🌿 Summer Snowflakes for a Happy Spring 🌿

"A garden is not a picture,

but a language, 

which is of course, 

the major art of life."

American writer, Henry Mitchell

Summer Snowflake
Leucojum aestivum 'Gravetye Giant'
Descendants of bulbs shared by
island gardener, Gwendolyn Yansen.
BOTH resistant to deer and listed on the
Great Plant Pick list from the
Miller Library, Seattle.
Anno 12 April 2019,
standing up to
the rain in the Gatehouse woods.

❖ Little guy planting ❖

"The love of gardening is a seed

that once sown never dies."

Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)

L-R: Native John "Lee" Bruns (1913-2004)
planting seeds with his father,
Johann "John" Eberhard Bruns (1873-1962)
on their Shaw Island farm, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Photo 1915-1916.
A barn built by homesteader John L. Morrison
is on the right, along the shore of Blind Bay.
Click image to enlarge.
Photo courtesy of Nancy Bruns Farmer.

🌿 THEY ARE BACK, THEY ARE BACK 🌿

Today, March 14 2019, the flying painted acrobats are back on Shaw Island after their long journey from their wintering grounds in the south. The male Rufous Hummingbirds arrive a few weeks ahead of the gals, a late occurrence this year.

These photos are 
Courtesy of the Cornell Ornithology Lab site.history 
Click on the above link to check on diet, habitat, nesting, so we can keep them happy, safe, and returning to our gardens and wild places.

🌿 FOR THE OVER-WINTERING HUMMINGBIRDS 🌿

MAHONIA x 'Charity'
Planted for the
hummingbirds who are drawn to the
nectar of this winter-blooming shrub.
Planted from one-gallon pot.
(I.e. no seeds for sale.)
Photo captured January 2019.
Gatehouse Garden, Reefnet Bay Road, 
Shaw Island, Washington..

20 January 2019
New year––new shelf.
Fresh seeds nearby in screw-top jars.
The old oak Hoosier cabinet, ca. 100 years old
is from the Jack/Lillian Gordon home.
The door with windows acting as one wall
is from Leon Fonnesbeck's "Taj Mahal,"
from the same island property.
Cooming through again for a low carbon footprint.
Stop by.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

At Christmas I no more
desire a rose than wish a
snow in May's newfangled
mirth. But like of each thing
that in season grows.
William Shakespeare

Growing on Shaw Island on this day of
22 December 2018.
Thank you, everyone, for the seed shed support,
the clay art in this photo, and all
the handwritten notes left this past year.

🌿 ONE DECEMBER 2018 🌿

Camellia sasanqua
Growing on Shaw Island
this day of One December 2018.

'Happiness held is the seed;

Happiness shared is the flower.'

John Harrigan

🌿 Shaw Island Grower of Fruit, Vegetables, and TURKEYS 🌿 Marian Lutz

Happy Turkey Day
Vintage postcard dated 1914.

This piece was originally posted for Thanksgiving 2015 but our island has some new residents in the last three years so let us view Marion and Angel's antique oven stuffed with one fat turkey over again for 2018.

"Marian (1897-1981) and Herman Lutz were pretty much dependent on agriculture like everyone else. They raised almost everything they needed on their 250 acres and sold the excess to buy staples. They canned fruit and vegetables and meat for year-round sustenance.
      Thanksgiving was a neighborhood affair. Marian called it a waste of time to have a holiday by yourself. Each family would bring a specialty to whichever house was large enough to accommodate them all.

Angel's restored wood cookstove;
in the Bryant kitchen on the
former Lutz farm, Shaw Island.
Suspected to be Marian Lutz's
turkey cooker many years ago.
Photo 2015,
by Debbie Maxie, Coastal Mission©

      

When Marian was raising turkeys, a turkey was her specialty. That meant getting up at 5:30 a.m. to start the big bird in the wood cookstove because dinner was at midday. There were no electric lights to brighten an evening feast or light the way home.
      After some years of farming on Shaw, Marian's husband left one day. She said that he had a lot of curiosity about other places, and she never saw him again. But she loved the island farm and stayed on and ran it with the help of her daughter and her neighbors. She said she would never have made it without good neighbors within a half a mile or so whom she could call on when she got into a jam."
      Text from news clipping of unknown publisher and date; suspected to be the Friday Harbor Journal. Saved by long-time FHJ subscriber, historian, gardener,  and Shaw Island booster, Gwendolyn Yansen, and shared with this writer/1998.

OCTOBER on Shaw Island

Japanese Maple "Polly"
(Acer palmatum)

A grown-up maple tree
from a Polly Robertson seedling,
a part-time resident who mailed
 a box ofher seedlings to contribute
to the first fundraising plant sale
on Shaw Island.
A talented gardener with a great heart.
Over $1,000 was raised to landscape
 the Community Building
in the mid-1980s.
Photo anno twenty-five October 2018
Shaw Island, San Juan County, WA.

"In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp.

Even on cloudy days, its presence helps to dispel the gloom."

           John Burroughs.