Nature & Science
Roy Langley, weigh master for the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, will ring a cowbell at 8 a.m. sharp Sunday morning.
Once that cowbell rings, at the entrance to the official derby headquarters at the foot of Main street in Edgartown, the Vineyard will become an entirely different place.
From that moment on, derby participants can bring in their fish to be weighed in the month-long contest that galvanizes the Island every year.
A deal to sell Thimble Farm to a private buyer is no longer on the table, allowing more time for Whippoorwill Farm owner Andrew Woodruff to put together his own bid to buy the farm.
Thimble Farm owner Lawrence Benson confirmed yesterday that a private buyer who had offered to pay $2.3 million for the 43-acre farm has backed out. Two weeks ago Mr. Woodruff, who leases Thimble Farm for his community supported agriculture program, was facing an August 28 deadline to match the private offer. Mr. Woodruff has a right of first refusal on any sale at the farm.
The breeze in the air on Friday, the last day of August, brought with it a hint of fall. The afternoon was clear and warm, but the wind felt cool. So it was a comfort to walk into the kitchen of the Magnuson home in West Tisbury, just shy of the Chilmark border, where the sweet autumn smells of cinnamon and cooking apples filled the air. Behind their house, Debbie and Eric Magnuson run one of the Island’s only commercial orchards, growing apples and pears that they sell from their home and at Morning Glory Farm.
The gates opened half an hour early this year for the 146th annual Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair because of the number of people milling in the parking lot. And at 10:45 a.m. yesterday the line in front of the West Tisbury firemen's hamburger booth was the shortest it will be all weekend. At peak hours, the wait for a grilled-to-perfection burger can take up to 15 minutes, but on this morning, only two people were waiting, their elbows up on the counter.
The first of the long-awaited studies of the health of Vineyard ponds by the Massachusetts Estuaries Project is set to be released within weeks and will recommend significant changes to the management of the Edgartown Great Pond.
The pond bottom and shoreline rocks below Rick Karney and Dave Grunden as they sit, discussing the reasons for this week's closure of Sengekontacket Pond to shellfishing, are green with weedy marine growth.
Nearby a duck, which has been feeding on the weed, raises its tail and drops another little contribution of fecal matter into the water. Right on cue, as if to underline the point that Mr. Grunden, the Oak Bluffs shellfish constable, has just made.
Almanac
A comprehensive guide to weather and tides on the Island.
Vineyard Gardener
I guess this past week weather-wise is called a January thaw. We did not really experience it the last several years as December was unseasonably warm.
Farm & Field
Beige and brown and tan and black, with horns spiraled or semicircular or in undulating waves, a legion of goats marched up the hill toward us, bleating in anticipation of fresh grass and leaves.