By LYNNE IRONS

I have been wracking my brain to come up with a garden topic this week. Should I stay with some sort of winter theme or get fully into the gear-up for spring?

I think I’ll take on credit cards instead.

Here is my best shot at a segue. I use my credit cards for the gardening business: ordering seeds, plugs, and bare-rooted perennials in mid-winter and paying them off in the summer when the money starts rolling in.

Only slow food will do for this bird.

Faster prey would fly, run or otherwise get away before it became a vulture’s meal. Vultures like their food not just slow, but stopped cold (and dead too.) Fresh kill is good, but, in a pinch, the vulture can eat meat that has begun to rot. Luckily (or, thanks to adaptation), the vulture won’t get sick.

The ringed planet Saturn is closest to the Earth this weekend. The distant planet is in opposition and about 778 million miles away. Its position in the sky is the best part. Saturn rises in the east with the setting of the sun and remains viewable through the night. Saturn is high, almost overhead, at midnight and sets in the west at sunrise.

There is a whale of a tale in Edgartown.

Marine mammal madness is what I call it. Earlier this week, I received a call about a few animals that have been swimming around Edgartown harbor. The caller thought that they were either dolphins or pilot whales. Either one would be a good sighting and would make for a nice article.

By LYNNE IRONS

Last Saturday was one of those perfect winter days — cold and crisp — not a cloud in the sky. An impressive crowd turned out for the memorial service for Bob Flanders at the Abel’s Hill cemetery. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day to be laid to rest.