The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which claims its forecasts are 80 per cent accurate, predicts that our winter weather will be colder and drier this year, with below normal snowfall. They predict it will be colder than normal in November and December, coldest from Christmas to early January, with another cold snap between early and mid-February. It will be snowiest in mid-December and again in mid-to-late February, and warmer than average from March to October.

On Sunday night the moon rises late in the evening. It is in the zodiacal constellation Gemini, a constellation we most often associate with the cold nights of winter. The moon is gibbous and for the week ahead moves through other constellations of winter: Cancer and Leo.

The Vineyard is getting skunked! They are in high abundance this fall, ruling the night and leaving telltale tracks to be discovered during the day.

“They’ve come out in very unusually large numbers this year,” said Walter Wlodyka of Chilmark, who is particularly busy this fall, trapping skunks for clients all over the Island.

“It is not because of any unnatural reason. It is not because of people. It is due to weather, the abundance of food,” he said.

Ladies, hike those skirts up!

That might just be the only way to avoid tangling with the house centipede high-tailing it for the shelter under your frock. In a newsletter dated 1902, C.L. Marlatt, a US Department of Agriculture entomologist, described this despised insect this way.

It is all Bob Shriber’s fault and boy, am I glad! Bob lives in Aquinnah and is usually the first of the Vineyard birders to “hit the Head” (arrive at the Gay Head Cliffs) to look for migrating birds in the fall. Tuesday, Oct. 23, Bob called me at around 9 a.m. and he was talking a mile a minute.

“I just saw a black-throated gray warbler and now I have lost it.”

In 2003, Saskia and David Vanderhoop started Sassafras Earth Education in Aquinnah as a one-week summer camp. Since then it has grown into a year-round program with camps every week during the summer and programs throughout the year for both youth and adults. The intention is to teach participants a variety of outdoor skills while encouraging them to reconnect with the natural world.