Check yourself, check the children, check the cats and dogs. And when it comes to checking for ticks, don’t forget about horses. Equestrians on the Vineyard and throughout New England are now constantly on the lookout for Lyme disease symptoms in horses.

Chilmark tends to be on the darker side. Edgartown is rather light, and in springtime, the honey produced in West Tisbury and Vineyard Haven is so light in color it’s almost clear.

“They’re all different, and people really like that — they like the local, local, down to the town,” Tim Colon, owner of Island Bee Company says, standing over one of his hives in the backyard of his Vineyard Haven home. Mr. Colon has 130 hives across the Island in every town except for Aquinnah. “The color all depends on what’s blooming.”

A group of middle school girls cautiously approached a pile of Dutch belted calves at the Farm Institute one morning last week, dodging large piles of dung and tiptoeing their way closer.

“They’re big,” one girl said of the seven-week-old calves.

“They’re cute,” said another.

“This one is especially friendly,” farm educator Emily Palena said. “The worst thing she’ll do is lick you.”

The first cut of hay was two weeks early, garlic is already being harvested across the Island and strawberries are likely to be done before it’s time for a July 4 pie.

All across the Island, farmers are reporting crops sprouting earlier than usual this year, a fact they attribute to a mild winter and erratic but relatively warm weather ever since.

The sun streamed into the horse barn at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Hall yesterday morning, with a crisp blue sky in the background and the trees only moving slightly in a light breeze. It was a far departure from the day before when intense winds lashed across the Vineyard as tropical storm Irene passed over the Island.

As the sun began to set at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Hall fair grounds Sunday evening, farmers began to haul their animals into waiting trailers, the last skillets were tossed in the air and only a few whirls of cotton candy remained shrouded in the golden August haze.

All signs pointed to the end of the 150th Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Livestock Show and Fair but there were still a few awards to be handed out.