Lino Malgesini has worked as a part-time cattlehand behind the scenes at the Marysville Livestock Auction for the past seven years.

Visions of an agricultural past still remain, although the wires are the evidence of an impending future. This is looking due west at the Cascade Mountain Range.

Leland Larson retired from dairy farming in 1988, although he still raises a few cattle on his 60 acres in Lakewood. His grandfther homesteaded in Lakewood in the 1870s. Larson and his wife bought this property next door in 1949 and have farmed on it ever since.

This famous western red cedar stump was a 1,000-year-old tree killed by fire in 1893. It has been moved several times from spots along old Highway 99 to its present location, where it has stood since 1971 at a rest stop north of Exit 206 off Interstate 5 in Smokey Point.

Mondays and Tuesdays are when the Marysville Livestock Auction comes to life in Smokey Point

Pigs are among the items on the block at the Marysville Livestock Auction, which has been going on for 38 years.

Andrea Sommers, left, from Lake Stevens learns a self-defense move from instructor Wilma Carter during Tai Chi and Chi Kung class at the Stillaguamish Senior Center.

Seventh-grader Eric Pope volunteers after school at the historic Lakewood Grocery and Hardwood Store, which opened in 1907.

Glenn Harless rebuilt "Choo Choo 1" and five coal cars, and parked them in his yard. He's pretty handy with tractors, too. He has repaired and refurbished dozens of them.

Lakewood High School teacher Hartmut Schmakeit, left, explains to students in his greenhouse/landscaping class how to lay a tarp over the ground for an aquapond.

Lloyd Lounsberry, a father of four from Marysville, uses his precious free time to fish for trout at Twin Lakes in Lakewood.