info630005

By Sara Jo Kinslow, Eco-Restore December 5, 2025 The Shape of Change At the edge of winter on Fidalgo Island, the landscape feels suspended—quiet, breathing, waiting. The alder leaves along the Guemes Channel have fallen, their scent mingling with salt and cedar as tides lap softly against the rocky shore. On still mornings, fog drifts low through the evergreens at Washington Park, and everything seems to pause between inhale and exhale. This is the season of slow transformation—when the...

The Power of Edges by Sara Jo Kinslow There’s a quiet brilliance to Fidalgo Island in November. Walk the bluff at Rosario Head after a storm, and you’ll feel it—the edge where madronas cling to rock, their roots gripping cracks as waves crash below. The air carries salt and cedar in equal measure. The land and sea trade stories here, and everything alive seems to listen. In permaculture, we call this living conversation “the edge.”  It’s the space where two worlds meet, and in that meeting,...

October in the Northwest Garden Courtesy of Eco-Restore The light is different now. On misty October mornings, the Skagit River carries alder leaves like gold coins offered back to the sea. Along the Centennial Trail, maples release their brilliance one leaf at a time, carpeting the path in reds and rusts. The air is cooler, richer with the scent of cedar and damp soil, and every corner of the garden whispers: it is time to prepare, to tuck things in, to sow what will quietly work while you...