Farm & Garden
BY LYNNE IRONS
Anna Sylvia tends to her draft horse Virgil every day at Sweetened Water barn in Edgartown. Whether after work at the SBS Grain store or after school during the winter, Anna takes at least an hour of her day to clean out Virgil’s stall, bathe and ride him. Yes, Anna rides her draft horse.
By LYNNE IRONS
Winter squash is a misnomer. For years I have saved them for post-summer meals. Thanks to the hideous squash bug, the vines are mostly dead and the squashes are no longer attached to anything. I see no point in leaving them in the field, probably to rot. On Saturday, Marie and I harvested a good number of hubbards, lakatas and spaghettis. We noticed that the Waltham butternut and the Tennessee sweet potato squash did not seem to be affected adversely by the bug. We left them to mature on the vine.
Living on an Island can seem closed off from the rest of the world, sometimes leaving you itching to reach the mainland so you can go faster than 45 miles per hour. But it does have its benefits: we leave our cars unlocked with the keys in the ashtray and our doors wide open.
And we use the honor system at unattended farm stands across the Island.
By LYNNE IRONS
I cannot seem to catch up or even catch a break. This summer has flown by. Plants that should be blooming now are past their prime. Everything is moving too fast. Now, without a doubt, part of this phenomenon is my advancing age. I know and admit it.
When you go to the Farmers’ Market, you trust the food you’re buying because you buy it straight from the farmer. You know where it came from, how it was grown, who picked it, and you are able to ask questions a grocery store clerk might not be able to answer. With the Island Grown Initiative’s (IGI) poultry mobile processing unit, knowing where your food comes from has taken on a new meaning for Vineyarders — they are now able to buy Island-raised chickens in the market.