Island Year, by Hazel Heckman (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1972)
While Hazel Heckman’s earlier book, Island in the Sound, “dealt primarily with the human population, past and present,” Island Year turns “to the ecological world of nature,” with month-by-month observations of the natural world of Anderson Island, the southernmost island in Puget Sound. While most of Heckman’s entries share the island’s beauty, she also describes the encroaching development, and other threats, to her home place in the early 1970s. Although first published over 35 years ago, Island Year remains a worthwhile guide to the island’s riches, whether as visitor or armchair traveler.
March ended on a note of gentle wind and warmth, and April began. We turned a page on the calendar and there was the magic month, the month of bud and blossom. Rosettes of honestie plants appeared along the east shore among fireweed and bracken. Each year the plant spreads farther. Seeds blow and sprout. Sprouts grow and bloom and reach fulfillment. – from “April,” Island Year, by Hazel Heckman
