It is almost the end of berry-hunting season, and that’s a pity. Berry picking offers an opportunity to enjoy songbirds, osprey and honking Canada geese overhead. Berry hunters out just before sundown may see deer leaping stone walls to spend the night in the depths of the woods.

There are the sounds of nature to enjoy, too — soughing pines and rustling leaves and sometimes the lapping of water on shore or the distant roar of the ocean.

Over the weekend a young girl, about middle school-aged, wandered into the community room at co-housing in West Tisbury just before a yoga class was set to begin. She knew the yoga instructor. “What’s new?” he asked her. “Back to school,” the affable child replied with a smile.

The legend of the codfish is woven with many well-worn tales in New England, where a century ago schools of cod swam so thickly they could be scooped up in baskets from thigh-high water near shore. Cod was the symbol for New England and for the rich fishery that was the backbone of the regional economy. Vineyard fishermen built wooden boats that they named after Noman's Land, the island where they salted and dried their codfish catch on the rocks in the sun before taking it to market.