Ell Alley: November 2018

Friday, November 23, 2018

Vashon Thanksgiving 2018

Fauntleroy Ferry Dock

MV Kitsap ferry

Vashon Island

Vashon Ferry Dock

The Hardware Store Restaurant

Steve inside The Hardware Store Restaurant

Inside The Hardware Store Restaurant

Click here for more photos of Vashon Thanksgiving.

We went to Vashon Island on Thanksgiving Day to have a buffet of traditional food for lunch at The Hardware Store Restaurant. We took the ferry there at 11:30 & had lunch at 1. It began raining heavily after lunch. We drove around the island for a short time, looking at the scenery from the car. Then we took the ferry back to Seattle. We didn’t really have dinner. Each of us found something to eat & we watched the Netflix film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

November Rainbow 2018

Thursday, November 8, 2018

November Sunset 2018

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Halloween 2018

Halloween was on Wednesday 10/31. The weather was good. It didn’t rain & the temperature was 55 degrees. 44 kids came to our door & got a total of 98 pieces of candy. They ranged in age from 2 to 13. Only a few were our nearest neighbors. One kid lost his Mercer Middle School student ID card just outside our house. We weren't able to find our decorations from previous years. Jordan made new decorations & taped them on our front door. We had 2 pumpkins, but didn't carve them.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

October Sunset 2018

Monday, November 5, 2018

October Garden 2018

Phlomis species (Jerusalem Sage)

The view toward Beacon Hill

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Glauca Compacta’ (Dwarf Blue Alaskan Cedar)

Arctostaphylos ‘Sunset' (Manzanita)

Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Prostratus’ (Trailing Rosemary)

The garden in October was most beautiful at the end of the month, after it had rained significantly. There was almost an inch of rain in the first week of the month, then very little until the last week when it rained more than 2 inches. Total rainfall for the month was 3.78 inches, 0.30 inches more than normal. The average monthly temperature was 53.8 degrees, 1.0 degrees more than normal. The highest temperature was 72 on 10/16. The lowest was 43 on 10/23 & 10/24. In the final weeks of the month, Jordan raked leaves almost every day, because so many fell on the sidewalks & alley from our huge Oregon ash tree. He stuffed them in bags, then dumped them in bare places in the garden.

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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