An orchestrated commotion runs the length of Circuit avenue playing the music of summer. Strolling clusters of tourists plan their days as they negotiate the narrow sidewalks, crowd open-air eateries and ice cream shops, hold debates over T-shirts and people-watch from storefront benches. All the while cars crawl up the street stopping and starting.

Edgartown Harbor Master Charlie Blair has just brought the Pointer skiff back to the dock and, still wrapped in his life jacket, he enters his cramped office. With his big smile and bigger presence, he seems to overflow the filled-to-the-brim room.

Lucy Thompson lives on Spring Moon Farm off Lambert’s Cove Road, a here-an-oink, there-an-oink working farm. It requires all the dawn-to-dusk responsibilities involved with raising cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, pigs and other animals, plus all the daily work of maintaining a lush garden that tumbles over with herbs, melons, squash, and a variety of vegetables. 

Early afternoon on a hot and humid Monday. Between moments of calm, there is an ongoing flow of summer-garbed people coming and going, checking on books they’ve ordered, renewing books, searching for something new to read and DVDs to watch. But no one comes in to the West Tisbury Free Public Library without his or her entrance being noted and acknowledged. Familiarity is instantaneous, and all visitors — young and old — are received with hushed welcome.

There are some persisting myths about the Vineyard — such as the notion that this is an easy place to ride a bicycle, that all Islanders know a ketch from a yawl, grow their own tomatoes, think nothing of picking up hitchhikers or picking off ticks, and most important, own at the very least one dog. Maybe two. And that last one is the truest. Island dogs are omnipresent — and that doesn’t include the little pups that get carried around in summer purses like fluffy accessories.

While shoppers at Morning Glory Farm amble about in slow motion, being seduced by brightly colored displays of fresh produce and aromatic baked goods, just inside the kitchen door there is a carry-in/carry-out, wash-and-sort frenzy of activity. The staff at Morning Glory Farm, like the roundabout at rush hour, is a flurry of individual purpose and intention carried out with high-speed finesse. They have been working since either 5 or 7 a.m. and now it’s almost noon. There will be close to 80 employees for lunch today.