Debbi Fincher of the SJI Prevention Coalition would like your calendar submissions for their family-friendly summer events calendar. Here she is with more…

Hello Everyone!

Here we are preparing for yet another amazing summer, filled with activities to engage our youth and families! The San Juan Island Prevention Coalition has sponsored this free calendar for over 7 years now! Local families and visitors alike have found this calendar to be a very useful tool. Our goal is to help keep our youth connected with their community and engaged in fun, exciting and interesting activities over the summer.

Please send us your:

• Activity Title
• Date
• Time
• Age Group
• Cost
• Contact Info

Please pass this on to anyone you know that would like to add their activities for our youth and families this summer, 2014! This is a FREE service we are providing to our community. As you know, this calendar is only as good as the information on it… Thank you for your time and help to get all the activities listed for this coming summer 🙂  Continue Reading

Island Rec is pleased to present the winners of the Annual Children’s Festival Poster Contest!

1st Place: Emily Fitts – Click for larger version – Contributed photo

Many thanks to all the young artists who submitted entries! We had some wonderful artworks to choose from this year. Keep an eye out for the posters, which will soon be displayed around town.

Island Rec would like to thank Western Prince Cruises, The Toy Box, Ositos, and A Place to Play for sponsoring prizes for the Poster Contest.

And don’t forget – The Children’s Festival is happening Saturday, May 3rd from 10am to 2pm at the Fair Building. We hope to see you there! For more information, call 378-4953 or visit www.islandrec.org

Runners Up, (L to R): Seanisti Richardson; Vinny Procaccini (with Heather Clark); and Presley Clark (with Adrienne Bourne) – Click for larger version – Contributed photos

Wednesday Morning, April 9, 11:00 Am

Gabrielle Zevin’s novel The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is a making a splash with booksellers across the nation. It’s tender, funny, and a paean to books, bookstores, and the people who sell them. And it’s the #1 Indie Pick For April 2014

Zevin is currently on a whirlwind nation-wide tour to introduce The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, visiting bookstores for a meet and greet and gift exchange. She’ll be at Griffin Bay Bookstore on Wednesday morning, April 9, 11:00 am. Don’t miss the chance to meet this young author.

Gabrielle’s cross-country book tour departs from the standard book talk and signing. She stops in bookstores for short visit with each bookseller, chats with staff, promotes her book. A companion live-blogs about the meeting, posts photos, and describes the unique character of each bookstore. The emphasis is on exchange—exchange of gifts, information, ideas, and love of books.

Gabrielle Zevin – Hans Canosa photo

Griffin Bay Bookstore will present Gabrielle with a copy of the 50th anniversary edition of a Northwest classic: The Curve of Time, by M. Wylie Blanchet, and staff will also give Gabrielle a one-of-a-kind treat served in the bookstore café: a big Orca shortbread cookie from Felicitations. Continue Reading

Chinook Salmon – Geoffrey McMichael photo

The San Juan County Lead Entity is requesting salmon recovery project proposals for the San Juan Islands for the Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) 2014 grant cycle.

Private citizens, non-profit organizations, local, state, and tribal governments, and special districts are invited to apply for funding through the SRFB Leady Entity process for salmon recovery projects in the San Juan Water Resources Inventory Area (WRIA 2). The deadline for submitting salmon recovery project proposals is May 16, 2014.

Please contact the Salmon Recovery Lead Entity Coordinator, Barbara Rosenkotter, for additional information at 360-370-7593,
barbarar [@] sanjuanco [.] com

Just heard that Bakery San Juan has several exciting opportunities for responsible and dynamic individuals to join their Bakery and summer operations team. They are looking for committed, serious applicants interested in being trained up to meet their high standards of service and baking.

Positions available:

• Front of house in the bakery
• Pizza at the Dock chefs and assistants

Send them a message via Facebook or email:
janekedfox [@] gmail [.] com
for full job descriptions

Young children and their parents are soon to have a wonderful place to go hang out and play in Friday Harbor. Cathy Kromer and Becky Taylor are creating “A Place to Play” at 55 Spring Street, where the Mystical Mermaid used to be just up from the China Pearl.

Owner/Manager Cathy Kromer (L) and Assistant Manager Becky Taylor peek into the play kitchen at the new play place in Friday Harbor – Update photo

Word is out already in our small community and so it’s very important to make this clear right now – it is NOT a daycare. It’s not a place to drop kids off, and then leave to go shopping or whatever. It IS a very cool place to hang out though with lots of games and toys that young children will love. A wooden train set, a doll house, a play kitchen, a sand table, a big fishing boat, mopeds and riding horses are just a few of the toys that kids will busy themselves with. While the parents take advantage of free Wi-Fi, coffee, tea, cocoa and snacks (and perhaps most importantly – some down-time while the kids get their wiggles out).

There is a beautiful mural of island life covering the walls (still in progress) by local artist Bob Von Plowman (he’s the guy that did Rocky Bay and Friday Harbor Pet Supplies). There are no TV’s or electronic games – it’s all touch-and-feel real stuff to build imagination and creativity.

They plan to be open by the end of May and they are very excited to announce that ever-popular Kindergarten teacher Sharon Minke will be on staff part-time. They are going to network with several local kid-oriented programs such as Island Rec’s S.T.A.R., and Head Start, and offer events for special needs kids as well.

Stop by and peek in the door – it is a really cool place and very colorful. And visit them at the Children’s Festival at the Fairgrounds on May 3rd – they’re going to have a booth there with lots more information.

New Day Garden, growers of Dahlias and other specialty cut flowers have dahlia tubers still available for purchase for this spring planting. They will be available to answer questions and give planting and growing instructions. All of their 40 varieties of dahlias are good cut flower growers.

$5.00 each or 10 for $40.00
Special Growers Collection of 10 for $35.00
(9 preselected and 1 your choice)

Fall orders are now available for pickup.

Saturday, April 5,
9:00 am til 2:00 pm
1220 Cattle Point Road – 378-4048

San Juan Island Cheese, is open again as well after a much needed Winter’s break. Here’s a note from Hannah about their party coming up on Friday…

We’ve spent so many weeks being closed, we thought it’d be fun to do a Grand Reopening Party.
We are planning on hosting another “Liquids for Locals” event from 5:00 – 7:00 pm on this Friday, the 4th.
We’ll offer 15% off all liquids (wine, beer, soft drinks, water) and have available cheese boards, truffles and cheesecake.

Just to give you a bit of context of why we’ve been closed so long… here’s a short piece about our travels.

We want to let people know that we’ve missed them maybe more than they missed us!

Just got this note from Helen about the play starting this week, and also about actor housing for the summer…

Hello all,

Just so that you are clear with our slightly different schedule on this show (“Red” showing Apr. 3 thru 27 at the Fairgrounds) : Apart from the usual Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30, please note the following:
Saturdays are at 2:00 and 7:30, Sundays are at 4:00.
We are excited to see you. We open this Thursday (April 3rd).

Also, we are in a real bind with actor housing this year so far. I have five places to find for actors and have lost three of our usual hosts – this year only, they assure me!

If you love Stage Left and want us to continue to provide outdoor Shakespeare, please let us know if you have anything in the way of housing that you would be willing to give to an actor this summer. It could be a boat, a cabin, a room in your house – anything will be considered.

Since networking is what this is all about, we would so appreciate you taking the time to copy the following and paste it to your Facebook page, email to your friends and neighbors and generally pass the word.

Island Stage Left is urgently seeking actor housing for the summer. If you know of any cabins, apartments, boats, dorms, empty houses, spare rooms etc. please call Helen at 378 5649 or email
stageleft [@] centurytel [.] net

We cannot move forward without being able to house actors. I have great testimonials from people who have done this several times. Fast friendships have been formed in some situations and in others, hosts appreciate not noticing their guests at all! I try to match actors with hosts’ preferences and we take a $200 cleaning deposit from each actor to ensure that your place is left as you found it. I have never had to use it, but it’s security!

Wishing you well and keeping our fingers crossed,

Helen
Island Stage Left

Just a quick reminder and a heads up from Suzie…

What Does It Take To Live An Authentic Life? – Contributed photo

What does it take to live an authentic life?

There are still a few seats available in an upcoming workshop, in which Suzie Thomas will lead an exploration in such questions as, Which do you most often express: ego-story or authentic nature? What is “Ego” exactly? What are the benefits of living more authentically, and what prevents you from doing so?

The workshop will be held in a private residence on San Juan Island Saturday April 12th, 2014, Noon to 4:00 pm. Cost $40.00. Due to limited space, there is only room for 12 maximum. To reserve a seat, you must pre-register and pre-pay.

To register or with questions, please contact Suzie at (206) 406-3085 or via email:
suziethomas [.] journeys [@] gmail [.] com

County Needs to Hear From People with Pending Time-Sensitive Permit Applications

With the new CAO regulations taking effect March 31, the County’s Community Development and Planning Department received a large volume of building permit submissions just ahead of that date. According to Building Official John Geniuch, many of those applications were submitted well ahead of planned construction in order to be vested under the old CAO rules.

In order to help set priorities and avoid delaying construction projects, Genuich requests that applicants who plan to start construction before mid-summer contact him at [email protected] and provide the project’s name, tax parcel number, permit number (if available), and anticipated start date.

“We will make every effort to review and issue permits in time to accommodate construction starts,” Geniuch said.

Editor’s note – This is being posted again with Time, Date and Location information after a sharp eyed Update reader called that out…

The third film in our series is HAPPY, a movie which “takes us on a journey from the swamps of Louisiana to the slums of Kolkata in search of what really makes people happy. Combining real life stories of people from around the world and powerful interviews with the leading scientists in happiness research, HAPPY explores the secrets behind our most valued emotion.” (plot summary courtesy of Wadi Rum Films, Inc).

Tuesday, April 8th, 7:00 PM
at Spring Street International School, 505 Spring St.
Admission is Free, but donations are gladly accepted

Call for Children’s Festival Volunteers!

SJ Update file photo

Island Rec is currently seeking volunteers to help out with the 24th Annual Children’s Festival! We’ve got a great line-up of entertainment and activity providers to reflect this year’s festival theme: Wild Wild West! Still needed are lots of volunteers to help this event run smoothly. Many hands make light work and there are many ways to help out, whether for the whole day or even just an hour or two.

Able bodies are needed for set up and decorations before the festival; parking attendants, face-painters, clean-up crew, and other helpers are needed during and after the event. It’s a great way to support programs for kids & families in the community and promises to be a lot of fun too! Youth volunteers can also earn Dollars for Scholars credit!

The Children’s Festival happens Saturday, May 3rd from 10am-2pm at the Fair Building. Those interested in volunteering are urged to contact Sally Thomsen, Recreation Director, at 378-4953 or
play [@] islandrec [.] org

Brenda Wagner is happy to be open again down on the floating fish store (Eric was unavailable for the photo, as he was busy working on a last minute project for their opening day)

They’re open again after taking a break for the winter – Friday Harbor Seafoods down at the Port Docks. And now, fresh and in stock they have Salmon, Steelhead, Halibut and other bottom fish among other tasty things… Mmmmmm! Shellfish is coming in on Thursday. And if you’ve never tried their smoked salmon… you’re missing out. Go down and say hello and take home something delicious and healthy for dinner.

Popeye enjoys a beautiful first day of April in paradise

They’re open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm; Sunday 10am to 5pm; closed Monday.

Head down the main pier at the Port of Friday Harbor Marina, keep going on down the big gangplank to the main float and they are in the floating building on your left. Say hi to Popeye the seal while you’re there.

Second annual Beautiful You Fashion Show Celebrating diversity in fashion and women

The Pavilion at Roche Harbor Resort
Sunday, April 6, 2014
At 2:00pm
Tickets are $20.00

For tickets call 378-8680 or purchase from participating shops (see below)

Proceeds benefit Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services of the San Juan Islands (DVSAS)
(A non-profit serving families in our community)

Enjoy an afternoon tea while viewing selections from our islands own clothing shops and Beautiful accessories available by local artists

Supported by:

• Be Chic Boutique
• Girlfriends Consignment Store
• Second Act Consignment Boutique
• Necia Quast vintage clothing

Here is part VIII in our continuing monthly history series from the San Juan Historical Museum…

Draft Horses pull a stone boat to move rocks for farmland – SJ Historical Society photo

Agriculture on this island is not only about growing crops, but also about moving rocks. In this vintage photo, we see two fine draft horses whose strength was required to pull a “stone boat” full of glacial rocks. Rocks hauled away to make room for planting fields were mounded and often arranged as stone fences.

You may have some of these glacial remnants, dating back thousands of years, in your yard. Drive around today and you’ll see remains of stone fences and the labors of farmers and strong horses, often Percherons.

Who can identify all three of the men pictured? See this photo and many others in the Friday Harbor book from Mike and Julia Vouri and the San Juan Historical Museum. www.sjmuseum. org