Ell Alley: November 2013

Friday, November 29, 2013

Thanksgiving at Ell Alley

Bleys, Seth, Jetta & Colleen

Gail, Drew, Sherry, Rusty, Carol.

Carol, Sherry, Rusty, Steve.

11-28-13 Thanksgiving Day at Ell Alley

There were 10 for Thanksgiving dinner at Ell Alley. Guests arrived in the late afternoon, starting with Rusty's friend Drew at 4. Jordan's family members came around 6. We gave tours. Gail (sister) made appetizers. There was wine & gin. Steve cooked the turkey & mashed the potatoes. Rusty made yams with chocolate sauce & sweet potatoes without. He also carved the turkey. Jordan made cran-apple sauce, scalloped corn & gravy. Sherry (cousin) made green salad. Carol (cousin) made fruit salad & pumpkin-pecan pie. Bleys (nephew) Seth (father) & Colleen (mother) waited in the living room with Jetta (dog) in their laps. We ate at 7:30. It was good. We were happy. We love our new home.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Nursery Trees

Steve & Rusty follow Tree Lady.

Tree Lady tags the Excelsa cedar we selected.

Jordan & Tree Lady head toward the field of vine maple.

Cascade Mountains in the distance.

Jordan inspects a vine maple.

We rented a cargo van & drove 45 minutes to NurseryTrees.com in Snohomish on Saturday, November 23. The day was beautifully sunny & somewhat cold. Frozen mud lay between the rows of trees. Tree Lady showed us fields of trees with snowy mountains beyond, across the Snohomish Valley. We chose 3 vine maples (Acer circinatum) & 1 Excelsa cedar (Thuja plicata 'Excelsa'). It took a long time for the 2 Mexican men to dig them up, wrap the roots in burlap & forklift them into the van. The trees were all about 8 feet tall with root balls 2 feet in diameter. We returned to Ell Alley, unloaded & placed the vine maples in their holes, laid the cedar on the path & returned the van. On the followed day, the cedar was set in its hole. The new garden was transformed with the addition of sizeable trees.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe

The carpenter at work.

Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe wall-mounted furniture in the dining room on 11-16-13.

Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe wall-mounted furniture in the office on 11-16-13.

Two weeks after we had moved into Ell Alley, the carpenter came to mount the Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe furniture on the walls. Most of the pieces went in the office, where there are 3 desks, drawers, shelves & a cabinet with sliding glass doors. In the dining room, right across from the table, are the remaining pieces: another cabinet with sliding glass doors, a cupboard, drawers & a magazine rack. Jordan's parents collected these pieces between 1961 & 1981. In fact we have a file with a check dated 28 Jan 1961, made by Colleen. The Veggen De Luxe line was designed by Thorbjørn Afdal for Bruksbo Tegnekontor & manufactured by Mellemstrands Trevareindustri in Norway.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Moving Day

Jetta at Ell Alley on 11-2-13.

The living room on 11-2-13.

The living room arranged.

The bed after delivery on 11-2-13.

The bed made.

The dining room & kitchen on 11-2-13.

Steve & Rusty at the dining room table on 11-2-13.

We moved in on Saturday November 2, 2013. We had moved a few things by car on November 1. But 11/2 was the day we got the truck & the hired guys came to load & unload it. Rusty & Steve spent the day supervised the movers at the apartment & the storage space. Jetta & Jordan stayed at Ell Alley while the delivery guys came from Sears with the bed, refrigerator, washer & dryer. Jordan arranged furniture & unpacked boxes. That evening, we had take out food from Thai Recipe.

About Ell Alley

Ell Alley is the home of Jetta, Jordan, Kitty, Rusty, Steve & Toby. It is named for the alley beside & behind the house that forms an ell: the shape of the letter L. It is located in the Rainier Vista development, in the Rainier Valley of Seattle, which extends 7 miles southeast from Downtown Seattle to Rainier Beach, between Beacon Hill & the lakeside ridges of Mt Baker, Lakewood & Seward Park. Ell Alley is 4 miles from Downtown Seattle, 0.4 miles from the Columbia City Station & 0.7 miles from the center of the Columbia City Landmark District.

Rainier Valley History

The first settlers arrived in the 1850s, but settlement was slow until the forest was cut down & milled, as it was throughout the city. Developers bought logged-off land toward the end of the 19th century. They laid out the communities of Genesee, Columbia City, Hillman City, Brighton & Dunlap.

Cheap land in the valley, just outside the City of Seattle, attracted Italians of rural origins & they planted large, productive gardens. The north end of the Rainier Valley became known as Garlic Gulch. Japanese immigrants also had farms in the valley. The produce filled local markets including Pike Place.

The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway opened the valley to greater development, reaching Columbia City in 1891 & Renton in 1896. In 1907, the City of Seattle annexed most of southeast Seattle, including the Rainier Valley.

At the start of World War II, Japanese residents were forced into internment camps east of the mountains. Tens of thousands of war workers came to Seattle to work at the Boeing Company, the shipyards & the port. The US government constructed thousands of temporary housing units at Rainier Vista, Stadium Homes (now Mt Baker Village) & Holly Park in the Rainier Valley.

After the war, the temporary housing became public, low-income housing. Suburban development took many white residents away from the valley. Blacks moved into the Rainier Valley from the over-crowded, nearby Central Area. Interracial couples found acceptance here. Filipinos arrived in large numbers.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, refugees came from southeast Asia: Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao & Mien peoples. Many settled in the Rainier Valley. Chinese continued to arrive, although most settled on nearby Beacon Hill. There was a small influx of Mexicans. Somali immigration began after US involvement in Somalia in 1992.

Work on new housing at NewHolly (formerly Holly Park) began in 1997 & continued for a decade, with 1400 units sold to private owners. The rebuilding of Rainier Vista began in 2003 & still continues. Columbia City rapidly gentrified starting in the late 1990s. Many units of new housing were built in the form of townhouses, condos & apartments.

The current population of the Rainier Valley is about 41,000. The racial breakdown is 34.1% Asian, 26.9% Caucasian, 26% African American, 1.6% Pacific Islander, 6.5% Mixed Race, 1% Native American and 3.4% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 7.2% of the population.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.

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