Blue Skies,, Grey Skies

I always wonder about how people who move here in spring/summer respond to their first fall with its more than fair share of deep grey skies, early darkness (at both ends of the day and we still have a week+ to the end of daylight savings time), and frequently persistent rain.  Gardening is still required, but not that much fun since it's mostly clean-up and burn piles with very little persistent harvest of fruits and vegetables (we still have apples, there will always be kale, and there is yet a large box of green and reddening tomatoes on the porch:  for a local recipe for excess tomatoes, see here:  rustic tomato soup--although I can't vouch for that 4 cups of basil).

Metaphorically, the state of the peninsula is also in a bluesky-greysky mode.  Under "blue skies", we have the fact that the Friends of the Point Roberts Library are very close to achieving their fundraising goal ($538,000) and it is a distinct possibility that renovation of the Julius Fire Hall could be completed next year.  That task will be under the supervision of the Park and Recreation District and they will undertake the responsibility for raising/providing additional funds should the project cost more than $538,000.  It's coming up on the election, so several of the Districts will be welcoming new Commissioners or returning old ones.  I suppose the fact of elections is a good thing, so it can have a place in the blue-sky paragraph.  The outcomes?  If you put in the giant new jail emporium being planned for Whatcom County, it looks less sunny.  Currently, even at the federal level,  there is a significant consensus about the need to have fewer people in jail in the U.S.   So why does the Whatcom County Executive think there is a need to have an even bigger jail?  You might think that with marijuana legalization, fewer low-level drug offenders would be being sent to the county jail and that the level of incarceration would already be down.  Well, who knows, but in the meantime, count me as a major skeptic for this project.

And then there are the grey-skies, including the radio towers.  Yes, the Superior Court said they can't be built which makes it bluesky, but the radio station people may yet appeal that decision and if they do, its back in grey-skies.  There is the missing dock, and until the County figures out how to do a better job and gets it returned to the water, it's a grey-sky issue.  The lighthouse at Lighthouse Park has had some encouraging moments, but the executive branch has offered plenty of discouragement.  And, finally, there is the dog-leash issue.  Generally, I favor the view that says, when your making new laws and regulations, think about how they will work in Point Roberts and consider whether some kind of accommodation is needed.  Sometimes, yes; sometimes, no.  If there is no place here for dogs to run around a bit, off a leash, then the County needs to get such a place established.  If it doesn't want to permit such activities in our public "[beach] parks," then the appropriate answer is not, "let them run through the private property that is the beach, but prevent them from running on the public property that is the beach.  Deeply grey skies, that one.

And then comes winter?  Oh, my gracious.