Noted permaculture designer and teacher Dick Pierce will present a slide show and talk called An Introduction to Permaculture: Practical Sustainability on Thursday, April 17, at 5 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.

Permaculture, a movement begun in the 1970s, initially focused on soil management to promote agricultural sustainability. It has segued into a holistic approach to sustainable living.

The idea is this: develop ecologically suitable design systems for sustainable living in all parts of your existence.

Ecological Eating: New

Discussion Group Begins

Menu for the Future is the title of a new discussion group at the Vineyard Haven Library. The group workshop is designed by the North West Earth Institute, the source of the previously successful library programs Choices for Sustainability and Voluntary Simplicity.

Tagging Vineyard Osprey:

Expert Explains Research

Rob Bierregaard, who has been studying the osprey population on the Vineyard for more than 35 years, will speak about the raptors in a lecture at the Wakeman Center off Lambert’s Cove Road in Vineyard Haven on Saturday, April 12 at 7 p.m.

Mr. Bierregaard is speaking in conjunction with the annual osprey festival sponsored by Mass Audubon’s Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown.

Executive chef James McDonough of the Beach Plum Inn will demonstrate how to prepare salmon cakes with Frangelico cream sauce on Wednesday, April 16, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library, as part of the library’s chef series.

The Island Grown Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting locally grown food and its farmers on the Vineyard, has been granted $10,000 to improve and expand its poultry program.

The grant was awarded by Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education from its sustainable community innovation category, which fosters connections between sustainable agriculture and rural communities. Northeast Sustainable is a grants program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Congratulations are in order for Jack Blake of Sweet Neck Farm in Edgartown, whose Sweet Petites oysters tied for third place in an oyster tasting competition in Providence, R.I., on Monday evening.

“It was real fun, there were a lot of good oysters out there,” Mr. Blake said after the winners were announced. Mr. Blake’s oysters beat out a bevy of bivalves culled from all over the country.