Contributed photo

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares news about their recent expe­ri­ences in East­ern Wash­ing­ton, includ­ing the ways in which APS-FH can work to sup­port ani­mal wel­fare in the region.

On Sept. 6, Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety-Fri­day Har­bor Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Cristin Fel­so and Shel­ter Man­ag­er Beth Ander­son were invit­ed to join a team of ani­mal wel­fare cham­pi­ons on a pri­vate air­plane trip across the north-cen­tral region of Wash­ing­ton state, includ­ing the cities of Omak, Okanogan, Cash­mere, and Wenatchee. The goal of the trip was to vis­it with local ani­mal wel­fare lead­ers and tour facil­i­ties, as well as pick up two lit­ters of pup­pies to be trans­ferred to APS-FH and Orcas APS. The trip was orga­nized by San Juan Island res­i­dent Cindy Koch in a con­tin­ued effort to address gaps in ani­mal wel­fare ser­vices and iden­ti­fy poten­tial solu­tions to decrease over­pop­u­la­tion and the num­ber of unwant­ed pets in the region.

Mem­bers of the tour­ing team includ­ed Cindy Koch, Jill Ser­vais, island res­i­dent Mia Shep­ard, APS found­ing board mem­ber Yolan­da Mor­ris, and Pawsi­tive Alliance Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Jen­ny Fraley.

There are many fac­tors at play in the region that cre­ate a chal­leng­ing ani­mal wel­fare envi­ron­ment, includ­ing large, rur­al land areas that are geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed and a high rate of pover­ty that presents bar­ri­ers to acces­si­bil­i­ty and afford­abil­i­ty of pet-care ser­vices. There are also few avail­able resources to address the preva­lence of ani­mal over­pop­u­la­tion, such as con­sis­tent and low-cost spay and neuter ser­vices, acces­si­ble ani­mal shel­ters, and avail­abil­i­ty of oth­er shel­ter and res­cue part­ners to accept ani­mals from the region through trans­port and transfer.

Dur­ing the tour, the group vis­it­ed sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions strug­gling to do all they can do for an over­whelm­ing num­ber of home­less and aban­doned ani­mals in a severe­ly under-served and under-resourced region. Okanogan Region­al Humane, The Cat House, Okanogan Coun­ty Ani­mal Fos­ter Care Cat Shel­ter, City of Omak, and Okan­dogs are all orga­ni­za­tions doing their best to cov­er the needs of the ani­mals with­in their com­mu­ni­ty, but are either strug­gling or unable to keep up with the demand. The com­mon­al­i­ty between all of them was a lack of fund­ing, hous­ing space, and access to resources for the home­less or stray ani­mals in need.

Through this vis­it, it is clear that the entire region needs access to sus­tained, low-cost spay and neuter and vet­eri­nary ser­vices via clin­ic and mobile units, and efforts should be made to increase pub­lic aware­ness regard­ing the impor­tance of spay­ing and neu­ter­ing owned ani­mals. Final­ly, trans­port and relo­ca­tion pro­grams with shel­ters through­out the state are crit­i­cal to shel­ters in this area.

APS-FH is in the ear­ly learn­ing stage of iden­ti­fy­ing ways we can sup­port this region. We are work­ing with shel­ters and res­cues in the area to set trans­fer para­me­ters that will allow us to accept ani­mals more read­i­ly from the region. And our own shel­ter vet­eri­nar­i­an, Dr. Mer­riss Waters, will lead a team of vets and oth­er ani­mal med­ical per­son­nel dur­ing a high vol­ume spay and neuter, vac­ci­na­tion, and ID event tak­ing place at Okanogan Region­al Humane in Omak Oct. 21–23. At least 200 ani­mals will receive ser­vices through this col­lab­o­ra­tion put togeth­er by Okanogan Region­al Humane, Ani­mal Bal­ance, and Pawsi­tive Alliance of Bellevue.

In addi­tion to the insight APS-FH reps received on this jour­ney, they were also able to tie in a trans­fer of eight small, mixed-breed pup­pies from ARFS of Grant Coun­ty and Okan­dogs. All pups will soon be avail­able for adop­tion through APS-FH and Orcas APS. By adopt­ing a res­cue pet, you can make all the dif­fer­ence in the life of an unwant­ed ani­mal, while help­ing sup­port the many orga­ni­za­tions work­ing togeth­er to resolve ani­mal wel­fare relat­ed issues.

Contributed photo

This past week, the world lost not only the longest serv­ing British monarch, but at 96 years old a woman who embod­ied longevi­ty itself. Queen Eliz­a­beth II had plen­ty of healthy habits. She start­ed her days with a pot of Earl Grey tea, a bowl of Spe­cial K cere­al, and a bag­pipe ser­e­nade. She rode hors­es, walked her dogs, and eschewed bread and pas­ta, avoid­ing starch. She also enjoyed veni­son burg­ers, choco­late, and gin martinis.

Blue Zone longevi­ty stud­ies focus on com­mu­ni­ties through­out the world with par­tic­u­lar­ly long-lived pop­u­la­tions. Cen­te­nar­i­ans liv­ing in “blue zones” areas — places where peo­ple were liv­ing longer lives with more vital­i­ty — have a strong sense of pur­pose through­out their lives. The Oki­nawans call it iki­gai and the Nicoy­ans call it plan de vida. For both, it trans­lates to why I wake up in the morn­ing.

Queen Elizabeth’s pur­pose was clear. Due to her uncle’s abdi­ca­tion fol­lowed by her father’s poor health, Elizabeth’s des­tiny was thrust upon her at a young age. On her 21st birth­day she made her com­mit­ment clear stat­ing, “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devot­ed to your ser­vice.” At the age of 25 she became Queen of the Unit­ed King­dom. She kept her promise to stead­fast­ly serve her peo­ple for the next 70 years.

One of the most impor­tant duties of the British monarch is ask­ing a new Prime Min­is­ter to form a gov­ern­ment. On Sept. 6 the Queen accept­ed the res­ig­na­tion of Boris John­son, her 14th Prime Min­is­ter, and asked her 15th Prime Min­is­ter, Liz Truss, to form a new gov­ern­ment. Two days lat­er the Queen passed away. She died with her boots on, you could say, ful­fill­ing the promise that she made in her youth.

Few of us live lives of such notable con­se­quence. Yet, our pur­pose can be as sim­ple as show­ing kind­ness to oth­ers. What is it that gets you up in the morning?

The San Juan Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil shares news about an upcom­ing event.

Com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and mem­bers are invit­ed to join the con­ver­sa­tion on Future Focus: San Juan Islands Resilience at the 13th Annu­al EDC Eco­nom­ics Lun­cheon, held at Brick­works in Fri­day Har­bor on Wednes­day, Sept. 28 from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Fea­tur­ing not­ed speak­er Louis Har­ris from the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Com­merce, the event will include a deep dive into com­mu­ni­ty resilience ini­tia­tives and poli­cies, as well as a pan­el dis­cus­sion with experts from Con­gress­man Rick Larsen’s office and local elect­ed offi­cials. The con­ver­sa­tion will exam­ine efforts at the local, state, and fed­er­al lev­el to cre­ate a resilient future for our islands and region.

Lun­cheon tick­ets are $39. Vis­it the EDC web­site to order tick­ets or for more infor­ma­tion.

The Library sends along news about its upcom­ing in-per­son Eng­lish classes.

The San Juan Island Library is excit­ed to announce the return to in-per­son Eng­lish lan­guage class­es for adults begin­ning Thurs­day, Sept. 22. Class­es are free of charge and will take place in the Library from 6–8 p.m. on Tues­days and Thurs­days until Dec. 15.

Stu­dents of all Eng­lish lan­guage lev­els are wel­come and will receive indi­vid­ual work­books and learn­ing mate­ri­als, fund­ed in part by the San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion. Thanks to a part­ner­ship with the Joyce L. Sobel Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter, a fam­i­ly enrich­ment pro­gram will be offered to stu­dents’ chil­dren four years of age and old­er. In addi­tion to a paid instruc­tor, vol­un­teer Eng­lish tutors will sup­port stu­dents’ suc­cess in class. Vol­un­teers receive free online train­ing pri­or to class­es through the San Juan Island Library.

To learn more about the Eng­lish Lan­guage Learn­ing Pro­gram, reg­is­ter for class­es, or apply as a vol­un­teer tutor, con­tact Wendy Wax­man Kern at the San Juan Island Library at wwaxman.kern@sjlib.org or 360–378-2798.

Linda Gilkeson, Ph.D.

The Mas­ter Gar­den­ers of San Juan Coun­ty share news about their upcom­ing speak­er series.

Join the Mas­ter Gar­den­ers of San Juan Coun­ty in wel­com­ing the very pop­u­lar Dr. Lin­da Gilke­son — also known as the Gar­den Doc­tor — as the keynote speak­er at our annu­al Gar­den­ing Work­shop Series this Octo­ber. Dr. Gilkeson’s talk, Resilient Gar­dens in a Chang­ing Cli­mate, will dis­cuss how greater resilien­cy in our gar­den­ing meth­ods can help min­i­mize the effects of local cli­mate change. Pacif­ic North­west gar­den­ers need to be pre­pared to han­dle cool­er, wet­ter springs; longer, dri­er sum­mers; unex­pect­ed win­ter cold snaps; and water shortages.

In addi­tion to her keynote address, Dr. Gilke­son will also speak in an after­noon ses­sion, Prepar­ing Our Gar­dens for Win­ter, which will talk about pro­tect­ing soil and pre­serv­ing ben­e­fi­cial insect habi­tat. It will also cov­er what to plant in the fall to increase next year’s food sup­ply for pollinators.

Dr. Gilke­son earned a Ph.D. in Ento­mol­o­gy from McGill Uni­ver­si­ty and worked for the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment on var­i­ous pro­grams designed to reduce pes­ti­cide use. She is the author of Back­yard Boun­ty: The Com­plete Guide to Year-Round Organ­ic Gar­den­ing in the Pacif­ic North­west. She lives in British Colum­bia and writes a month­ly newslet­ter with gar­den­ing tips on her web­site.

The work­shops con­sist of two Zoom webi­na­rs at noon and 1:45 each Tues­day and Thurs­day from Oct. 18–27. Each ses­sion is an hour long with a ques­tion and answer peri­od at the end. Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold a reg­u­lar meet­ing on Fri­day, Sept. 16 at 8:30 a.m. Items up for dis­cus­sion or action at Fri­day’s meet­ing include:

• Gen­er­al pub­lic comments
• Chair and Com­mis­sion­ers report
• Part­ner update – Angela Ander­son, San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust
• Coun­ty Coun­cil update – Chris­tine Minney
• Director’s report – acqui­si­tions update; Coun­ty bud­get com­mit­tee meet­ing; Recre­ation, Open Space and Stew­ard­ship Plan
• Stew­ard­ship report – Cof­felt lease draft; pub­lic com­ments and draft respons­es for Turtle­back Moun­tain Pre­serve Stew­ard­ship and Man­age­ment Plan
• Out­reach and vol­un­teer report
• Future agen­da items

You can view the live stream of the meet­ing online or take part in per­son at 846 Argyle Ave.

San Juan County’s Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment shares details about the Com­pre­hen­sive Plan review process tak­ing place in the months ahead.

Mon­day marked the first of many Coun­ty Coun­cil meet­ings devot­ed to review­ing the 2036 Com­pre­hen­sive Plan update. The Coun­cil will review dif­fer­ent ele­ments of the Plan every Mon­day through Oct. 17 with addi­tion­al, semi-reg­u­lar meet­ings to fol­low, lead­ing up to the pub­lic hear­ing sched­uled for Tues­day, Nov. 29.

This final series of meet­ings, reviews, and rec­om­men­da­tions is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of work. The 2036 Com­pre­hen­sive Plan update process began in 2016 and has been a major focus of the County’s Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment and the Plan­ning Com­mis­sion. Month­ly com­mis­sion meet­ings, reg­u­lar pre­sen­ta­tions to Coun­cil, and exten­sive pub­lic involve­ment have con­tributed to this final phase of rec­om­mend­ed updates that the Coun­cil is expect­ed to adopt by the end of the year.

The changes are aimed at meet­ing the needs of the 2036 pop­u­la­tion and imple­ment­ing the Coun­ty Vision that was updat­ed in 2018. Changes also improve the usabil­i­ty of the Plan and pro­vide new analy­ses, assess­ments, and inven­to­ries. They also address key chal­lenges like hous­ing, eco­nom­ic diver­si­fi­ca­tion, tourism man­age­ment, pre­serv­ing rur­al char­ac­ter, and cli­mate change.

Those inter­est­ed in read­ing the cur­rent draft and learn­ing more about the Com­pre­hen­sive Plan updates can vis­it the Com­pre­hen­sive Plan web­site. The pre­lim­i­nary sched­ule of the Plan ele­ments to be reviewed at upcom­ing meet­ings includes:

• Sept. 12: Gov­er­nance, land use, rur­al elements
• Sept. 19: Hous­ing, trans­porta­tion, historic/archeological preser­va­tion elements
• Sept. 26: Cap­i­tal facil­i­ties, util­i­ties, and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment elements
• Oct. 3: Review draft of Offi­cial Map changes for Orcas, Lopez, and Shaw Islands
• Oct. 10: Review Sec­tion B, Ele­ment 4, Water Resources; review draft Offi­cial Map changes for San Juan Island
• Oct. 17: Review Plan for­mat­ting and tie up loose ends
• Oct. 31: Review draft ordinance
• Nov. 7: Fol­low up on ques­tions or changes made to the draft ordi­nance at the pre­vi­ous meetings
• Nov. 29: Coun­ty Coun­cil pub­lic hear­ing, Plan update adoption

Pub­lic com­ments will be accept­ed through­out the review process.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Coun­ty Plan­ner Sophia Cas­sam at sophiac@sanjuanco.com or 360–370-7589.

OPALCO shares a reminder about a main­te­nance pow­er out­age tak­ing place overnight.

All of San Juan Coun­ty will be affect­ed by a planned pow­er out­age nec­es­sary for Bon­neville Pow­er Asso­ci­a­tion to make sched­uled repairs to the trans­mis­sion lines that deliv­er pow­er to the islands. This main­te­nance out­age will hap­pen dur­ing the night min­i­mize impact to OPALCO consumers.

The out­age will begin at approx­i­mate­ly 11:30 p.m. tonight and pow­er is expect­ed to be restored by 5 a.m. tomor­row. Dur­ing this time, BPA crews will upgrade trans­mis­sion equip­ment and per­form main­te­nance on the sys­tem. While the pow­er is off, the OPALCO crew will uti­lize the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do main­te­nance work on our local system.

Turn sen­si­tive equip­ment off at the pow­er strip or unplug it tonight. In the morn­ing, turn equip­ment on grad­u­al­ly to aid in pow­er load pick up. OPALCO mem­bers are respon­si­ble for their own equip­ment and encour­aged to install surge pro­tec­tion to safe­guard elec­tron­ic, com­put­er and oth­er sen­si­tive equip­ment and appliances.

Now is a great time to make sure you’re pre­pared for win­ter out­ages. OPALCO’s sys­tem is strong and its line crews skill­ful and ready, how­ev­er out­ages hap­pen and islanders must be pre­pared. Take time to get ready for storm sea­son out­ages now, includ­ing your plan to access out­age infor­ma­tion (SmartHub, phone mes­sage, web­site, social media, out­age bud­dy off island with inter­net ser­vice), assem­ble a kit of the things you need to keep you com­fort­able dur­ing pow­er out­ages, and do main­te­nance on your bat­tery or gen­er­a­tor back­up for any crit­i­cal systems.

Check our web­site for out­age check­lists and oth­er key infor­ma­tion for mak­ing sure you are ready this win­ter.

• After 12 years in busi­ness, the end of the cur­rent iter­a­tion of The Bean is almost here. Accord­ing to a Face­book post by own­er Eric Bienen­stock, The Bean’s last day in busi­ness is tomor­row. In the post Eric says that “the cafe is for sale, and I am in dis­cus­sions with an inter­est­ed par­ty. My hope is that a new own­er will bring the ener­gy, enthu­si­asm and pas­sion that I arrived with so many years ago and return the cafe to its for­mer great­ness.” He also says that “it has been my great hon­or to serve our com­mu­ni­ty these last twelve years, and I will be for­ev­er grate­ful for the tremen­dous sup­port we have been shown.”
• The San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment has shared detailed infor­ma­tion about the sta­tus of the sunken Aleut­ian Isle fish­ing ves­sel.
• Farm tours on San Juan Island are hap­pen­ing in just a cou­ple of weeks — Sept. 23–25. Eight island farms are tak­ing part this year.
• Orga­niz­ers of the 2023 San Juan Islands Agri­cul­tur­al Sum­mit seek com­mu­ni­ty respons­es to a sur­vey relat­ed to this year’s event, which takes place on San Juan Island.
• Sav­iBank is now open as a full-ser­vice branch. It’s locat­ed at 232 A St., Unit 2, across the street from Tina’s Place and the fer­ry wait­ing lanes. Busi­ness hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon­day through Friday.
• Here are the week’s spe­cials at Mar­ket Place and Kings.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing Tama­ra Weaver of Win­der­mere Real Estate.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

Accord­ing to Brad, “Sad­ly, they only cross the road here for one rea­son: to get food that two of the neigh­bors put out for them.”

Learn more about Brad’s per­spec­tive on the fox­es of San Juan Island.

Contributed photo

The San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust share details about the upcom­ing pub­lic event at the North Shore/Glenwood Inn prop­er­ty on the west side of Orcas Island.

Join the San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil, and staff and commissioners/directors from the San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust, at the North Shore/Glenwood Inn prop­er­ty on Orcas Island from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 24.

Mean­der from the upland to the shore­line and learn about the property’s mature forests, wet­lands, shore­line, and the tide­lands that sup­port eel­grass and for­age fish.

Due to lim­it­ed on-site park­ing, the Land Bank has orga­nized a roundtrip shut­tle bus from Orcas Island High School to the Pre­serve. Park your car in the stu­dent and guest park­ing area only; the shut­tle will pick up and drop off on the half hour, start­ing at 9:45 am.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Tan­ja Williamson at 360–378-4402 or tanjaw@sjclandbank.org.

The Coun­ty sends along news about the islands’ twice-annu­al beach and road clean-up event.

Join your fel­low islanders for the 2022 Fall Great Islands Clean-up on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 24 between 10 a.m and 2 p.m. Dur­ing this event, par­tic­i­pants of all ages can sign-up to col­lect trash on a des­ig­nat­ed beach or road, and then bring their col­lect­ed trash to the cen­tral meet­ing spot to be counted.

On San Juan Island, meet at 10 a.m. at the San Juan Island Brew­ing Co. park­ing lot (410 A St. in Fri­day Har­bor) to pick up trash col­lec­tion equip­ment and receive beach and road­way assign­ments. Cof­fee and good­ies will be pro­vid­ed by Laut­en­bach Recy­cling to fuel your efforts — bring your own cof­fee cup, please. Drop off your col­lect­ed trash at the same loca­tion by 2 p.m. There will be an after-par­ty at San Juan Island Brew­ing Co. with music by T‑Flo, $1 beers for clean-up par­tic­i­pants, and a Stew­ard­ship Net­work of the San Juans raffle.

If you’d like to be assigned a loca­tion ahead of time, con­tact Kather­ine at katherine@sanjuans.org for beach­es and Tina at kristinamargareta40@gmail.com for roads.

“The Great Islands Clean-up is a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty for our com­mu­ni­ty to join togeth­er and address the glob­al issue of plas­tic pol­lu­tion,” says Katie Flem­ing, San Juan County’s Sol­id Waste Coor­di­na­tor. “Every lit­tle bit helps — last spring, 173 miles of island roads and beach­es were cleaned by 350 awe­some volunteers.”

The Great Islands Clean Up is a bi-annu­al event held every spring and fall, coor­di­nat­ed by the County’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship Sol­id Waste Pro­gram in coop­er­a­tion with Orcas Recy­cling Ser­vices, Laut­en­bach Recy­cling, Lopez Sol­id Waste Dis­pos­al Dis­trict, San Juan San­i­ta­tion, Friends of the San Juans, the Stew­ard­ship Net­work of the San Juans, and many oth­er indi­vid­ual, busi­ness, and ser­vice group vol­un­teers. It is fund­ed in part by the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Ecology.

APS-FH shares some kind words about their vol­un­teer of the month.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety is pleased to announce Ama­ra Johnsen as our vol­un­teer of the month for Sep­tem­ber. Ama­ra has been vol­un­teer­ing at the APS-FH Trea­sure Hounds store since March of this year. She works as a retail sales clerk for the store as well as being our res­i­dent jew­el­ry expert.

We were intro­duced to Ama­ra in 2021 when she adopt­ed Char­lie Girl from the shel­ter — a long-time lob­by cat with FIV — and gave her a won­der­ful, for­ev­er home.

For Trea­sure Hounds, Ama­ra brings her knowl­edge and under­stand­ing about jew­el­ry. She is a jew­el­ry mak­er who sells her beau­ti­ful items at the local mar­kets and fairs. Ama­ra can repair jew­el­ry and brings in her own tools and sup­plies to help renew items that have been donat­ed to Trea­sure Hounds so they can be sold to raise funds for APS-FH. Trea­sure Hounds sup­ports 25 per­cent of the organization’s operations.

Ama­ra is able to rec­og­nize spe­cial prop­er­ties in the donat­ed jew­el­ry pieces so they can be priced accord­ing­ly. She cre­ates beau­ti­ful dis­plays that show off the store’s jew­el­ry. Cus­tomers delight in the mer­chan­dise and the way it is dis­played. All of these skills have helped mas­sive­ly increase jew­el­ry sales at Trea­sure Hounds.

Ama­ra is always there for any­one that needs her — she is a kind soul and a delight to be around. Although Ama­ra is very busy with her jew­el­ry mak­ing and run­ning her busi­ness, she still makes time to vol­un­teer at Trea­sure Hounds, because she cares about shel­ter ani­mals. Just ask her cat Char­lie Girl!

APS-FH has numer­ous vol­un­teer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. If you are inter­est­ed in help­ing, vis­it our web­site to learn more about our vol­un­teer pro­gram.