ci­at­ed! The next cou­ple work par­ties will focus on pro­tect­ing our lit­tle dears from those brows­ing big deers. When? Sun­days, Decem­ber 11 & 18 10:00am  Con­tin­ue Reading

There­sa Simendinger shares a beau­ti­ful pho­to of this morn­ing at Mitchell Bay with a rain­bow reflec­tion. Thanks for shar­ing Theresa!

Opt out­side for a leisure­ly morn­ing stroll to the sum­mit of Mount Grant Pre­serve, then savor some cider and 360-degree views before head­ing back down. Your friends, fam­i­ly, even your dog, will appre­ci­ate the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work off some of that Thanks­giv­ing din­ner before set­tling back into the couch for the after­noon bowl games. Fri­day, Novem­ber  Con­tin­ue Reading

Hard work­ing Mas­ter Gar­den­ers tend and har­vest veg­eta­bles for the the Fri­day Har­bor Food Bank from the San Juan Island Mas­ter Gar­den Demon­stra­tion Gar­den. If you are inter­est­ed in being a Mas­ter Gar­den­er your­self, appli­ca­tions are being accept­ed for the 2017 San Juan Coun­ty WSU Mas­ter Gar­den­er Train­ing Pro­gram. Vol­un­teer trainees will receive over 60  Con­tin­ue Reading

Tan­ja from the Land Bank shares this invi­ta­tion with you… Hel­lo Oakies! I hope you all have been enjoy­ing the work par­ty respite and are ready for some Fall Plant­i­ng Fun atop Cady Moun­tain! Under the guid­ance of Land Stew­ard, Eliza Habeg­ger, The Sal­ish Seeds Project had a fruit­ful sea­son and has many native species seeds  Con­tin­ue Reading

Cap­tain Jim Maya has this news to share… Dear Friends… I hope this note finds you all well. Our new cal­en­dar is out soon! San Juan Islands Wild, 2017… The Pho­tog­ra­phy of James Mead Maya. Here is the cov­er image. You can order by return email, at www.mayasimages.com and through Face­book, at Maya’s Images. If you live  Con­tin­ue Reading

Look­ing for a fun way to get involved? Love prob­lem solv­ing? Inter­est­ed in gar­den­ing? Apply now to become a WSU Mas­ter Gar­den­er! Appli­ca­tions are now being accept­ed for the 2017 San Juan Coun­ty WSU Mas­ter Gar­den­er Train­ing Pro­gram. Vol­un­teer trainees will receive over 60 hours of train­ing, both in the class­room and on-line. The train­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Dave Hal­lo­ran with SJCDEM shares these thoughts before the storm… The Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice has updat­ed their fore­cast with the lat­est infor­ma­tion avail­able. They are fore­cast­ing with high­er cer­tain­ty that storm 1 of 2 this week­end will start ear­ly evening tonight the 13th with the strongest winds start­ing late in the evening and last­ing into Fri­day  Con­tin­ue Reading

by Sylvia Yama­da and Craig Staude “Sylvia, I think we caught one!” Craig Staude shout­ed excit­ed­ly as he and his team of vol­un­teers opened a bait­ed trap in a tidal chan­nel near the sculp­ture park at Roche Har­bor on August 30th. Sure enough, the 74-mil­lime­ter-wide male was the first live Euro­pean green crab ever caught  Con­tin­ue Reading