Jen­nifer Furber says they’re gonna need you to help:

The Children’s Fes­ti­val is com­ing! On Sat­ur­day, May 2 from 10 am to 2 pm, Island Rec will present the 19th annu­al fes­ti­val at the Coun­try Fair­grounds. The theme this year is “Under The Sea.”

The 2009 Children’s Fes­ti­val Com­mit­tee is cur­rent­ly look­ing for vol­un­teers to help make this the best fes­ti­val yet. No spe­cial skills are need­ed; just a lit­tle time along with a fun atti­tude will help make this year’s event a true suc­cess. Please, come and lend a hand.

Please, stop by the Island Rec office at 580 Guard Street, call or email Sal­ly Kerr, Island Rec Direc­tor at 378‑4953 or play@islandrec.org . As always, the fes­ti­val is free for chil­dren of all ages. The fes­ti­val is made pos­si­ble year after year through gen­er­ous dona­tions and lov­ing sup­port from island busi­ness­es, vol­un­teers and orga­ni­za­tions.

This year’s com­mit­tee is under­way with prepa­ra­tions for the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 2nd event. Please, mark your cal­en­dars. For more infor­ma­tion call Sal­ly at 378‑4953.

I just got this note from Car­ol Ford about what the Grones are deal­ing with.…look over it & see what you can do:

Hi Ian…
I just spoke to Dave Grone (his kids are recent FHHS grads, Ash­ley and Jason). His wife, Jacque, was flown off-island Fri­day with a brain aneurism and endured an 11 hour surgery at Har­borview Med­ical Cen­ter. Dave said it was one of the most inten­sive brain surg­eries there is.

Jacque works for the sher­if­f’s dept. and was for­mer­ly a long-time employ­ee of Dr. Gos­som at San Juan Health­Care. She is also an enthu­si­as­tic mem­ber of a local soft­ball team in the adult league. Jacque will be in ICU for at least two weeks and then an indef­i­nite amount of time in the reg­u­lar hos­pi­tal and even­tu­al­ly in phys­i­cal therapy.

Dave, of course, needs to be down there with Jacque but it is cost­ing him a lot of mon­ey to stay because the hos­pi­tal does not offer acco­mo­da­tions for fam­i­ly. Since there is not real­ly any­thing any­one can do for Dave or Jacque right now, I told him I would spread the word in case there may be some­one in town who has access to an apt. or some oth­er type of lodg­ing where Dave can stay as he helps his wife recover.

If you can help me get the word out, I would real­ly appre­ci­ate it. Right now Jacque’s fam­i­ly has a lot to deal with and find­ing a place for Dave to stay would be a huge load off his shoulders.

Thanks so much, Car­ol Ford

If you’re a pho­tog­ra­phy nut like me, I’m guess­ing you’ll like the dai­ly con­tri­bu­tions that Tim Dus­trude makes to his dai­ly pho­to blog at
http://timd-365-photos.blogspot.com/ (yes­ter­day was a good one of Mona the Camel, here on the island) and John Lack­ey at
http://www.sanjuanislanddailyphoto.com … check them out!

You’ll like them!

Toni Franklin stays in touch with what’s hap­pen­ing with dogs on the island.…here’s the latest:

Dog Train­ing Sem­i­nars in Fri­day Harbor!

Last spring the Fri­day Har­bor Ani­mal Shel­ter (APS) was invit­ed to make a pre­sen­ta­tion to Jim McNairy’s Civics class for a $1000 grant to meet the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty and our orga­ni­za­tion.  The funds were pro­vid­ed through the SJI Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion as a way for the class to study non-prof­its and their place in the com­mu­ni­ty. After lis­ten­ing to pre­sen­ta­tions from sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions, our need for obtain­ing train­ing for our dogs was cho­sen and the grant was award­ed to APS.

In order to ben­e­fit Fri­day Harbor’s large com­mu­ni­ty of dog lovers, we decid­ed to bring a series of train­ing sem­i­nars to the island taught by respect­ed region­al trainers.

The sem­i­nars include: “Reac­tive Dog Work­shop” — March 28th, “Dog Sense” – April 11th, and “The Fun and Mag­ic of Click­er Train­ing” – April 25th.

Each sem­i­nar will be 9am-4pm and held at Ani­mal Inn on Boyce Rd in Fri­day Har­bor. Because of the grant, the cost is just $65. If you attend with­out a canine com­pan­ion the cost is $40.  In addi­tion, each sem­i­nar will allow 3 par­tic­i­pants to apply for a reduced fee of $35 in exchange for agree­ing to become a shel­ter dog pal.  Call the shel­ter @ 378‑2158 or email pets2homes@centurytel.net  for more infor­ma­tion and a pack­et to sign up for the seminars.

See you there!

This tree well could be yours.…

The Cham­ber’s Deb­bie Pig­man tells me this is part of what makes our Town so beautiful:

Cham­ber of Com­merce Adopt a Tree Well Pro­gram Con­tin­ues in 2009. 

The Cham­ber of Com­merce Down­town Forum, as part of its beau­ti­fi­ca­tion plan, ini­ti­at­ed a pro­gram in 2008 where busi­ness­es, orga­ni­za­tions or indi­vid­u­als could “adopt” the ground around the trees along the side­walks in Fri­day Har­bor by plant­i­ng flow­ers and car­ing for them.

Eight of the tree wells along Spring Street were adopt­ed and pro­vid­ed beau­ti­ful green, red, white and blue col­or until the first heavy frost.
The pro­gram will con­tin­ue in 2009 with the goal of hav­ing twice as many tree wells adopt­ed, espe­cial­ly since it is the Town’s Cen­ten­ni­al year.

Adopters will pur­chase the plants from the Cham­ber and will be respon­si­ble for plant­i­ng, water­ing, weed­ing and keep­ing the area clean of lit­ter.  If you adopt­ed in 2008 and would like to con­tin­ue car­ing for your area, or, if you would like to adopt for the first time, con­tact Deb­bie Pig­man at  378‑5240 or chamber@sanjuanisland.org.

May­or David Jones reads the Earth Hour procla­ma­tion, assist­ed by Jeanne Hyde.

You heard that next Sat­ur­day is when the world­wide Earth Hour hap­pens, right? It’s local (the Town Coun­cil just affirmed it) and it’s glob­al — here’s more from Jeanne, shown with Fri­day Har­bor May­or David Jones:

Hi Ian,

At the Town Coun­cil meet­ing at noon Thurs­day, March 19th, the Town Coun­cil read a Procla­ma­tion in sup­port of Earth Hour, which is March 28, 2009.

Earth Hour is a world­wide event that takes place from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. at each per­son­’s local time, around the world on Sat­ur­day, March 28th.  It is a VOTE for the Earth — indi­vid­ual actions that are done col­lec­tive­ly can make a huge dif­fer­ence — it’s for us, the salmon, the whales, the eco-sys­tems, our kids and their kids too.

San Juan Coun­ty has already issued a Procla­ma­tion for Earth Hour and Seat­tle has signed up as well as Wash­ing­ton D.C., Chica­go, San Fran­cis­co, Los Ange­les, Atlanta, even Las Vegas and hun­dreds more towns and cities in the U.S. and across the world.

Local­ly, if peo­ple are going to the mid­dle school play on Sat. night the 28th they could turn off their lights at home before going.  Going to oth­er events, such as a par­ty?.… well, maybe the host/hostess will con­sid­er hav­ing the par­ty via can­dle­light, for that hour.  Some peo­ple will get togeth­er to make it fun for the kids — a night time trea­sure hunt, an hour of games by flash­light, or even an hour of talk­ing to one another!

for more com­plete infor­ma­tion please go to www.earthhour.org

With your wide audi­ence I am hop­ing you will spread the word about Earth Hour because so many peo­ple don’t know about it.  With both the Town and the Coun­ty sup­port­ing Earth Hour, the peo­ple of Fri­day Har­bor and San Juan Coun­ty need to oppor­tu­ni­ty to show their sup­port for the Town and the County!

Thanks, Ian!  Let me know if I need to send you a reminder to put on your site or what I can do (if any­thing) to help you ‘get peo­ple into the know’.

Thank you!
Jeanne Hyde

When I woke up this morn­ing my girl­friend asked me, “Did you sleep good?” I said “No, I made a few mistakes.”
Steven Wright

Banks have a new image. Now you have ‘a friend,’ your friend­ly banker. If the banks are so friend­ly, how come they chain down the pens?
Alan King