By Elizabeth Griffin

The annual Wallingford Garden Tour is always an inspiration for attendees. It takes place on Sunday, June 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. this year and includes 10 gardens that are lovingly cultivated, many by professional designers and landscapers. There is no place better to get ideas and motivation for your own plot of dirt.

This year, one of the owners participating in the tour is Barbara Libner, plant buyer and interior designer for Ravenna Gardens at University Village. Referring to her garden in Wallingford as her laboratory, she is happy to share her expertise with visitors.

Libner moved into her home nine years ago and began working on the half-sized lot immediately. She has replaced most of the lawn with structured circular and straight paths, as well as seating areas that highlight beautiful beds of evergreens and perennials. Her plant choices provide foliage and a variety of color year round.

“Using good foliage color and shrubs instead of a lot of annuals and perennials keeps my garden low maintenance, yet still colorful,” Libner said. “I use very little water in summer, as the plants are all pretty drought tolerant. Also, I don’t use chemicals.”

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An estimated 30,000 books were gathered by King County Rotarians recently. They will be sent to South Africa.

By Elizabeth Griffin

A group of 118 volunteers recently gathered at Northwest Harvest in Seattle to box up an estimated 30,000 donated books for Rotary Books for the World. The books will be sent to Texas where Rotarians will pack them into cargo containers along with other book donations from across the United States. These will be shipped to South Africa, where South African Rotarians will distribute them to schools, libraries and other organizations.

Rotary Books for the World began when a Texas Rotarian was volunteering in South Africa. According to Seattle organizer Judy Ginn, the Rotarian was horrified to see a teacher take out a large pair of shears and begin cutting a book. When he asked why she was doing so, she replied, “We don’t have enough books. I cut them so everyone has a little bit to read.”

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By Katherine Luck

There’s power under the hood of the 2011 Jaguar XF. As the only car in its segment to offer an all-V8 engine lineup, you can be sure that when you stomp on the gas, you’re going to get a reaction. Not just from the car, but from your passengers, who will be gripping their seats as you accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds. That’s right: five and a half seconds. Less than the time it takes most of us to answer a ringing cell phone.

You’ll pay for your speed with low gas mileage, of course. Bottoming out at 16 mpg in the city and topping out at 27 on the highway, I was surprised by how soon I had to refuel. I’m sure any time I wasted at the gas pump was more than made up for in time saved getting from Point A to Point B, however.

The base model comes with a voice-guided navigation system, Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free calling and Satellite Radio. The premium edition also includes heated and cooled front seats, keyless entry, and leather seats in front and back, all of which my passengers and I enjoyed tremendously.

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This badly damaged photo was brought to Dawn Massey at Heritage Photographs.

 

By Elizabeth Griffin

Photographs can be beautiful reminders of a family’s heritage and memories. Unfortunately, too often they become faded and torn. Now, thanks to technological advances, it’s easier than ever to restore old photographs and make them suitable for display.

Dawn Massey, owner of Heritage Photographs in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, has been restoring old and damaged photographs for 25 years. An artist, she applies the same skill set to Photoshop that she used when restoring photographs by hand. The only difference is that it takes a lot less time now.

As she works in Photoshop to recover a family’s only photograph of their son, Massey uses multiple layers to build a realistic portrait: filling in a background that has faded, experimenting with fills to restore a shirt to its original design, and taking tones from other photos to create a natural gradation of skin tone and give shape to ears.

It is not unusual for Massey to spend upwards of ten hours on one photo to bring it to perfection. “I can’t actually charge enough money for the work that I put into them, because it would just be unreasonable. I quote a price before I start, so we are agreed on how much it costs. Then, if I choose to overspend my hours it’s up to me, but I’m doing something that I enjoy doing,” she said.

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By Katherine Luck

It was billed as a “never-before-attempted marathon of literary wonder.” In October 2010, 36 authors from around the Puget Sound gathered to write a novel in six days. Among the brave writers were local household names such as novelist Stephanie Kallos, popular romance writer Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestseller Erik Larson, and the masterminds behind the literary stunt, Jennie Shortridge and Garth Stein.

Shortridge and Stein conceived this unique undertaking for the 2010 Arts Crush Literary Week. As the two pondered what kind of event would be engaging to the public, they thought, “Readings — nah, everybody does readings. Then we thought: writing,” said Shortridge.

“It almost started out as a big goof, but then we started to take if more seriously,” said Stein.

The pair spent three months meticulously planning the writing marathon, which they called “The Novel: Live!” They brainstormed plot ideas, established an engaging protagonist who would grow through the course of the book, and set the novel in Seattle’s literary arts center, Richard Hugo House, which they renamed Hotel Angeline. They planned to hold “The Novel: Live!” at Hugo House, where the writers could type out their chapter of the book in front of an audience, with the text streaming live on the Internet and the event simulcast by webcam.

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By Katherine Luck

Sheep shearer Amy’s last name may be “Wolf,” but the sheep had nothing to fear when she set out to part them from their woolly coats in early April. The spring lambing had concluded at Gretchen’s Wool Mill in Monroe, meaning the new mother ewes were ready to go bare.

“I went to school to be a teacher. I quit my teaching job [recently]. I’m homeschooling my kids and I do shearing for giggles. It’s therapy,” said Wolf.

Wool production was an all-female affair at Gretchen’s Wool Mill this spring, with Wolf handling the shearing, ewes providing the fleece, and the eponymous mill owner, Gretchen Wilson, preparing the wool to be transformed into next fall’s sweaters.

Wolf has been a sheep shearer for 25 years. She got her start on her family’s sheep farm in Maple Valley. “My dad said, ‘Alright, we need shearers in the family.’ So my brother and I learned to shear,” she said. “I used to shear about 1,000 head a year.”

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By Elizabeth Griffin

Knowing the Spring Courtyard, the first formal structure completed in the Seattle Chinese Garden, will be officially dedicated on Sunday, May 15.

A plan for a Chinese garden in Seattle began in the 1980s after a sister city relationship was formed with Chongqing, a municipality of 32 million, adjacent to China’s Sichuan Province. When completed, the garden, located at 6000 16th Ave. S.W. on the South Seattle Community College campus, will be one of the largest Chinese garden outside of China.

The 4.6-acre site was chosen for several reasons, according to Sandy Marvinney, communications chair for the Seattle Chinese Garden board of directors. It is on a hilly ridge, which resembles Chongqing; it offers a direct view of Seattle and several mountains; and it is on a college campus, which opens up educational opportunities.

Construction of Knowing the Spring Courtyard began last August when 21 master craftsmen from China came to build it, bringing all the woodwork, tile, windows, stone, pillar bases and traditional tools that they would need. According to Marvinney, organizers in Chongqing conducted a nationwide competition to hire the best firm for the job. The craftsmen were from Changshu Ancient Style Construction Company, one of half a dozen specialty firms in China that restore antiquities and construct modern buildings in the traditional style.

There are four elements that are essential in a Chinese garden. “To create a Chinese garden, you must include architecture, water, rockery and plants,” Marvinney said.

Gardens within China vary depending on the region where they are located. The Seattle Chinese Garden is designed in the Sichuan style, which is open like a park, with a balance of trees and vegetation to architecture. It makes use of natural color and divides the space into courtyards, so even small gardens seem larger because visitors don’t see the entire garden at once. Instead, courtyards have “leak windows,” which “leak a view” into the rest of the garden.

“The whole point is to give visitors a hint of what is beyond the courtyard. Or, if looking in, of what is inside,” Marvinney said.

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By Katherine Luck

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Photo courtesy of Eleanor Stallcop-Horrox.

By Katherine Luck

“The year I had cancer, I was supposed to sing the Verdi Requiem,” said Eleanor Stallcop-Horrox. The soprano and Seattle native, who will perform this month in Seattle Opera’s production of The Magic Flute, has sung in many of these traditional masses for the dead, including the Fauré Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem and Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms.

But in 2005 she couldn’t sing in the Verdi Requiem because she was fighting for her life.

“The saga began the day after the one-year anniversary of my husband’s death,” she said. At the time, her health insurance, which had been carried over from her late husband’s policy, was about to expire. She decided to make a doctor’s appointment before her health coverage ended. She hadn’t felt a lump or had any symptoms of breast cancer. Nonetheless, “Somehow, I managed to schedule a mammogram in my numbness,” she said.

Unexpected “anomalies” were found. She had eight more mammograms, then an ultrasound that revealed what she describes as two little black holes.

“One was quite aggressive,” she said. “If I had waited a year, I would have been toast.”

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(L) Knut Einarsen stands with a 435 lb. halibut he caught during his years as a fisherman in the Bering Sea. Photo courtesy of Knut Einarsen

By Elizabeth Griffin

Three times a week, Knut and Haldis Einarsen drive from their Kenmore home to Café Stua at the Leif Erikson Lodge in Ballard. There, they feast on Scandinavian open-faced sandwiches, gaining nourishment from food they are familiar with and visiting with friends they have known for decades.

With over 62 years of involvement in the Sons of Norway, Knut was a natural choice for honorary marshal of this year’s Norwegian Constitution Day celebration. Along with being a dedicated member of the lodge, he has quite a life story to tell.

Born in Norway, Knut was one of seven siblings. As a young man, he worked with his father hauling cement on their family boat. It was through that work that he met his wife, Haldis, who was the daughter of the man who owned the cement factory.

Smitten, Knut had a problem. He was only at the factory during the middle of the night and there was no time to talk to Haldis. One night, in desperation, he decided to throw pebbles at her bedroom window to wake her up. Unfortunately, he got the wrong window and her mother woke up instead. What could have been disastrous eventually worked out when Haldis’s parents allowed Knut to court Haldis. The couple will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary this summer.

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