BRRRRRRR, It's cold!!

Denise and I arrived in Seattle Washington Tuesday.  We'll be off island for about 3 weeks to visit Sahmie, then down to Vancouver for Ryan, and Salem Oregon for Jessa and her new baby girl coming soon.  We'll also be seeing parents, friends and other family in the area while we're here.  We visited Cody and Kenzie on our way to the island in February so we won't see him this time around. 

We stopped in Puerto Rico on our way to Washington and got a closer view of the mountains we can see from our property, 76 miles away.   One of these days we'll fly over and spend some time here to see all the good things my sister Karen talks about.   Hard to believe our little islands population is only 1% of Puerto Rico's. 

Island temperature is typically 74-88 degrees, and the lowest temp in the last 6 months was 68 degrees.  Fall in Seattle is just as we remember it, cold, wet and rainy so a warm cup of coffee is a great way to start the day. 

Sahmie took us for a walk around Juanita Beach Park on Lake Washington in Kirkland.  You can see downtown Seattle in the picture below.   We stayed fairly warm and the rains held off until later in the day.   

We were quickly reminded that island life is far different than the mainland.  Most people in Seattle, and other areas avoid eye contact and stay in their own little worlds.  Saying  hello or good morning to a stranger seems to leave people with a startled or annoyed response.  When you enter a room on the island you address the room, not a single person with good morning, good afternoon, etc, and usually the entire room responds.  Walk up to a store counter in the mainland, and you just ask for what you're looking for; you don't dare do that on the island or you'll be ignored or addressed with a stern "Good day".  Every conversation is started with a greeting and a sincere request of how you are doing today.  It's something Denise and I appreciate and love about the islands.  Before we moved we had fun walking in downtown Portland, seeking eye contact while saying hello to see how many people would respond in a polite way.  Try it in your city and I believe you'll be surprised at the responses.  

It's hard to believe Sahmie graduated UW around six years ago.  During her time in college, and living in Mercer Island, Kirkland and other Seattle areas afterwards, Denise and I have spent a lot of time up here and know the city pretty well.  We had a good time walking around, hitting some of the usual tourist spots like Pike Place Market.  The picture below if from the new market area that recently opened.  

Back on the island, our friends and neighbors, Dave and JoAnn, in the apartment below Kent's house where we're staying, decided to move back to South Carolina.  They had purchased and shipped a 2017 Jeep Wrangler, and shipped their Toyota Prius here but didn't want to ship them back.  Denise and I had Jeeps in the past and needed one for some rough roads on the island so we bought theirs.  The Jeep has the towing package and we still need a better way of hauling larger house supplies;  we'll either sell one of the cars and get a trailer, or buy a cheap truck.  

The Bush Cook/Chef Cook Denise and I have been helping to prepare for was last weekend and was a great success.  Here's a few links to articles on the event: St Croix Source , VI Consortium

The owners of Sejah Farm, Dale and Yvette Browne are wonderful people who had lost almost everything in the hurricanes.  Much of what they didn't lose was stolen shortly after.  This didn't stop them from pushing on to have the second annual Bush cook.  Denise and I felt lucky to be at a time in our lives where we could spend a few months and help make it happen.  We had a great time and made many new friends along the way.  

Here's what we started with for the market tables.  We took Rum barrels and cut them down to 27 1/2 inches and used communication reels for table tops.  Dale and Yvette had an idea to use the leftover barrel tops and another reel to extend the tables.  I cut out pieces of the tables and built supports so they could be positioned in any direction like a baggage claim belt.  It worked well and the cut out pieces were painted with chalkboard paint and used as price signs in the market.  

Here's the final product.  I cut left over barrel bands open, welded them end to end, and screwed them to the table edge to hold the barrel top produce bins on the tables.  

Here's Denise helping a customer in the market on the first day of the event.  Patrick is an employee of the farm.  

Dale and Yvette changed the layout of the market tents for the event.  The original layout is shown in the outside table picture above with the white tarps.  We had to come up with an idea to keep the water off the tables in the tarp valley, so we decided to string wire between the ridges of the two tents, and use barrel staves as a support structure to divert the water.  It ended up working well and made the market appear more open than before.  Note to self: Do not try to put up a 20 X 25' tarp on a frame during a windy day!  We almost had a Marry Poppins moment but wrangled them down and fully secured them to the frames.  

The tent crew came in and erected the chef station tents.  Next came the electricity, water and work shelves for each tent.  20 chefs were scheduled for the event so Denise used barrels from near the market, and rolled another 85 barrels over 330' feet to the tents while I built the counter top areas using 5 barrels per station, lathe boards and sheets of PVC board. 

Here's the final product early on the first day, before many guests arrived.  It was a three day event with the first day being a demonstration day.  This featured a few local chefs showcasing their talents to teach islanders how to use local fruits, vegetables and meats to create an inexpensive meal. 

The second day was the chef cook competition.  Entry to the event gave the guests access to all the foods from the local chefs as they competed for the top vote.  All of the chefs created excellent dishes featuring chicken, goat, rabbit, pork, vegan and vegetarian options.  Kimba Kabaka, chef and owner of Café Roots-n-Kulchah, won first place in the Bush Cook with his slice of roasted breadfruit topped with ackee and a spinach ricotta sauce.

The final event on Sunday was a five course dinner featuring a few of the local chefs.  One local restaurant closed down for the evening so the staff could work the event.  When we arrived Denise worked the ticket area while I worked on a few electrical issues before the dinner started.  They had good participation for the event and the weather was perfect.  Denise and I enjoyed the evening but forgot to grab a few pictures. 

The Browne family and their friends are great.  We look forward to our continued friendship and help on future bush cooks, or any other project they may have to rebuild their farm.  If any blog readers are interested in helping out they can make a donation on their website sejahfarm.com   You can read more about them and their achievements for island agriculture on their website. 

That's all for now.

Kevin & Denise