Nature & Science
How far away is winter? If you step outside at midnight, winter already is here. All the constellations of the night at midnight are what we can expect to see in January after the sun has set.
Sassafras Earth Education begins its fall programming this month. Outdoor home-schoolers program begins on Oct. 5 and meets every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This program is for childeren kindergarten age and up. Dress for outdoors and bring a snack, lunch and water bottle.
Girls in the Woods begins on Oct. 7 and will meet weekly every Thursday after school, from bus pickup until 6 p.m. This program is for girls ages 8 to 14 and includes outdoor time picking edibles, making fires, cooking, crafting, talking and singing.
Just when you thought that you were safe from the summer barrage of guests, an uninvited crowd shows up at your house.
They are definitely not the most polite visitors — they weren’t invited and didn’t even knock. Instead, they crawled through the cracks and crevices of your windows and doors, the unscreened attic and wall vents, and even the uncapped chimney to descend on what you thought would be a guest-free fall.
By LYNNE IRONS
I know what I like. I’m absolute about my dislikes. I grew a number of eggplant and pepper varieties this year and, fortunately, made a map of the garden beds. Perhaps my observations will help you make your own selections for next spring’s ordering. Here are some of my favorites.
Grin, sharpie, modo, rump, red nut, limey and bobo — what kind of gibberish is that? No, it is not baby talk or profanity, but nicknames that bird watchers have for certain species. Grin for the majestic peregrine falcon, sharpie for the sharp-shinned hawk, modo for the mourning dove, rump for the yellow-rumped warbler, red nut for red-breasted nuthatch, limey for English or house sparrow and bobo for bobolinks.
Rahul Harpalani caught his first fish ever, a striped bass, on Tuesday. The 24-year-old active duty first lieutenant with the Army had a smile on his face like no one else on Menemsha charter captain Scott McDowell’s boat. Out fishing a mile south of Squibnocket, Mr. Harpalani was having the time of his life. “It is so serene out here,” he said.
“Now you are a fisherman,” said Joe Bennett, a 70-year-old veteran from Maine, who sat beside him.
Almanac
A comprehensive guide to weather and tides on the Island.
Vineyard Gardener
I guess this past week weather-wise is called a January thaw. We did not really experience it the last several years as December was unseasonably warm.
Farm & Field
Beige and brown and tan and black, with horns spiraled or semicircular or in undulating waves, a legion of goats marched up the hill toward us, bleating in anticipation of fresh grass and leaves.