Remy Tumin
With the future for aquaculture looking bright following a successful experiment in farming blue mussels this year, the Chilmark selectmen voted this week to award two Menemsha shellfishermen five acres of North Shore water to continue their work growing mussels.
Tim Broderick and Alec Gale harvested 1,900 pounds of blue mussels this summer in the experimental farm. Now they plan to set up ten 500-foot lines in Chilmark waters, where they hope to grow 10,000 pounds.
The Edgartown conservation commission, Nature Conservancy and Division of Conservation Services are in discussion about a possible land swap at Pennywise Path as a way to allow the Katama Airfield hangar restoration project to go forward, town selectmen learned this week.
“Three, two, one. Fire in the hole!” The first attempt was a misfire after the trebuchet balked, but the crowd remained patient. “Let’s try this again,” said the operator. “Three, two, one. Fire in the hole!” A pumpkin sailed through the air, landing in a field at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society in West Tisbury.
“Boom!” cried the onlookers as the pumpkin went splat.
A public hearing on revisions to a bylaw in Edgartown that regulates hours for construction and landscaping crews drew lively and varied comments during the regular selectmen’s meeting on Monday afternoon.
Proposed by the selectmen, the bylaw changes are expected to come before voters at the annual town meeting in April. The revised bylaw would slightly alter the hours when construction is allowed, with a start time half an hour later in the morning and a finish time half an hour earlier at night.
On Tuesday morning West Tisbury School science teacher Karl Nelson told his eighth grade class the outcome of the lab experiment they were about to begin related directly to their everyday lives, something they couldn’t survive without.
Puzzled looks crossed with curiosity around the room.
Today the students would learn how combustion relates to respiration.
Mr. Nelson, whose class ranked number one in science scores in the state on the MCAS exam this year, runs labs four days a week, a rigorous schedule for eighth grade science.
Chilmark voters sped through a series of spending articles for fire repairs in Menemsha at a special town meeting Monday night, but bogged down heavily when a money article to restore the farmhouse at Tea Lane Farm came to the floor.