Arrival February 26: Getting My Bearings

 Park Road in Barnsley, running between houses and church, allotments and Locke Park.

 Melly's house

 Next door

 The Church

 Looking down the street towards the park

The view of Barnsley from Melly's house

Red Apple Redux

Meanwhile, back in Newport Hills:  eff-stoplocal posted these shots from a momentous occasion.  They capture the most auspicious moment in the five year life of this blog so far.  I was actually able to step inside and experience the Red Apple Grocery Store, the namesake of Red Apple Elegy, for the first time since it closed five years ago.

In all its spooky Chainsaw Massacre glory I toured curious neighbors through the back loading docks and secret passageways, hidden closets and exposed wiring that was more Halloween than Christmas.  This was, after all, the venue for our annual Holiday Crafts Bazaar.  And we had our work cut out for us!

I especially like how eff-stop captured the red in Red Apple in a decidedly un-festive light.  It's been abandoned for five years now--what do you expect?  Hopefully, the tide is turning.  Stay tuned.

Puffballosaurus

Speaking of puffballs, here is the Rose Garden at Woodland Park Zoo, site of many a marriage ceremony and home to several gigantic paleolithic puffballs, or puffballosaurus.

And elsewhere in Seattle, a blog is devoted to the topiary of Beacon Hill (what we call puffballs hear on the eastside)
and they call "bonsai" here at BeHi Bonsai
and featured here in the Seattle Times earlier this year

Newport Hills Community Faire part 2

Sean and Mike Bristow (ukelele player extraordinaire) go over stage logistics

Glen Patrick Doggett on stage

Kenny from the Mustard Seed hands out free water bottles

The grinding of the corn

Audrey and Piper in charge at the face-painting booth

Michelle works the crowd

Checking out the home-baked goodies and other hand-crafted wares for sale

Newport Hills Community Faire: First Ever!!

The stage was set.

The Tumblebus was booked.

The flyers were mailed out.

The day arrived: a perfect late September morning, sunny, warm, clear. After days of rain it seemed like a gift from the weather gods.

The kids began arriving, and flocked to Mike Intlekofer's amazing emporium of farm implements.

Jason and Erin Leach visit Sandi Tampa and Dorothy Bracken at the Newport Hills Community Club membership table.

This year's Community Club president Lisa Vierick displaying some of her
ice skating moves.

Nobody works a crowd like Farmer Mike!

Carol Murphy works the table for Sustainable Bellevue.

To be continued...

Recent Houses for Sale

The puffball house next door to us is for sale!! Day in, day out, that puffball is the beacon from my bedroom window. The house has been immaculately maintained, with a pool and badminton court in back. I think it's a steal for 479,000.00. If only the rest of the house were as original as the garage doors!

.

Here's a house that caught my eye. For 399,000.00 it has a half acre with a view of Lake Washington and the mountains but it's also above the infamous "Kennydale S-Curves" on Interstate 405. We're going to go look at it anyway because it's such a lovely example of Northwest Regional/Pacific Rim Mid-Century Modernism and the entire lot is south facing with gorgeous potential for an orchard/produce garden.

Factoria P-Patch's first summer

Our p-patch at Holy Cross Lutheran Church yielded so much produce this summer that we were able to donate 1,000 pounds to the Hopelink Foodbank.

A Morning in Wallingford

The lovely Marie, three years ago.
I had so much fun spending a morning in Wallingford yesterday. The synergy that you get in a comparatively dense neighborhood inspires me more than anything. Got to watch the crew for a Microsoft commercial at work across the street from my friend Marie's house. While I looked on from Marie's porch neighbor Basha strode up and proceeded to give me the most amazing headrub while the media crew looked on enviously. She's a professional masseuse who is fresh from a course on Indian head massage. Later we walked up to a three-year old grocery store (gearing up to celebrate their birthday with a big bash this weekend) which houses a fantastic deli/bakery and had a great lunch of pannini and soup while Marie's three year old ran up and down the aisles. In keeping with the bumble bee outfit he wore he was literally "abuzz" the entire time.

Here are Marie's kids with my Piper last weekend at our place.
Later her friend Anne walked in and greeted us. Now Anne is going to come talk to our newly-formed Sustainable Bellevue group about her passion, community gardens. And it turns out her husband is a McArthur fellow, which I found out because I commented on the cap she was wearing. "Dirt Matters", from a Willamette Valley winery, was emblazoned on the front. Her husband, David Montgomery, a geology prof at the UW, literally wrote the book on "Dirt"!

I hope Anne doesn't mind me posting this photo of her husband on my blog, but he is all over the internet, as I was to discover later.



Can't wait to start reading it!

$5,000.00 Prize for Creative Neighborhood Project

The City of Bellevue recently announced a neighborhood match program for projects involving neighborhood labor on City land:
click here for details on how to win the $5,000.00 prize.

Submission deadline for consideration is March 1st, 2010.

It seems like a great idea for the community to work together on, except...ideas like the ones pictured below all involve private land, businesses owned by landlords who aren't a part of the community. About the only land the City actually owns are the sidewalks. The bus stops, owned by Metro, are off-limits. What we really need is a plan which engages the land-owners.


Community garden/pea patch?

A mural?

Farmer's Market?

Community kiosk?

Paul's Katrina

A lot of what I know about Hurricane Katrina I learned from my friend Paul over at Citizen K. He's been to New Orleans eight times and writes eloquently about his love for the Crescent City.

I hadn't seen this post before. The photos of the houses moved me so much. I've never seen anything like them. Because they're nothing like the images of destruction which accompanied the news reports they speak to me in a quieter, deeper way.

"A week ago today, we joined ten other people and toured the Katrina-damaged areas of New Orleans. This amounts to 80 per cent of the entire city, an expanse of 144 square miles, or the size of seven Manhattans. Katrina-related damage extended to four parishes: Orleans, Jefferson, Placquemines, and St. Bernard's. As we discovered on the tour, little of it need have happened: Although touched off by natural forces, Katrina was largely a man-made disaster."
click here for more from Citizen K's blog entry.

The hole in the roof indicates the family inside had to force their way through the attic to await rescue by boat.

An emergency crew from Georgia found no bodies here.


Although it looks intact, this house was scheduled to be torn down by the City.