Our micro-farming has rewarded us with a bushy abundance of kale in a rail-mounted planter, once the squirrels decided it was too healthful for their tastes.

OUR  HORTICULTURAL EFFORTS have met with meager results on our little piece of the rock — until now.

There is a real farm on Center Island, a 10-acre spread not far from our cabin. It is mostly idyllic pasture land dotted with groves of stately madronas and cedars, occupied by happily retired horses and pampered old chickens. Our friend Monique works wonders with her organic garden there and kindly shares occasional treats of cracking-good snap peas or tender crimson strawberries, as well as selling us beautiful brown or greenish-blue eggs, each marked in pencil with the date when laid by one of her “girls.” (It’s a special treat to fry up an egg jotted with “Easter” or “Mother’s Day.”)

Our rocky promontory doesn’t have soil suited to an in-the-ground garden. Efforts at growing vegetables in pots on our deck have mostly met with disappointment, stymied by our property’s limited sunlight (but oh, those gorgeous tall firs!). There were the long-pampered tomatoes that were just finally starting to ripen in September, only to be raided by deer so bold as to clamber on to our cedar deck. All they left behind were tragically denuded stalks — and the gardener’s tears.

But finally, we have success: Kale!

A yard-long planter hung from our deck railing and protected from deer by a strategically placed gate has yielded a nice little crop of vitamin-packed greens, thriving in our cool island climate.

Tonight we enjoyed the first harvest. We dined on Barbara’s delicious homemade pizza trimmed with kale, black olives, pineapple and vegan cheeses.

The only challenge to this horticultural endeavor came early on when a squirrel, hopping along the deck railing on its way to another felonious assault on our birdfeeder, paused to sample a few nibbles of baby kale. Happily, our homegrown greens apparently held no more appeal to the squirrel than they would to a finicky four-year-old of the human variety.

That’s fine with us. We’re ready to move beyond monoculture next year. Anybody know how squirrels feel about spinach?

My dad, Joe Cantwell, was among the legions of young, GI Bill-educated engineers who flocked to Seattle after World War II to work for Boeing. He imparted a love of the outdoors and the Cascade Mountains in his children (from left), Tom, Marcia, Brian and Doug.

TO ALL THE DADS out there, happy Father’s Day.

Barbara and I enjoyed a Skype breakfast with daughter Lillian. We all had waffles. I got a big, sweet dose of love from my wife and daughter, and some sweet gifts as well.

Thinking of my dad recently, I wrote an essay that my alma mater, The Seattle Times, published today (along with photos, including the one above). I’m getting nice comments and emails from old friends as well as people I’ve never met, which is another delightful gift. Here’s a link to the Times piece.

Photographed through the windshield,  WeLike’s cabin roof and vintage navigation light form the foreground in this view of the Deception Pass Bridge on a June morning.

SUMMER ARRIVED A DAY EARLY in the San Juans, it seemed. Barbara and I just spent a lovely Friday afternoon sitting outside on our deck, sipping wine, chatting lazily and soaking up sun. Bumblebees nuzzled the magenta foxglove flowers growing on our mossy cliff and birds sang their little hearts out, triumphing over the happily distant but somehow pleasantly domestic buzz of a neighbor’s weed whacker. Ahhh. (Even better that it’s him and not me.)

Tomorrow is the summer solstice, but in this typical Northwest June, rain is in the forecast.

As we finished our wine, the afternoon’s delicious warmth slipped a cog, as we’ve often experienced in these islands, when a breath of cool marine air suddenly whispered in our ears, “I’m the front of the front.”

The exciting news of our Friday came from Jim Smith, a marine canvasmaker on Whidbey Island, who emailed this morning to say that our boat would be ready by day’s end.

WeLike, the restored 1957 Skagit Express Cruiser you see at the top of this blog, needed new clothes — or, to be precise, a new canvas dodger and camper top, the roof and cockpit enclosure that provides shelter from wind, rain and sun.

The old white canvas seemed in good shape when we acquired the boat, and the material remained sound. But a few months ago, the seams all decided to start letting go, like the ripping trousers of a fat man who finally added five pounds too many. If you don’t pay the price for high-quality UV-proof stitching up front, you pay the price later. (Or, in this case, we are paying the price later.)

So WeLike is getting a new top, in UV-proof Sunbrella fabric and using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) “lifetime” thread, which is supposed to stand up to just about anything the elements can throw at it. Instead of white, the new top will be aquamarine, matching the boat’s topsides.

It’s a big investment, but this will be our island runabout for years to come, and it will also be our vacation vehicle this summer. With COVID-19 truncating other travel plans, we hope to buzz around these islands and do some fun boat camping with our new weatherproof camper top.

The boat has been at Oak Harbor Marina the past two weeks for this project. We plan to go pick it up early next week. I’ll post pictures.

Meanwhile, atop this post is a photo I took two weeks ago when I took WeLike through Deception Pass on the way to Oak Harbor. It’s always a scenic ride going that way.

Happy solstice, wherever you are. To all my Northern Hemisphere readers — enjoy the summer!

P.S. If you’re getting sick of reading about how perfect life can be on our island, you can take comfort in knowing that yesterday a deer climbed on to our deck, walked 15 feet across it to a low-hanging basket of fuchsias that had finally turned the corner in my efforts to keep them healthy, and ate every blossom.

The upraised beaks of two hummingbird chicks are seen protruding from their tiny nest of lichen in this photo taken by John S. Farnsworth, aka Neighbor John the Mad Birder.

THESE TROUBLED TIMES are lightened for us by the wonders of nature, and the continued delight of getting better acquainted with birds as they migrate here and back again, build nests and raise offspring.

Having a next-door neighbor who is such an authority on birds adds to our enjoyment and education. Neighbor John the Mad Birder, as you may have come to know him in these columns, is John S. Farnsworth PhD, an emeritus professor in environmental studies and sciences from California’s Santa Clara University, and a member of the board of Seattle Audubon. John and his wife, Carol Farnsworth, relocated to Center Island about the same time we did.

From their window, Carol recently spotted a hummingbird nest on a limb, maybe eight feet off the ground, of one of the evergreens between our cabins. John shared this photo he captured of a parent and two hatchlings. He also let us get a close-up look through his spotting scope.

The nest is a marvelous construction of lichen lined with moss and spider-web silk to make it soft and cozy.

These are Anna’s Hummingbirds (Calypte anna), among the most common hummers on the West Coast. Through the scope, I saw one of the chicks experiment with poking its long tongue out, reaching well into the air like one of those birthday-party noisemakers that you blow into. John said he observed a chick preening at the edge of the nest on Monday, which, according to Cornell University (among the nation’s leading sources of research on birds), indicates the chicks hatched about 20 days earlier.

The Mad Birder estimates they should be ready to leave the nest three or four days from now.

It’s wild-rose time in the San Juans. Stick your nose up to one of these hot-pink Nootka roses for a potent dose of quintessential rose scent. These are seen from our favorite picnic bench on Lopez Island. The San Juan Islands remain closed to non-essential travel because of COVID-19, but are expected to reopen to visitors by mid- to late June. Get updates here, or give us a call on Center Island.

A SEATTLE TIMES EDITOR was well-known for her, shall we say, carrying voice and raucous laugh. Even if my colleagues and I never saw her, we all knew when she was in the newsroom, even if she was on the far side of the building.

It’s been like that with the arrival on Center Island this past week of an old friend. So far I’ve heard but not seen this migratory newcomer known for his distinctive song that resembles a farmhand’s pub order after a long day of slopping the hogs: “Quick, three beers!”

Yes, it’s every birder’s old drinking buddy, the Olive-sided Flycatcher.

“A little early in the day for me,” I quipped this morning to neighbor John, the Mad Birder, when I heard the unmistakable “three beers” refrain ring out from a nearby tree. Chuckling, he noted that the American Goldfinch, of which Center Island has many right now — including crowds of fumbling, newly fledged youngsters — have a call thought to sound like “potato chip, potato chip.” So, when he hears the two birds together, he’s ready for happy hour.

I have a new home brew that I bottled just about the same day the Flycatchers showed up, so I’ve named the beer accordingly: Flycatcher Quick 3 Beers! IPA.

I should probably have included one of those “Enjoy Responsibly” disclaimers on the label, eh?

Stay safe, stay healthy, and have a good weekend.

He and she: A male American Goldfinch, at left, pauses at our feeder with a female on the next perch.

WE’RE BOMBARDED WITH GOLDFINCHES on this Mother’s Day on Center Island. And that’s not a bad thing.

After a shared “virtual brunch” with daughter Lillian — Barbara and I on our sunny San Juans deck, Lil aboard our sailboat in Seattle — we’ve spent much of the day sitting outside. We’ve been reading, working crosswords, sipping iced coffee or mineral water, soaking up the warmest day of our year so far, with the thermometer peaking at a pretty perfect 77 degrees F. It rarely gets warmer here.

We’re surrounded by a choir of bird song and a constant rush back and forth to our feeders, with the flippity-flip of songbirds’ wings complementing the mad buzzing of hummingbirds. I have my Sibley’s Field Guide to Birds of Western North America next to me, striving to identify newcomers by sight or sound. (It just helped me be sure that a female goldfinch wasn’t a pine grosbeak, for example.)

Barbara is now happily baking buns for a barbecue, after watching the dough rise robustly in the outdoor sun.

Happy day to all mothers, human and avian.

“What are you lookin’ at, buddy?”

You’ll be surprised at the number of bald eagles perched on boats moored in Lopez Island’s Fisherman Bay, in the San Juans.

BIRD POOP CAN BE A PLAGUE for boats that sit on a mooring ball for months at a time. Sea birds enjoy a good resting spot with a nice view, and their toilet habits often leave a lot to be desired. Sailboat booms and canvas are particularly prone to collecting what you might call guano graffiti.

How to control it? Some boaters use those multi-fingered bird-repelling spikes to turn their vessels into floating porcupines. (Too angry.) Others mount long-armed, wind-driven whirligigs atop their cabins, or hang old CDs to twirl in the wind. (OK, if you like the tech angle. Ineffective on calm days.) At most chandleries, you can buy plastic owls that are supposed to scare away other birds. (I’ve seen gulls perch atop them.)

On Lopez Island’s Fisherman Bay, a few bald eagles seem to do the trick.

After looking out during visits to our favorite picnic bench near the bay’s entry spit, I soon realized the eagles perched on the boats in the bay were very quiet and well-behaved. Probably because they are carved and painted.

Nice work by a local craftsman, I’m guessing. And the boats looked pretty clean.

Look, there’s another eagle!And another!

SHE KEEPS RETURNING to the same cozy spot in the grassy meadow in front of our cabin. Maybe in the family way? (Mother’s Day is coming soon.) Or she’s just a little pudgy because there’s so much tasty greenery to munch after our wet winter. I say, “Hello, dear” to my wife, and “hello, deer” to our recurrent visitor.

I STILL LEARN NEW THINGS in these woods, even after spending most of my life in Washington. Neighbor John (The Mad Birder) helped me identify this low tree with showy white spring flowers that wraps around our woodshed and likes our rocky knoll. It is Western serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia). I’ve never seen its blueberry-like berries, probably because they are said to be popular with birds and squirrels, of which we have plenty.

UNCURLING NEW FRONDS of swordfern also announce the coming of May here.

WILD STRAWBERRIES are blooming, too. We don’t get harvestable fruit, but the tiny white eyes among the rocks and open, sunny ground are another happy harbinger of mid-spring.

Rain-speckled buttercups brighten this Earth Day in the San Juan Islands.

IT’S JUST THE SPIDERS AND ME in Wee Nooke, my 36-square-foot writing hut atop our rocky knoll, on this 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Too wet for my usual editorial assistant, Galley Cat, who usually drops in every 10 minutes for a kitty treat when I’m working up here. Our little ginger feline sometimes perches on the desk next to my laptop, just being companionable, between forays to hunt mice or harass the local garter-snake population.

Persistent rain patters on the cedar-shake roof today. I’ve turned off the tunes I often listen to while writing; this rooftop percussion is music enough. It’s soothing and delightful, accented by soggy birdsong from nearby trees and a buzzing whir from a passing hummingbird, perhaps amped up on the sweet scents of wildflowers and organic compounds unleashed as the raindrops hit the earth.

The gray sky has lowered and everything outside my window drips greenly. I’ve cranked up the electric radiator under my desk. With toasty feet and a cup of hot tea, does life get better?

The rain is a gift. Seattle was on track for its driest April on record, with less than one-tenth of an inch of precipitation as of Monday.

Our San Juan Islands, in the Olympic rain shadow, almost certainly collected less, and it was showing. The forest duff was starting to crunch like corn flakes underfoot. The cozy mantle of moss upholstering our rocks and ramparts was taking on a yellow tinge usually reserved for the arid days of summer.

A wildflower called sea blush adds color to the rocks and moss outside my writing hut.

Today, the moss is like a lush and spongy carpet, greening up with every hour. Other beneficiaries include the Western buttercups (Ranunculus occidentalis) that add cheer at my hut’s front step, along with a purple-pink flower called sea blush (Plectritis congesta), aptly named because it can grow so thickly as to add a warm splash of color to an entire meadow or shoreline.

After an awakening five decades ago, the cause of preserving the planet has taken many hits under the other Washington’s current regime. But let’s hold out hope for the power of renewal, just as the rain renews our woods and meadows.

To mark Earth Day, my little piece of this planet is having a long, luxuriant shower. So, I’m setting aside all worries. A blissful cleansing is something to celebrate.