For 32 years we lived at 4320 Old Mill Road sharing the land with raccoons, hundreds of birds, wandering deer who nibbled at the roses, a coyote or two and a few fish in a sort of pond.

Jan carefully, although it looked more like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, planted a garden of herbs, roses, new fruit trees to join the old, and a transplanted wisteria, covering a specially built “pavilion” with magnificent blossoms every spring to join the blooming fruit trees and  blackberries.

There  was even an old phone booth with a skeletal Superman in it. The phone booth was stolen once, and then returned, and now lives with the Bainbridge Historical Society.

And Jan founded on that land the Island Wildlife Shelter, where we struggled to save hundred of birds and animals injured or sickened on the island and from as far south as Olympia and north from Jefferson County. The shelter thankfully has evolved into the West Sound Wildlife Shelter near Bloedel Reserve.

We wandered past the land the other day and it had been stripped down to the grass, and we applaud the plans of Steve Romein and Ty Cramer to restore it into a working farm with the adjoining Adams property, where Theodore (Al) and Vi Adams raised their plentiful family, including the late long-time Bainbridge Island teacher Jean Adams.

All of the land was once part of the Pederson farm, and an old house built by Adolph Peterson still stands and the Romein-Cramer plans will keep a part of Bainbridge Island history alive.

Even more important is the purchase of the Nell Winney land on McDonald Road, where buffalo actually roamed recently.

Romein and Cramer hope to build physical connections by trails to the Environmental Learning Center, just across Old Mill, where wildlife still flourish.

We were delighted to learn what was once our land will be saved from MacMansions, cold concrete, and sprawling structures that can only contribute more pollution to this beautiful area whether it is called New Sweden or Eagledale.

We also hope a few of the once thousands of blackberry bushes that fed us, our neighbors and the thousands of birds and wild animals, can be saved.  The wild creatures came first.

We now live in a rented home on Cape George near Port Townsend with a great view of Discovery Bay, Protection Island, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and magnificent sunsets.

But we do miss the return of the hummingbird family every spring,  the sounds of the young raccoons learning their trade and the deer prancing down the driveway from the hill.

Thank you Steve Romein and Ty Cramer for saving some of Bainbridge Island.

Gil and Jan Bailey

Port Townsend