These needles are not difficult to find in any haystack.

Around this Island, you can easily find pine needles under, over and around you almost anywhere. They cover the ground in our woods, litter our trails and roadsides, and are plentiful everywhere the mighty pine tree is found.

The abundance of pine needles has me intrigued. I have often thought there must be something interesting to be done with these abundant green bundles.

And there is!

Seed Savers

All are welcome to join the Nature Conservancy staff in collecting, cleaning and sorting seeds from their native plant nursery. Seeds are currently ripening on plants in the nursery and are in need of harvesting. This is an opportunity to learn about native plants and help preserve the unique natural character of Martha’s Vineyard.

Eek, what do I call this winter visitor — black chipping bird, white-bill, slate-colored snowbird, eastern junco, slate-colored junco or dark-eyed junco? Presently the ornithologists are calling the junco that visits the Vineyard most commonly the dark-eyed junco.

Rose knows.

Island seaweed artist, centenarian, naturalist and amateur mycologist Rose Treat periodically sends letters to the editor of our hometown newspapers. And she does us a great public service by doing so. Every year or two, she writes a note to remind us to take care around wild mushrooms, and to watch our children, pets and self around these fortuitous fungi, lest we inadvertently ingest the wrong ones and injure ourselves.