To the untrained eye the scene was this: two adults on stage, one speaking in an English accent, the other in a cross between a buccaneer’s snarl and a schoolyard bully. Five kids looked expectantly at their director, an adult on hands and knees, who crawled dramatically across the Vineyard Playhouse stage. The cast watched seriously for a good half-minute before all, director included, erupted into uncontrollable, side-clutching giggles.

On a recent Wednesday morning, Michelle Nepton, enrollment specialist at Vineyard Health Care Access, took a quick moment in between clients to put on a pot of coffee. It was the second full pot of the day. It was only 10:30.

The day outside was cold. A real winter northeaster was blowing in and the gray clouds above promised snow. The door to Vera Shorter’s Vineyard Haven home, however, was open.

She had just indulged in what is quite possibly her only vice she said as she spread a stack of ginger snaps on a plate. She braved the cold so her home would not smell like the cigarettes she cannot seem to give up. She would hate for the smoke to offend the guests who stop in from time to time.

Come springtime, the telltale signs of Vineyard farming activity will begin to reappear. One day, the fields are lifeless, the next, tractors are out and the soil has been tilled. Before too long, farmhands dot the fields picking berries and greens and juicy tomatoes. The farm stands fill up, parking at the farmer’s market is nowhere to be found, and on it goes until the last pumpkins, squash and apples are harvested.

A sleepy, indoorsy Martha’s Vineyard afternoon, a preview of more to come as January slides by, greeted the streets down-Island on Sunday. Not one car was parked at Tashmoo overlook, not a soul lingered outside the Black Dog Cafe, and empty parking spots, months ago coveted, yawned along Main street Vineyard Haven in twos and threes.

But then, just before the library, the cars came into view. One behind the other, block after block they lined the street.