COUNTING TURBINES

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

How many wind turbines for Martha’s Vineyard?

Electricity is measured in kilowatt hours. One kilo equals 1,000. One 50-watt light bulb left on for 20 hours consumes one kilowatt hour of electricity (50 watts x 20 hours = 1,000 watt-hours = 1 kilowatt-hour).

Here’s what I love most about my town: its edges. In three directions, Vineyard Haven ends abruptly, as a town should, surrendering, gracefully and completely, to farms and fields and watery expanses of harbor and salt ponds. Within minutes, you can leave town behind and be lost on a woody trail, eye to eye with a ewe or out on the whitecaps with a seagull. Because of these edges and what lies beyond them, it smells good here. The breezes that blow through my kitchen window mostly carry briny scents, tangy with ocean.

As spring approaches, students become stressed and anxious about MCAS tests. We are told “you’ll do fine” and “just do your best” by our teachers and parents. But these exams are still very stressful for students. MCAS is a standardized test. Based on your results, it puts you in categories ranging from receiving a warning to being considered “advanced.” Being put in a category just stresses us out even more. We all know that a student can be smart and not a good test-taker.

O n Saturday, Feb. 14, we set out in the morning from Chilmark for a shop in town and a Valentine’s Day drive. It was a sunny day though terribly cold and strangely still back in Vineyard Haven on this long winter weekend to mark Presidents’ Day — a great opportunity for Islanders to escape to mainland shops, northern ski slopes, or Bahamian bliss. After a quick grocery shop, my husband Peter and I left town behind and drove past the frozen quiet MV Shipyard, the windswept buildings of the Packer Company, and out along the causeway toward Oak Bluffs.