San Juan Family

I’ve been reading about this because our gardening soil here in Central WA sucks, it’s got a lot of clay in it and my carrots were short, everything else was… blah. Anyway, I wasn’t impressed. I had a small compost and I’m thinking that I need to start a bigger one. I know we plan to move, but a girl who gardens can’t just STOP because she won’t be here in the Spring. What if something goes wrong and I am here, without compost. So I’ll get my new, bigger compost going. What else is there to do in the fall, especially now that we’re eating more raw foods, we have more veggie scraps now than before.

I plan to do a revised version of the rubbermaid composting bins that Sam from Sailing the Hudson made following the wisdom of the amazing Mark and Bentley Christie’s guide to getting started.

I have to say, though, that I don’t plan to buy worms. Worms are like, magnetically drawn to compost bins. I have had a million compost piles over the past 16 years of marriage and motherhood and I have never had a problem attracting worms. They don’t need to be trapped or confined, they don’t want to escape and they reproduce quite nicely.

So I plan to build the compost bin and then just toss in worms from the garden whenever I find them. That has always worked in the past.

Winter is no big deal, the compost generates enough heat to keep them alive, plus mine is in the ground, so they can just go a little deeper to get warm if they need to.

Not quite what we planned, but it will work anyway. We were hoping to use the unfortunate incident with our water heater to get our butts in gear and get to the San Juans, so we could actually BE the San Juan Family that we’re supposed to be. However, the water heater was repaired, the badass house with the private beach doesn’t allow dogs (Charlie is offended) and here we are, heading into winter at the Amityville house. So now our sights are set on February. We have a documentary to film in the meantime and will spend a good deal of the winter on the road. Moving to the other side of the mountains in February doesn’t seem like much fun, but being there and starting the Spring growing season in our new Island home sounds like heaven. Moving boxes in the snow and ice… not so much.

So, we’re back to plan A, and glad that the water heater is fixed.

Of course San Juan Islands breed creative writers and artists, I swear, the ground itself is made of brain food. Perhaps it’s an unknown side-effect of breathing lavender. Either way, another San Juan Islands resident, James Marcus Bach of Orcas Island, has been published.

His book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success chronicles his “unconventional” way of learning. I put the word unconventional in quotes because I’m not sure he’s all that unique in a way, I think more people can learn better through real life than through institutionalized schools anyway.

James was a high school dropout who ended up creating his own career as a software tester and surrounding himself with people who had advanced computer degrees. And they were paying HIM for help.

His emotional state is important to note because even though he was successful, he felt like a failure because he had been taught that you had to finish high school and go to college in order to be successful.

This book is, in a way, a self-liberation piece. I attended the Rethinking Education Conference in Dallas, Texas this year and was pleased to see James speaking, his wife did an artsy workshop and they were a delightful family. I hope his message finds a home in the hearts of teenage boys who are smarter than school:)

And I didn’t even mention he’s the son of author Richard Bach, did I? Who wants to live in a shadow?

It looks like the goal of moving to San Juan Islands will be manifest sooner than we planned.

The pump for the well at the rental house we’re living in has broken and the homeowners can’t afford to fix it. So we sit here with no water and a house full of children who’d be much cuter with baths

In all seriousness, we’ll be bathing, for sure, but cooking and cleaning are tricky, you can only do so much with bottled water (and yes, we definitely recycle.)

I was looking for rentals on craigslist when, just for kicks, I looked at the Skagit/SJI list to check prices. They’re really not that much more than in Yakima. I find that hilarious, because Yakima has so much less to offer and the most common thing people say when we discuss wanting to live in the San Juans is “Oh, well it’s so much more expensive there.” I just nod my head and say “We’re saving” and let them create their own reality.

Once I saw the prices, it didn’t take me ten seconds to decide to get the hell out of Dodge.

Why make a goal that will take forever to get to? Why make a goal to get to SJI and then DECIDE to go anywhere else right now.

I think this is the perfect opportunity for us.

See you soon, neighbors.

Small obstacle – a lot of the rentals I’m seeing are seasonal. Anyone renting for 1-2 years? Please let us know

Or- here’s a thought- any owners wanting to carry the contract. It’s a win-win situation Let’s talk.

We’d like to offer our condolences to the families whose lives were changed in the Lopez Island accident over the weekend. Four families were directly impacted, and the ripples will be felt by hundreds others. Be well, know that people care.