Business
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.
Ronni Simon sits in the gallery she shares with her photographer husband, Peter, at 54 Main street in Vineyard Haven, and knits. She knits quite a lot.
“It’s such an easy way to express your creativity,” she says. She also practices more challenging ways: the jewelry she fashions from sterling silver, gold, pearls and semi-precious gemstones, and her wall art wrought from sturdy wire and large beads.
“Knitting is like setting the table — you can take the time to make the experience really valuable and beautiful and calming,” Mrs. Simon says.
Fans of local bay scallops are in luck; commercial fishermen, not so much.
Lena T. Johnson has joined the sales team at Harborside Realty in Edgartown. Mr. Johnson, who hails from Ocala, Fla., has more than 25 years of experience in the real estate industry, including the fields of residential sales and sales of equestrian facilities. She will focus on both Island sales and vacation rentals.
Anything can happen in the movies, and the same could be said for a movie store — particularly if that store is Island Entertainment.
Longtime manager Jamie Alley’s DVD of choice for the last hour of business each night is typically an old Saturday Night Live episode.
“It’s a good way to fill the last hour, and it makes me laugh before I go home,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
There are new businesses opening on Main street Vineyard Haven, but the town business association may be losing steam. Tisbury business association president Dawn Braasch announced this week that she is stepping down from her position, and said if a replacement cannot be found the organization may fold.
“I am sending this notice to let you know that I am withdrawing as president of the TBA. I had hoped someone else on the board would come forward to take the reins of the association, but no one has,” said Ms. Braasch in an email to the association sent Oct. 30.