Neighbors down the road, Seaview on Long Beach Peninsula

This must just be our week for meeting lots of new to us neighbors.  It happens on occasion that my google alerts set to Willapa and Pacific County, alert me to a neighbor who is blogging.  Such was the case this morning, and I encountered this blog  seaviewwa – a couple who moved to Seaview and are refurbishing a home there.  She’s been blogging as long as I’ve been blogging.

Where she has devoted her blog to highlighting life in her community, my blogging has shifted focus resulting in 20 different blogs with varying focus themes and  the building of several websites.  I feel like I’ve left too scattered an imprint over the internet.  I’ve begun a bit of the process of trying to whittle it down to fewer blogs, and fewer websites.  Meanwhile though, the social networking communities continue to develop and grow and now I find I am connected to too many of the social networks.  And then there are the multitudes of  ‘news-sharing’ social networks. 

But back to the Seaview neighbor.  I enjoyed reading her blog backwards entry after entry post to the start of her blog. Good representation of the community and nearby neighboring attractions.  I learned fairly quickly in reading her blog that she and I do not share similar political views since her blog tells of her own political activism activities, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying and appreciating her blog.

We are sort of neighbors – here in Pacific County, there are only a few small towns dotting the county – the rest of the county is wilderness, wetlands, trees and I jokingly refer to it sometimes as Weyerhauser’s county ( Weyerhauser owns a lot of the forested tree lands in the county) – so from town to town in Pacific County, we are essentially community  ‘neighbors’.   I love visiting Seaview, the community where she lives,  which is located right next to Long Beach and just a holler down from Ilwaco.  

Not sure that many know about Bay Center, in Pacific County though.  We are still a bit of a hidden treasure here, not so well known.   Lately, we’ve had a fair amount of ‘artist’ types moving here to Bay Center.  At this rate, we may become an artist colony in harmony with the historic Chinook families, another aspect for which Bay Center is known.   (btw, take a look at The Chinook Nation Restoration Act - H.R. 6689 )

Where ever one lives in Pacific County, we do share in common the beauty of this country.   We have heard more than a few times that living in Pacific County is living in  God’s country, or God’s county, or God’s landscape, or God’s valium, or other takes on that theme.   Can’t say as I disagree, although having been raised as a child what is affectionately known as a ‘military brat’ which meant moving around every couple of years, I’ve come to appreciate most landscapes as having their own unique beauty. 

Meeting our brand new neighbors via Facebook

Met our  newest Bay Center neighbor via Facebook.  How interesting!  He or they contacted me via my Facebook to let us know they were new neighbors, and paid us a nice compliment on our house.

 

They bought the house that I so love – the one I’ve been drooling over practically since we moved here and bought our house.  Two owners ago, we were guests of the then-owners of that house and I was so taken with the house and the view.  When that couple divorced, the house went up for sale, and eventually it sold to a couple in Seattle.   While it was on the market I was looking for creative ways that we might think about buying it while keeping our own historic house.     The house went back on the market after a tragedy befell the Seattle couple, and now another couple from Seattle is buying it. 

 

Looking forward to meeting them, and welcome to the community! 

Weekend, meeting our neighbors in new venues

Lovely weekend activities.  Last year at this time, everyone was still digging out from the storm (Dec 1-2, 2007) with those hurricane-strength winds at 140 + mph.  Can’t really know the full strength of those winds because the gadget that measured and registered the winds at 140 mph broke. 

This year, no windstorms, some temperate, cool weather, bits of sunshine, some normal rainfall, fog and mist.  Just the kind of mix of winter (well, guess technically it is still Autumn) weather to have her on the bay.

One of the ‘new’ neighbors who built their beautiful new home here in BC right on the edge of Willapa Bay held a holiday Open House gathering Saturday.  Seemed like most of the people living here in BC attended.  I’ve been working to integrate into community activities after the long six years of intense and heightened political activism where we have focused so much of our attention, time and energy with efforts to end Iraq war, get the troops home.   It’s been a nice change, quieter, and I’ve had chance to get to know our neighbors on a different level.

Arthur, on the other hand, hasn’t had that kind of time to get better acquainted so it was delightful to be able to introduce him to many of our neighbors he hasn’t yet ‘officially’ met.

At the Edwards holiday open house, (and happily looks like this will be annual gathering here in BC ) we met a few of the  newly moved here neighbors who are either building new homes or refurbishing existing homes.   Bev Olson was there, and I was happy to get a chance to congratulate her on her upcoming trip to the other Washington (DC).  She was invited by Rep. Brian Baird to be his guest at President-Elect Barack Obama inauguration.  How exciting for her, and she certainly deserves the opportunity.

I have decided to visit the 2 churches in our community to see what kind of a fit we can find.  I’m impressed with the one that is building it’s new church building on the pay as you go system.  They have made progress with the building and it is looking modestly beautiful since they broke ground a few years back.  We went to the services Sunday, and I was impressed with the warm welcome, the humility of the people and the sense of community amongst them.  

I do miss our Episcopal church community at St John’s in South Bend, where we were training to be come licensed lay preachers.   We did revisit last year.  Not much about it has changed, and we know we are not ready to return to being involved with the level of activities we had given at St John’s.  The tug and pull in discerning our passion in ministry we felt was calling to us to challenge the morality of the Iraq war, both as lay preachers in church fellowship and as a military family with loved ones deployed in Iraq.  

As the intensity of the war rose, we felt more compelled to put our energies into civic activism, as we were receiving numerous invitations to speak at various events along with our obligations to Sunday services at our church.   In discernment meeting within the Bishop’s Committee, we came to decide to follow the passion of what we believed was our ministry calling, notifying our church family we would need to be freed from the weekly Sunday responsibilities. 

That was four years ago.  We had already moved, began buying our home in Bay Center, but continued to attend  services in nearby South Bend.  It will be interesting to see if we can adapt to a different church with a different belief set.   Thus, we will attend services at both churches in our little Bay Center community to see if there is an adaptable fit.

One church is conservatively evangelical or pentecostal, and I’m surprised we can even begin to consider continuing to attend after these politically charged years of evangelicals inserting their religious philosophy, such as it is, into the political arena and heavily influencing the controversial polarization of the last eight years.  I had a talk about this with the pastor after services, and he seemed a bit perplexed at what I was asking, assured me he did not tell his congregants how to think, how to vote, and remained free of politics. 

The other church is Methodist, and I really don’t know much about Methodist religious philosophy.  I do remember reading that George W. Bush was a member of Methodist church.  That, sadly, is enough to put me off right there, but again, somehow these tiny church congregations in our community do not seem to be aware or part of the bigger picture with religious insertion into politics that have led to the  election of George W. Bush, and his decision as President and Commander-in-Chief to invade and occupy Iraq, bringing with it the immense carnage on all sides that has marked the last six years in Iraq. 

 

Following my own thoughts, back to this past weekend.  It was refreshing to meet with so many of our neighbors in the community in new venues.  It was refreshing to just be one among many of the neighbors who make up our community in Bay Center.

Tina Turner , nearly 70 still is Proud Mary in 2008

How terrific is this woman!   At her age even….!!!

Another day breaking…

Morning revelries.  Up before dawn gives us opportunity to watch the skyline as it goes from dark of night to graying with streaks of pink sunlight for those days promising sun.  Once the dark of night clears, I look out the window as I go through my ‘morning reads’ on my computer. 

Familiar sights ground me.  The tall evergreen trees that line the side of my yard and create peek a boo views of my neighbor’s house.  The swirls of smoke escaping from neighbor’s chimney remind me that they use wood heat.  I begin to wonder what it looked like back in the day when everyone had wood heat, chimney’s and smoke filled the air.  I wonder what it smelled like.  I am taken backwards in time to what it might have been like in this village where we chose to settle.

I have been watching daily out the same window as the leaves on the trees in my yard escape their moorings and fall to the ground.  The trees go from fully clothed to partially naked to naked skeletons of their former selves.  I can tell how Autumn is evaporating into winter encroachment by how my trees are looking with each day’s passing.

If it is to be a windstorm day, I can tell from my window view if it will be mild or growing windstorm by the movement of the trees, shrubs and bushes that adorn my yard.  When the air is still, it is hard to imagine from my window view how much the wind can make them dance and sway.

It’s daytime now, and time to shape the outline of what I will do with this day’s treasure.

A nation of gardeners

Fruit and vegetable gardens in the US are rising in popularity as environmental consciousness meets depression economics

Last week, while helping a friend turn over her soil, I came across a giant bean that had grown out of old compost. "Fava beans," said my friend the gardener. I opened the pod and there they were, nestling in fuzzy little pockets. How come I had never seen a fava bean pod before?

These epiphanies of mine usually follow the same pattern. The way a pinch of herb smells or the precise indentations on the body of a bean reduce me to mute wonder. This is immediately followed by a resolution to plant my own kitchen garden. Technicolour fantasies come after, featuring the same homegrown cherry tomatoes and basil that I have been fantasising about for years now. And then … nothing.

The excuses are legion. It's winter, too cold for plants to grow. I don't have enough outdoor space. It's illegal to use the fire escape for anything other than escaping from fires. And what is this strange new language of annuals, biennials, perennials, hardy through zone six, pinch back and soil pH? Will I really remember to water the plants everyday?

Yet, as we move into the holiday season, and then the new year with its promise of newer improved versions of ourselves and the world, my fava-bean-inspired resolution seems to have something it did not have in previous years: a socio-cultural momentum.

Roger Doiron, the founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, reminds Barack Obama that he is the eater-in-chief. To Michael Pollan, Obama is the farmer-in-chief. Both men have asked for parts of the White House lawn to be replaced by an organic fruit and vegetable garden as a symbolic and practical measure to meet the growing food crisis. (As symbols go, this is guaranteed to be a smarter gesture than outgoing President Bush's comment about Indians and Chinese eating more and more.)

The case against lawns has been growing increasingly hard to ignore over the last two decades as we learn more about the ways in which human consumption is destroying the earth. In 2008, the artist Fritz Haeg published Edible Estates, a chronicle of the garden as art and activism. Haeg links the seemingly insignificant fruit and vegetable garden with larger issues: where our food comes from, how it is cultivated, creating communities in neighbourhoods, ownership over what we eat and whether it will rain tomorrow.

We may be approaching the tipping point of the kitchen garden movement as environmental consciousness meets depression economics. In the US, vegetables have gone from fourth place to second place in the average garden budget. Greenhouse managers report more first-time gardeners coming to their door. (In the UK, vegetables are being stolen from community gardens on an unprecedented scale.)

 

read more at link here

40,000 Show Up For Free Food; Weld County Farmer Shares Bounty From Platteville Fields

DENVER -- About 40,000 people showed up to a Weld County farm Saturday in the hopes of getting some free food.

But within an hour the food was gone.

"We had originally planned to take everyone by tractor to the fields but due to the overwhelming response we had to allow people to walk or drive themselves," said Dave Miller.

Many families had be to turned away and sheriff's deputies were called in to handle traffic.

The farm had planned to be open all weekend handing out potatoes, onions, beets and carrots, but now organizers said everything has been given away.

 

read more at link here