The Chilmark conservation commission voted this week that a house perched precariously at the edge of a cliff overlooking Stonewall Beach cannot be moved again, and instead must come down.

“We’re at the point where this house should be removed, not relocated,” commission chairman Pamela Goff said. “This [application] is just delaying the ultimate end.”

Chilmark town leaders agreed that the decision marks the first time in memory that a house will be demolished due to the threat of erosion.

Eight North Atlantic right whales have been spotted near Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in the past week, including six sighted from the air on Feb. 15 swimming between the two islands. The other two were seen south of Nantucket.

We will have a full moon in the coming week. The Snow Moon, as the Old Farmer’s Almanac calls it, arrives on Monday night.

It was early November when we received an invitation to participate in an American Birding Association rally in Albuquerque, N.M. What a great adventure I thought. Take the RV (aka the Bird Buggy) across country, birding as we went, and end up trying to find a group of rare finches in New Mexico. So we planned a route and expected to leave in late October. Ah, the best laid plans. We finally got underway on the first of February just before one of the nasty snow storms. We visited friends in Mamaroneck, N.Y. and Washington D.C.

“We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.” – Winston Churchill

Whether you cultivate wisdom or herbs, make sure you grow sage. Sage has been elemental in my kitchen of late: two snowstorms and many big pots of soups later, I am happy to have this culinary collaborator and mighty medicinal plant in my pantry and in my life.

Blame it on the moon, an asteroid that swooped close to Earth on Friday or an approaching tsunami, but unusually low tides seen across the Vineyard this weekend actually have a simpler explanation than some expected and feared.