The boys’ hockey team kicks off its season this Saturday with a 5 p.m. game against Lowell Catholic. The first 50 fans will receive a free T-shirt.

Boys’ basketball and girls’ hockey also play at home Saturday. Basketball tips off at 4:30 p.m. against Dennis-Yarmouth, while the girls take to the ice against Latin Academy at 1 p.m.

“We are grateful, we give thanks,” West Tisbury poet laureate Justen Ahren read during Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the West Tisbury Free Public Library’s expansion and renovation project. After nearly five years of planning, grant applications, and fundraising, construction on the new building will begin next month. A large crowd gathered in the courtyard of the library to celebrate the big day. Mr. Ahren was one of a lineup of speakers that featured state rep.

Doug Smith had a vision. It involved pancakes. Before Mr. Smith, 38, moved to the Vineyard full-time six years ago, he and his girlfriend often took weekend trips up to Maine, exploring the small towns that dotted the coast. But no matter the town, “there was always this great breakfast joint that had a line out the door,” Mr. Smith recalled. The breakfast spots served up stacks of thick, fluffy pancakes and savory plates of eggs Benedict to hungry patrons who lingered over great coffee at wooden tables — the picture of New England rustic.

West Tisbury selectmen this week approved a new tax rate and discussed whether to intervene in the sale of a prime lot at an old farm. At a public hearing Wednesday the board voted to approve a single tax rate of $5.26 per $1,000 valuation. The rate is an increase of 0.34 over the fiscal year 2012 rate of $4.92, and comes in response to a 5.5 per cent increase in the tax levy and a 1.5 per cent decrease in town property values, board of assessors director Kristina West said.

That’s just part of what artist Peter Eaton Gurnz, of Edgartown and Los Angeles, wants people to think about when they view his new exhibition, “Five Leaves Left,” in Miami at the annual Art Basel art fair, which opened Thursday and runs through the weekend.

The newest crop at Down Island Farm in Tisbury wasn’t planted. It doesn’t need pruning or watering, and it’s not susceptible to disease or pests. But as with any crop, it needs a little help from the sun.

Actually, a lot of help from the sun as sunlight does the hard part, baking the small hoop house in Heidi Feldman and Curtis Friedman’s backyard so that the ocean water collected in a wide, shallow pan evaporates. What remains are coarse salt crystals that glint when the light hits them just so.