Led by Vineyard chef and farmer Jan Buhrman, Porks and Knives is a four-day culinary farm-to-table adventure that brings together chefs, farmers and butchers from around the country. This year the event featured master butcher Kari Underly.

All the cows will come home sometime after the first of the year. But the Grey Barn Farm and Dairy is milking again, albeit with a smaller herd, and raw milk in glass bottles is available for sale again at the farm stand off South Road in Chilmark.

A group of about 15 volunteers gather at the edge of the peach orchard just past the farmstand parking lot of Morning Glory Farm. Some stomp their feet to ward off the early morning chill. Jamie O’Gorman hands one volunteer a T-shirt.

Muriel the pig was pregnant and a month overdue, and as the first day of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair approached, Fred Fisher Jr. had to make a decision whether to bring the three-year-old sow or not.

“I took a big gamble doing it,” Mr. Fisher said on Monday. “I could have lost them all up there, but it turned out pretty well.”

Nothing so gentle as real strength, nothing so strong as true gentleness.

“That’s what we say about draft horses,” Bruce Marshard said, standing next to one of his Percheron horses, Sonny. His pasture mate and fellow Percheron Max was grazing nearby.

The farm stand at Whippoorwill Farm is now open for business on Old County Road in West Tisbury.

It’s been nearly 15 years since farm owner Andrew Woodruff could say that. Between a booming CSA membership, a move to Thimble Farm in Oak Bluffs, and a move back again to Old County Road, the farm stand has been empty.

“It’s nice to see this farm get active again,” Mr. Woodruff said this week, his John Deere hat shading his face from the August sun.