MARGARET KNIGHT
508-627-8894
With the full moon this week and the crickets still chirping, it’s been nice to be outside in the evenings, especially with the mosquitoes mostly gone. The temperatures haven’t been too cold yet, and it’s been a typical, lovely early fall week on Chappaquiddick. I even went swimming twice. The water was definitely cold but not numbing yet.
The grapes are finally getting ripe, and you can smell them as you walk along the roads and paths. At my house, we made grape jam that captures their wild flavor. The hazelnuts are especially abundant this year, and they’re easy to see now with their curly outer coverings turning brown and opening to reveal the small nuts inside.
Amanda Cohen, who took the wild foods workshop on Chappy a couple of weeks ago, sees all kinds of plants now that she didn’t see before. She says when she is out walking, she’s always scanning the roadside or paths for her new “friends,” like autumn olive and bayberry and rosa rugosa. I do that, and I guess I trained my daughter Lily to do it, too. Lily has been helping in the farm-to-school programs on the Island, and preparing a meal of all wild and local food makes her very satisfied.
After living at home for a year, Lily is moving to Cohousing in West Tisbury, where they have an amazing community garden and lots of potlucks. She’ll be back on Chappy to give massages and work on projects in her new studio, formerly bedroom. Another Chappy “kid” is moving away, too — a little farther. Gabrielle Knight is driving across country with her father, Dick, leaving today. She’ll be making a new home in Portland, Ore., where she has some cousins, and is hoping to continue her work as a translator.
The Federated Church will hold a Harvest Festival and Luncheon in their parish house on South Summer street in Edgartown on Saturday, Oct. 10 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be crafts, plants, stitchery, baked goods, drawings, attic treasures and fun for children, as well as harvest soup, chili and apple crisp.
After watching 10 films in two days last weekend, Mary Spencer may have been a little bleary-eyed starting her work week on Monday. Mary was the generous host at Chappy’s own little mini-film festival at the community center. The audience — festival volunteers and Chappy residents — made themselves comfortable on couches and armchairs, and came and went throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday, watching films selected from the recent Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival. There were short breaks for people to fill plates and bowls with the lasagna and clam chowder Mary had brought, and a salad with every kind of fixing you could imagine brought by Annie Heywood. Other people brought side dishes and desserts, enough to last through the last film on Sunday night.
Chappy Path Committee’s Update Number 5 was sent out to their e-mail list, detailing their activities in the past few months. This summer, after meeting with the selectmen, the steering committee was sent to the planning board to address safety issues and the need for an alternative. The planning board heard comments for and against a path. After a discussion, they sent the issue over to the bike path experts at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, urging the commission to sponsor meetings for those for and opposed. (I wonder to whom the committee will be referred next — no one seems too keen on taking us disagreeing Chappaquiddickers on.) The path committee plans to hold an opinion poll and would welcome suggestions as to the methodology and questions. Anyone wanting to be on their e-mail list or on the committee can write to chappybikepath@aol.com. The steering committee consists of Bob Colvin, chairman, Melissa Kagan, cochairman, Will Geresy, Dick Knight, Joe Sullivan, Tom Tilghman and Peter Wells.
The On Time II should be back to work today, ready for a busy weekend, and sporting a new blue bottom after her trip to dry dock in Vineyard Haven. Peter chose the blue paint because it looks like summer. The III, which will come out of the water on Oct. 20, will be painted green on the bottom. Festive, Peter says. The III could be out of the water for two months for repairs and upgrading following the biannual Coast Guard hull inspection, so plan for ferry lines, or travel at odd hours.
Speaking of ferry hours, the winter schedule will go into effect on Sunday, Oct. 18. The ferry will run daily from 6:45 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., 9 to 10 p.m., and 11 to 11:15 p.m. There should be no lines on any day at about 11:10 p.m.
Not long after we acquired three goats from the Farm Institute, I started thinking that it’d be nice to have chickens, too. My brother Robin’s flock had spent the summer next door, clucking and cackling, and it seemed far too quiet back here in the woods when he took them home at the end of the summer. We don’t eat eggs here at my house, so I figured retirement chickens would be perfect. My brother had four he was ready to “retire” (this is a euphemism), so he brought them down to the Island a week ago.
Since then we’ve been trying to acclimate them to living in my backyard instead of his. First we tried to move them right into the shed with the goats but that didn’t work. Plan B was to get them used to roosting in a small chicken house my brother had in his yard, then moving that to my backyard. Early one morning after a couple of days, he brought the chicken house to my yard — with the chickens still locked inside — in the bucket of his tractor and lowered it down near the goat pen. When we let the chickens out, they were understandably flustered, and said so. It didn’t take them long to head back to my brother’s. Since then, he’s brought them over by hand at the end of the day to roost in the little house, but they’re slowly getting the idea that this is their new home.
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