Portage Bay Grange

We were happy and excited to get a call from Kevin at Portage Bay Grange offering to be our retail partner in Seattle. Now you can buy a Meadow Creature broadfork in the U District, just north of the University Bridge. It also gave me a great excuse to visit Portage Bay Grange.

PBG specializes in feed and supplies for urban farm animals, and they have a beautiful array of books and tools aimed at urban farmers, along with some nice soaps, home items, and treats. This would be a fun place to visit just to check out the possibilities or buy a gift for someone who is doing urban gardening. 

The rabbit was feeling shy that day, but the chicks were chipper. From the signage in the chick room, it looks like they get a lot of visitors in to meet the baby chicks. A good winter-day outing for anyone and especially for kids.

Olympia Artesian Well

When I first moved to Olympia in 1981, there were several artesian wells in town, and learning about them helped me tune into the local environment. 

The Olympia brewery in Tumwater was running an advertising campaign that ascribed the beer’s quality to “the artesians,” portrayed as helpful gnomes or devas.

One artesian well was in front of the old Mark & Pak grocery store; it was paved over when the store was remodeled for BayView. The drinking fountain at the corner of 4th and Washington was artesian, and may be still. The Spar advertised its pure artesian drinking water. 

But the pipe that jutted from the asphalt in the middle of the parking lot near 4th and Jefferson was the best one to catch drinking water. With several gallon or five-gallon jugs, you could get a day’s supply for a communal household in a few minutes.

The access in the parking lot was contested for years; water advocates wanted to see the whole site made into a park, while the owners had no interest in parting with a valuable piece of real estate. Urged on by advocates, the city eventually came to a deal with the parking lot owners and acquired a portion of the lot for the Olympia Artesian Well. 

  

This beautiful mosaic art was added recently. The water flows at 10 gallons a minute, and it’s free. When I stopped by to take pictures on a brilliant, cold January day, the dude filling his jar saw me with my camera and asked, “Have you TASTED it?”  

It’s delicious.