Laughter echoed through the halls of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on Wednesday night, the product of a double-header comedy show featuring Jimmie “J.J.” Walker and Lenny Clarke.

It is a curious practice, tomato pruning. It requires confidence, foremost, surety of hand and volition.

My first chat with Ginny Jones was a long one, as they all were, for Ginny didn’t do small talk.

In a steamy greenhouse in West Tisbury, in the warm aftermath of a summertime downpour, there are leaves, mostly green with hints of red, sparsely topping a collection of spindly stems.

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.

I was headed down Quenames Road in Chilmark, where neon pastures peak through a forest of scraggly oak and pine for a visit to Milkweed Farm, the little sandy fiefdom where Mallory Watts has recently begun to reap a yearly harvest.