There's a moment in almost every rural showing where the conversation finally turns to the part nobody wanted to think about. The kitchen is charming, the porch is wide enough for two chairs and a dog. And then the buyer asks: so where does the water come from, and where does it go? It's the right question, and the answer doesn’t always match what the listing photos suggest. This is the field guide I wish every buyer had a week before they wrote their first offer in Jefferson County. Wells, septics, rainwater catchment, composting toilets, and the rules that govern all of it.

Spring on the Olympic Peninsula is a ripe salmonberry. It's the end of the long wet dark, and you've earned it. A year on Hood Canal, told honestly, season by season.