My island life happens every day

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An American Goldfinch, our Washington State bird, peers back at me from my birdfeeder.

**If you’re reading from an email alert, click on this post’s headline to see the full graphic design of Cantwell’s Reef.**

I FLEW AWAY FOR TWO WEEKS and everything changed at home.

The foxglove bloomed! The goldfinches fledged! The kale is ready to harvest!

My trip to France was a refresher, a challenge, a kick in the pants. But as an old hermit who lives on a 176-acre island, I’ve come to realize these little daily changes that tick along with the clock on my kitchen wall now seem to matter to me most.

Summer is coming. Keep an eye peeled.

Stalks of lilac-hued foxglove flowered on Center Island while I was off gallivanting in France.
Dinner tonight will include a salad from Nuthatch Cabin’s rail-mounted planter. In my two-week absence, the kale grew like I did the summer I was 14 and consuming a quart of milk and half a box of Cheerios every day.
The marigold seedlings are coming along nicely, too.

Life goes on, it happens ev’ry day. So appreciate what you got, before it’s taken away. — Ray Davies, The Kinks

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Published by Brian J. Cantwell

A former travel and outdoors editor at The Seattle Times, I'm now exploring Washington's San Juan Islands on my classic runabout and trying not to smash my fingers with the hammer while I fix up my island cabin.

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One thought on “My island life happens every day”

  1. love the kinks , I was giving Andy and a couple of his buddies ride home one day and a kink song came on. I started singing ,one of Andy’s friends said ,wow your dad loves the kinks! Andy said ,no he just likes the old kinks not the new ones. Such a good memory. Every day is a blessing, sir. Every day is a blessing. I think I’ll make myself a kale cranberry walnut salad tomorrow for dinner. Enjoy the summer my friend.

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