With prime yard sale season in full swing, both the Northgate Community Center and the Eagles Mother Aerie No. 1 have planned community garage sales that are in need of your “trash,” otherwise known as somebody else’s treasure.

On Friday, Aug. 3, you can rent a table for $20 to sell your goods from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Yard Sale at Northgate Community Center, 10510 Fifth Ave. N.E. For more information, contact the center at 206-386-4283.

And the following weekend, on Aug. 11, the Eagles order at 8201 Lake City Way N.E. is bringing back the community-wide Maple Leaf Garage Sale. President Dan Kerege is hoping households throughout the neighborhood will participate as they have in past years, but the Eagles also will have its own garage sale that day that will be open to sellers who don’t have the space for their own garage sale.

You can either rent a table for $15, or donate items to the Eagles to add to their own sale. For more information, contact Faye at 206-762-5125.

If you would like to join the community-wide garage sale, email [email protected] and we’ll add you to the list:

• 9101 Roosevelt Way N.E.: “We are in the process of moving from a three bedroom house to a boat, so there will be MANY items for sale.”
• Block-long sale on 14th Ave. N.E. between 82nd and 85th will include the home numbers 8232, 8228 and 8224
• 1219 N.E. 96th St.
• 814 NE 80th Stree (starting at 9:30 a.m.)

Did you get a chance at Wednesday’s Maple Leaf Summer Ice Cream Social to check out the diorama of the new Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, where hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate the next Summer Social?

Donna Hartmann-Miller, a member of the Maple Leaf Community Council’s executive board and chair of the Friends for a Greater Maple Leaf Park committee, spent the entire social showing off the model of what the park will look like now that the reservoir lid is complete. She writes on our Facebook page:

Wasn’t it great? I love the social, although my throat hurts. Such a good time.

Recently, she also updated the community via the council’s quarterly newsletter. Highlights of the new park include: (more…)

A new addition to the flock of Maple Leaf parakeets? Reader Mike asked us to share this news:

A very friendly multi-color parrot or parakeet flew on our deck Sat 7/28 at around 4P.

Contact me with identifying characteristics to recover your bird that flew the coop.

Mike can be reached at [email protected].

Early Saturday morning a Lake City Way marijuana dispensary was robbed at gunpoint and 40 plants were taken, according to various news sources included our news partner The Seattle Times. According to the article:

Police say three men forced their way inside the dispensary about 4:30 a.m. and two were armed with handguns. They held the 70-year-old night watchman at gunpoint.

The robbers also took a laptop computer and fled in the watchman’s car. He was not injured.

According to a KING5.com article, the dispensary is located on the 8800 block of Lake City Way, where we’re not aware of a dispensary. The article notes:

Narcotics detectives are determining whether the dispensary is legally permitted.

We’ll try to get more details about the crime and the dispensary.

It’s been a busy year for financial advisor Harald Kohl, who recently moved his Edward Jones office from Maple Leaf’s Roosevelt business district to the burgeoning Thornton Place, which is nearly full after years of struggling.

After spending five years at 9524 Roosevelt Way N.E., Kohl and his branch office assistant, Nazmeen Buksh, moved into the new office at the beginning of July.

“For me, one of the biggest appeals is that I’m now ADA-compliant,” Kohl said. The parking lot at his Roosevelt office was difficult to get in and out of, and could be even more difficult to maneuver for anybody in a wheelchair or with difficulty walking.

Kohl said he also hopes the brand-new location at 339 N.E. Thornton Place (in the passage just north of Subway) increases the confidence level of those he works with.

“Our new location does a better job of visually conveying that Edward Jones is a very secure and stable financial institution,” he said. (more…)

Hundreds of neighbors (and their dogs) flocked to the Maple Leaf Summer Ice Cream Social Wednesday night.

Here are a few photographs of the event.

This photo, capturing a fraction of the folks waiting in line for ice cream, is by Dane Doerflinger, a photographer and Maple Leaf resident. He’s posted more images here.

We again asked people “why do you love Maple Leaf“? Some of the replies:

“The park, the people, the culture!”

“Close to everything and fun.”

“Walkability. Best hardware store in the city. Superb video store. Yummy restaurants!”

“So convenient to everything - and wonderful people! And all the shop owners seem to be dog friendly. Thank you, Maple Leaf.”

More photos from Grace Seidel, a regular volunteer and organizer at the social, are here.

With this year’s Maple Leaf Summer Ice Cream Social only an hour away, we have an offer for the neighborhood.

At last year’s Summer Social, we used an instant camera to take pictures of dozens of neighbors who came by our table. You then wrote on the photos why you love Maple Leaf.

This year, we’re giving those photos back. Come by our table and pick up your photo from a summer ago.

You can write on the poster (pictured above) why you love Maple Leaf, or you can comment below.

See you in an hour!

The clouds have parted for Maple Leaf and the weather is expected to be mostly clear tonight with a low of 56 and high of 78 this afternoon. Perfect weather for the annual Maple Leaf Summer Ice Cream Social!

Stop by Maple Leaf Playground, 1020 N.E. 82nd St., between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. to eat free ice cream bars from Maple Leaf Ace Hardware and scoops from Peaks Frozen Custard, while meeting neighbors, businesses and other Maple Leaf organizations.

There will be entertainment for the whole family, including balloons and clowns for the kids, live music from Tumbuka and a visit from the Seattle Fire Department. Nearly 40 local businesses and governmental agencies also well be at booths around the park, including Maple Leaf Life, so please stop by and say hi to Mai Ling and Mike!

An email from the Maple Leaf Community Council adds that:

Under the center tent you can learn more about the MLCC, the Roosevelt Bike Lane plans from SDOT, Maple Leaf Emergency Preparedness, Sound Transit’s plans for Northgate, keeping your home secure, how the Department of Neighborhoods works for us, and where we are with the park remodel, and more.

In addition to the annual Maple Leaf Ice Cream Summer Social tomorrow (from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Maple Leaf Playground), there’s another important community-building event on the horizon.

Just two weeks away, on Aug. 7, is the annual National Night Out, an event that aims to gather neighbors together for the sake of community as well as safety.

Participating blocks are asked to register their event with the city’s Seattle Night Out website, where you can request a visit from city officials or for information about Block Watch and other safety program to be distributed among neighbors.

For many, it’s just a chance to get together and relax.

Is your block participating in National Night Out? What are your plans to bring people together for the evening?

We haven’t done a crime roundup so far this month, but several neighbors have reported in.

“My wife and son came home to our rental house having been broken into. The front door was wide open. They took our 40″ flat-screen TV, three Mac laptops, and some jewelry. They tossed drawers, etc.,” Stefan writes overnight.

He lives in the 1500 block of Northeast 85th Street. The burglars broke a window on a side door to let themselves in sometime during the afternoon, he said.

“One weird thing: We had a few bigger packages delivered from Amazon today. They were inside the house! So not only did they not take the packages, they moved them inside… Probably to make it easier to steal the TV.”

Another neighbor, who wants to remain anonymous, wrote Friday to report suspicious men hiding in the bushes at Maple Leaf Park.

“The first time I saw this, a mother and her children were playing catch on the baseball diamond. A man was in the bushes nearby completely hidden. I could not see him, but he spoke to the little boy through the bushes which made me realize he was there.”

The neighbor sent along a photo marked with the location.

“Yesterday I saw two men in the same bushes and after one of them left the other remained and was lurking around the kids who were playing soccer together and behaving a bit strangely.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but lots of kids are in this park and since the park area seems so open and visible it seems safe.

“There is no acceptable reason for men to be hiding/lurking/hanging out in the bushes. I don’t know if this person(s) is dangerous, but I don’t want to risk something happening.”

Finally, last week Kat wrote to report a burglary and grocery and mail thefts.

“We live off of Northeast Eighth Street on 85th Avenue Northeast and had our grocery delivery stolen from our front porch early this morning,” she wrote on July 11.

“There was also mail scattered in front of our home from Northeast 94th Street. My neighbor’s house was broken into two nights ago. They were able to get in through a back window.”

Although the Maple Leaf Summer Ice Cream Social is a week away, Sue pointed out that we don’t have to wait that long to celebrate our community.

Tonight, the Northgate Community Center at 10510 Fifth Ave N.E. is celebrating its sixth birthday, and will have entertainment for the whole family and, of course, free cake!

Photo from the 2011 Summer Social courtesy Dane Doerflinger Photography.

It’s nearly time again for our neighborhood’s biggest event of the year: the Maple Leaf Summer Ice Cream Social.

From 6:30-8:30 p.m. next Wednesday, July 25, you’re invited to come out to the Maple Leaf Playground at 1020 N.E. 82nd St. to meet your neighbors and learn more about your local businesses and other organizations.

And, as the name implies, there will also be plenty of free ice cream, donated again by Pete Brulla of Peaks Frozen Custard.

Music will be provided by Carl Heller with Tumbuka.

Be sure to stop by the Maple Leaf Life booth and introduce yourselves, too!

Do you have your tickets yet for Seattle Tilth’s Chicken Coop and Urban Farm Tour? You won’t have to travel too far this year to see a few of them, with a stop each in Maple Leaf and Meadowbrook, and two in Ravenna. But with more than 50 families ranging from Everett to Duvall opening up their homes for the annual tour, you might be missing out if you stick with just Northeast Seattle.

Our resident gardening blogger, Stacy Brewer of Seattle Seedling fame, has previously had her chicken coop featured in the tour (and in the Seattle Weekly!), so it’s no surprise the tour is returning to our chicken-friendly neighborhood.

What is the Chicken Coop and Urban Farm Tour? From Seattle Tilth’s website:

This is your chance to visit folks who are keeping chickens and creating “urban farms” right here in the city of Seattle and in the surrounding area.

In this self-guided tour to dozens of sites, you will see simple chicken coops built in an afternoon and elaborate set-ups that took weeks of planning and building. See exactly how chickens, goats, ducks and honey bees live together with people in an urban environment.

The tour is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 14. Tickets cost $12 (plus discounts for groups/families, bicyclists, youths and Seattle Tilth members) and are available at Brown Paper Tickets.

Coffee houses and taverns are continuing to race money for the victims of the Cafe Racer shootings at the end of May.

Here in Maple Leaf, Cloud City Coffee will hold a fundraiser for Cafe Racer on Saturday, July 28th, between 4 and 7 p.m.

Come have a drink, buy some art, listen to live music and know that all proceeds from the night will go to help those affected by the Cafe Racer shooting.

Cloud City is at 8801 Roosevelt Way N.E.

Four regulars at Cafe Racer, which is just down Roosevelt at Northeast 58th Street, were killed and another wounded by a mentally ill gunman, who later killed another woman and himself.

An online memorial site for the victims is here.

The Seattle Times had a story this week about volunteers repainting the cafe. You can read that story here.

Chef’s Dinners are returning this summer to The Wandering Cafe, 7533 Lake City Way, and if you’re lucky you just might get one of the few spots available for tomorrow night’s Happy Hour Preview, from 5-9 p.m.

In addition to hors d’oeuvres, for $25 you will get to try menu items including slow-roasted brown sugar pork, barbecued chicken wings, brioche rolls, green salad, green goddess dressing, cherry tomatoes, grilled potato salad, housemade bacon, peas, pickly cabbage slaw, grilled and roasted market vegetables and brownie sundaes, all served with summer sangria and beer from the Elliot Bay Brewing Company.

And as an added perk, you’ll be able to sign up first for the weekly Thursday Chef’s Dinners, which are taking place through September. Here’s a sneak peek of upcoming menus: (more…)