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"Sweetgrass Trail: An Emerging Artist’s Journey" is the title of Odin Lonning’s October show at Heron’s Nest on Vashon. Odin, a Tlingit artist and cultural educator, is renowned for his traditional Northwest Coast Native designing, carving, and painting. His "Sweetgrass Trail" show is a departure in that several pieces pay tribute to the formative stage of his career, when he traveled across the United States. The artist will be at Heron’s Nest on First Friday, October 7, from 6:00 – 9:00 PM.

A four-year study to evaluate the role of nitrogen in observed late summer, low-level dissolved oxygen events in Quartermaster Harbor has passed the half-way point, and study participants want to share their updated findings with the public at an Oct. 12 workshop.

King County, in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, the University of Washington-Tacoma, Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) and the Vashon-Maury Island Groundwater Protection Committee, will provide the progress report in a workshop beginning with an open house at 6:30 p.m. followed by a presentation starting at 7 p.m. in the Vashon High School Commons.

As I entered the high school library and saw the tables set up for the board meeting, a ton of good memories came flooding back. The playground at Chautauqua that first year when it was filled with Carnival rides and teachers staffing booths while children watched their house of learning turned into a party just for them. The helicopter Liz always managed to get ( or was it Fran) for the egg drop experiment.

Don’t miss VAA New Works Series opener this weekend when veteran Island movement artist/choreographer Karen Nelson and friends celebrate the experience of embodiment. The Blue Heron walls will come down for this performance featuring some of the regions top names in movement and performance including: dancer/choreographers Kris Wheeler and Lila Hurwitz (both of Seattle), visual installation artist Susan Gladstone (Portland), percussionist John Dancey (Vashon) and more. 

Vashon Allied Arts’ 2011-2012 Chamber Music Series begins its third season thanks to the unerring artistic vision of Island cellists Rowena Hammill and Douglas Davis and chamber music fans who clamor for more. The opening concert, Friday, October 7, showcases Beethoven’s immortal masterpiece for piano trio "Beethoven Archduke Trio," with Stephen Bryant on violin, Douglas Davis on cello and Allan Dameron on piano. The celebrated piece, written during Beethoven’s "middle" period (1803 to 1814) was considered to be among his finest compositions.

I went to talk to T Yamamoto about her sustainable sheep breeding program, but came away with a larger perspective.  The ideas in this article do not represent a consensus of the Transition group, but I feel that we need to have a conversation about this.  T is a founding partner of Wolftown, a non-profit wildlife rehab center here on Vashon, now in its fifteenth year.  She has also been working to breed a tough and resilient sheep that is adapted to our mild and moist environment.  

A reader asked for more Epicure columns that tell what foods help defeat different diseases. Okay, here’s a start.

We had a round of summer colds in September. Now—brace yourself—we’re heading into the winter cold and flu season. It lasts from October through March. But you don’t have to succumb. There are several nutritional tricks you can employ to nip a cold in the bud, snatch it from your body at first sniffle; better yet, instantly cure the sore throat that often heralds an approaching cold or influenza.

I have been thinking about history lately, which is nothing really new, on a number of levels. Along with that I have been contemplating terms that are inherent to the domain of historical record- those of permanence, impermanence, loss, gain, proliferation and extinction. There is also the whole thing of interpretation, where we find something of a curiosity from the past, and because of its oddness or state of decay we surmise and extrapolate a meaning for it that suits our need for an assigning of purpose for this thing’s coming into existence.

On Saturday, September 24, eight labyrinths on Vashon Island will be open to the public from 10:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. You are invited to take a self-guided tour of these labyrinths and the gardens where they are set.

The tour begins at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, which is located on the Island highway across the street from the Vashon Community Care Center. Maps and directions to the various sites will be available there.

For the past ten years local author Judi Blaze has been compiling a collection of short stories that will be released the end of September. The collection includes 17 stories in a book entitled NORMAL PEOPLE ARE THOSE WE DON’T KNOW WELL published by Black Rose Press. The stories chronicle the lives of quirky, often unhinged characters which show us that despite how peculiar we think others may be—they really are not so different; some involve love and loss, while others are humorous, poignant and endearing.

Michael Laurie, Island water and home energy efficiency specialist, had some valuable comments on part of what I wrote last week that I now realize was misleading.  For the purpose of clarification and to get the benefit of his knowledge and insight on the tools and theories that are already out there, I include his comments here.

“I completely agreed with almost everything you wrote in your last article in the Loop, but I disagree with some of the following statements in quotes: