Category: Categories

One less mystery

This old farmhouse has intrigued me as long as I’ve lived here. I wondered about its story until a friend recently forwarded to me a newsletter from Sequim Museum and Arts that contained a short article about it. The home was built in the early 20th century and was constructed from a Sears-Roebuck kit. Originally the Knutsen farm, the 66 acre property was purchased for $2 an acre. A child raised on the farm, Agnes Knutsen, was a teacher for nearly 50 years and began her career at Sequim Elementary School.

A new family home was built in 1942 just west of the original farmhouse. Its current owners plan to leave the original farmhouse standing as a tribute to Sequim’s historical farms.

I’m CERTifiable

It’s probably not the kind of “certifiable” you may be thinking of. Last weekend I completed three weekend courses of training to become part of the Sequim Community Emergency Response Team, or “CERT.” This is a volunteer effort to prepare a corps of community responders to assist in basic search and rescue in the event of a widespread disaster as might occur with a major earthquake.

Our group of over 20 trainees first had two intensive classroom sessions on all aspects of disaster response from organization and documentation to communications and triage.

Last Saturday we spent part of the day with field work, hands on training in first aid assessment, patient carrying, search and rescue, fire suppression, cribbing (structuring lifting of heavy objects), and forced entry (for rescue purposes, of course).

We used the Fire Department’s Maintenance, Operations and Training Facility for our training exercises, a facility well designed for the purpose.

The course is thorough and comprehensive. Just enough to teach me how much more I need to know to be effective. It will be followed by monthly classes designed for more in depth knowledge and, of course, more time to absorb the two inch stack of coursework we all took home.

Last month DH and I attended a sobering meeting on what might be expected in the event of a major earthquake in our region. Training to assist the community in case of such a disaster kicks preparedness up a notch. If you’re a local and interested in the CERT program, take a look at the Fire Department’s CERT web page.