The San Juan Build­ing Asso­ci­a­tion’s annu­al gin­ger­bread house con­test returns this week. Drop off your edi­ble archi­tec­tur­al mas­ter­pieces between noon and 2 p.m., Wednes­day through Sun­day, at the for­mer home of Cask and Schooner — 1 Front St.

The con­test has two divi­sions — one for builders age 15 and younger, and one for builders age 16-plus. Win­ning entries will receive a $500 prize, with $250 for sec­ond place and $100 for third place. Addi­tion­al $50 prizes will be award­ed for the best repli­ca of a local build­ing, the best con­struc­tion site theme, and the entry with the best hol­i­day spir­it. Judg­ing will take place on Thurs­day, Dec. 22.

All entries must be edi­ble and made pri­mar­i­ly from gin­ger­bread or gra­ham crack­ers, although bat­tery lights are allowed. You can cre­ate your own design or use a pre-made kit. The orga­niz­ers will accept only one entry per per­son, and all par­tic­i­pants must fill out an entry form.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Katie Schmidt by email.

OPALCO shares news about a project that aims to increase pow­er line safe­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty through­out the San Juan Islands.

OPALCO is clear­ing the right-of-way areas under pow­er lines this month to pro­tect the island’s elec­tri­cal sys­tem. This clear­ing pre­vents pow­er out­ages caused by over­hang­ing trees and branch­es, removes for­est fuels that could feed a wild­fire, and improves safe­ty and access for line crews dur­ing pow­er out­ages. OPALCO is work­ing with pro­fes­sion­al tree trim­ming crews on Orcas, Shaw, Lopez and San Juan Island dur­ing the month of Decem­ber to remove trees and oth­er veg­e­ta­tion under or near our pow­er lines.

The removal of poten­tial­ly haz­ardous trees around over­head trans­mis­sion lines reduces out­age times and helps all mem­bers of the coop­er­a­tive to have a more reli­able sys­tem and safer envi­ron­ment. If you see a poten­tial­ly haz­ardous tree, call OPALCO at 360–376-3500 so that we can advise and assist in the tree’s removal. Please do not attempt to cut a dead or dying tree that is lean­ing towards pow­er lines.

Mem­bers can also help by leav­ing room for the OPALCO crew to work safe­ly on the devices in the field and on mem­bers’ prop­er­ty. Please keep land­scap­ing, shrubs, and struc­tures at least ten feet away from the front side of elec­tri­cal devices and at least three feet away from the oth­er sides. OPALCO crews must be able to safe­ly access field devices such as trans­form­ers — those green box­es — day or night.

From May 19 — The tex­tured skies of spring pass­ing over Argyle Lagoon on a warm afternoon.

The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a reg­u­lar meet­ing on Tues­day, Dec. 13 at 9 a.m. Items up for dis­cus­sion or action include:

• 2023 leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties for the Coun­ty Council
• 2023 lodg­ing tax award recommendations
• Coun­ty grants report

You can view the live stream of the meet­ing online or attend in per­son at the Coun­cil Leg­isla­tive Hear­ing Room. To make a pub­lic com­ment, sign up pri­or to 9 a.m. on Dec. 13.

Sat­ur­day’s hayrides were part of the three-day Old-Fash­ioned Hol­i­day Mar­ket, which wraps up on Sun­day between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at Brickworks.

From Oct. 31 — Mount Dal­las in the clouds, as seen from Zyl­stra Lake Preserve.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares a look at the adopt­able ani­mal of the week — Stassie, a 12-year-old domes­tic short­hair and brown tabby.

Hi there, I’m real­ly hap­py to meet you! My name is Stassie and I was brought into the shel­ter as a stray. There are a lot of things about myself that I can’t wait to tell you, but for the pur­pose of this quick intro­duc­tion I’ll pick just one, then you can come meet me and hear more of my stories.

So, like I said, I had been liv­ing out­side and came into the shel­ter as a stray cat. Being out there is a lot of things — both good and bad — but most­ly it’s pret­ty qui­et, espe­cial­ly on an island like ours. The kind of qui­et that gives an imag­i­na­tion like mine plen­ty of time to pon­der who and what I could be in this life, or any of my next eight lives. One of my favorite lives that I’ve imag­ined for myself is being a reg­u­lar on the Cat Show cir­cuit. I fan­ta­size about a crowd of cat peo­ple all com­ing to admire me and judges giv­ing me top scores. They notice how bright my eyes are; they appre­ci­ate the way the stripes on my fur are dif­fer­ent than just any ol’ brown tab­by; they see fea­tures in my face that remind them of wild big cats; they think I wear my white socks well. I’m not sure I’d be up to the pres­ti­gious Cat Fanciers’ Asso­ci­a­tion stan­dards, but I know that I’d still feel like best in show.

Whether it’s real or fan­ta­sy, I’m the kind of cat who tells her­self she’s tro­phy-wor­thy and believes it too!

Con­tact APS to learn more about Stassie.

San Juan Coun­ty needs a cit­i­zen vol­un­teer for an impor­tant gov­ern­ment committee.

If you are a San Juan Island res­i­dent who is pas­sion­ate and knowl­edge­able about afford­able hous­ing in San Juan Coun­ty, the Coun­ty could use your help as a new mem­ber for its Hous­ing Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee.

The Com­mit­tee is the main advi­so­ry body to the Coun­ty Coun­cil on afford­able hous­ing issues. It over­sees sev­er­al Coun­ty pro­grams that impact afford­able hous­ing, includ­ing the Home Fund, the Equi­ty Loan Pro­gram — which pro­vides down pay­ment loans for low-income first-time home buy­ers — doc­u­ment record­ing fees, and rental sub­si­dies for seniors with extreme­ly low incomes. The HAC also advis­es the Coun­ty Coun­cil on pol­i­cy issues con­cern­ing hous­ing for low- and mod­er­ate-income cit­i­zens in our community.

HAC mem­bers are expect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in month­ly pub­lic meet­ings — in-per­son or by con­fer­ence call. HAC mem­bers are vol­un­teers that are appoint­ed by the Coun­ty Coun­cil. Cur­rent­ly there is a vacan­cy for one mem­ber from San Juan Island. The mem­ber who fills this seat may reside in either Fri­day Har­bor or the unin­cor­po­rat­ed area of the island.

Learn more about apply­ing for the open posi­tion on the Coun­ty web­site.

From June 6 — look­ing down from the pier at the Port of Fri­day Har­bor dur­ing a heavy rain.

Par­ents of young ath­letes are invit­ed to attend the sports­wear swap tak­ing place this Sun­day, Dec. 11 from noon to 2 p.m. in the Com­mons at Fri­day Har­bor High School. If your fam­i­ly has sports gear of your own that you would like to con­tribute, a dona­tion box will be avail­able in the Commons.

There’s just over a week left to enjoy breads and oth­er baked goods from Bak­ery San Juan in 2022. The bak­ery will close for a four-week break start­ing at 5 p.m. on Fri­day, Dec. 16. Their last day is expect­ed to be quite busy, so it’s rec­om­mend­ed to pick up orders the day before.

Sec­ond Act con­sign­ment bou­tique is end­ing 2022 with four weeks of pro­gres­sive­ly deep­er dis­counts. This week it’s 10 per­cent off all cloth­ing and footwear, fol­lowed by 20 per­cent next week, 30 per­cent the week after, and 40 per­cent off from Dec. 26–29.

The store will be closed for the month of Jan­u­ary and February.