This seems to be the summer of critters to surprise and entertain us round all the kitchen repairs. The girls occasionally walk the neighbors’ dogs. The Yorkies are escape artists who can lead the girls on an Olympic dash or a slugs pace depending on their mood. The Bishon next door goes wild over squirrels which love our ravine and likely raid my blueberries. My fence is a miniature boulevard. They come home out of breath half the time with huge smiles. A cleaver pair of chickadees decided our ground cover by the lilacs would be a perfect nesting spot with wild huckleberry and blackberry to eat, vines to ward off cats. This was a great plan until the contractor started perching his table saw in the front yard invading nesting territory. Crazed chirping and dive bombing ensued for many days. Thankfully, the weekend came and nestlings began their chaotic and erratic flight. Woke up many days to babes in Rhodies calling for help and loud instructional chirping like driving instructors. Bunnies hop over our foot tall weedy “lawn” that is 90% brown moss with the drought.

Laura sometimes partly wakes up at dawn to hear raccoons fighting in the cedar trees and I’ve rather enjoyed waking to the cries of the hawks and eagles who have been nesting in the ravine nearby. All kinds of birds migrate through the yard. With the heat, I sleep with screen doors open and listen to the cacophony. However, I’ve had second thoughts about sleeping bags on the deck. Some moisture ants found their way in for a few days. In prior years, a deer, possum or fox would wander round through the greenbelt passage ways. A few weeks ago, Matt looked out his window around 11 and spied a full grown coyote padding past our porch and into the yard. When he found the gate closed, he circled back between the houses. Two days ago, the girls and I were shocked to see a teenage coyote trotting down the sidewalk seemingly oblivious to our car approaching in the middle of the day! The Mountain to Sound Greenbelt Trail is alive and active, just a variation of I-90.

Bellevue has touted itself and advertised that it is a city within a park and it has succeeded. The goal was to improve our ravine and creek that feeds Lake Sammamish. It all began with striving to improve our tree canopy to support a well-balanced ecosystem within. Well, the two flying squirrels down our chimneys were the first signal of new critter habitation ten years ago. The city owns the property north of our fence and sent surveyors to calculate bearings on the southern section down to the lake that they wish to purchase that is not maintained to extend a hiking trail. They do a nice job and anything is better than utter neglect, however we now have 75-100 pound freight trucks on the move and hunt.

Having lived in this general area since 1970, I remember this same quiet, concrete slab road way for casual Sunday drives with 2 bedroom cottages on the lake and endless trees. Now elderly friends lived in one of them for 50 years. The ever-present telephone poles that hugged the street carried calls that started with names like Sherman, Alpine and Baldwin and shared party lines. I drove a VW along it as my future home was built on the hillside during high school. Slowly, pocket patches of land produced crowded lots with a handful of expensive homes. Tim loved driving his Thunderbird and RX7 round the bends at 60 mph back when you could get away with it at one am. Matt and Kristin learned to drive the lake road during 6 months of a 8 million dollar improvement for a single mile stretch, trying to avoid those who think you don’t need one way signs and worse, those who we could hear running the gauntlet at breakneck speed in the middle of the night.

I have now experienced an 8 mile backup from Microsoft down West Lake Sammamish Parkway to I-90, taking 30 minutes in what should be a 10 minute commute from work. This was inconceivable even 10 years ago. However, creatures still stop our world. The first sunny day in May over 70 degrees, there was a traffic jam by the northern park and for some strange reason, every car was at a standstill around 5pm. What was this? Could it be an accident or a kid crossing the street with a bike? There slowly emerged from a view of metal and motors, a duck with a half dozen of the smallest ducklings I have ever seen trying to scamper across the road in a journey that took minutes for tiny webbed feet. It was a human’s day for boating, but the first day of swimming lessons for a determined parent! I burst out laughing and so did the others who approached in the opposite lane. I do not know a lake resident or commuter who isn’t enriched by seeing a blue heron or eagle soar by as they drive. It is a favored concrete trail, free of stoplights and full of beauty that will forever renew those who travel on it.

Reflections by Sue Rietveld
HOA Social Chair 2004-2014

PS Newcomers give locals strange looks and you can see the cloud of confusion descend. Sammamish High School is in South Bellevue by Phantom Lake. It is 53 years old. The city of Sammamish is only 10 years old and it is up on the Issaquah Plateau where my dad lives roughly 10 miles away. Their high school is Skyline, Issaquah High is in the proper down town location. Another tale would come from Gaby and Liz Clark on how the subdivision became divided into two different school district feed zones. That happened in the late ‘70’s. It was a long running Journal American topic for months on end. A saga I read in high school and hearing social commentary from the high schoolers in Renton and Bellevue.