Summer is just around the corner when you see Judy Buss and Paul Cardello back out on their bikes. They have a distinctly unhurried style of riding. They will host the next potluck supper at the Chappy Community Center on Wednesday, May 21. Appetizers begin at 6 p.m. with supper at 6:30.

Slipaway Farm invites everyone to join them for their Welcome Springtime party and barbecue on Saturday, May 24. Festivities begin at 4 p.m. Lily Walter likes to make up jokes and puns about vegetables. “Which vegetable is cool but not really cool? Radish.”

The mayflowers and shadbush are in bloom. Fishermen have begun to appear on the shore of Wasque. The beach under the bluffs continues to grow. Even at mid-tide it’s now possible to walk on smooth sand around the corner of Wasque onto East Beach. Norton Point continues to grow slowly eastward. Closure is still a long way off.

The osprey pole on the Gardner property finally seems to be accumulating nesting material. A trio of ospreys is hanging around the pole. There may be some confusion about who’s got dibs on what and who. Time will tell.

The Chappy Community Center has solved its problem of needing a head sailing instructor by promoting last year’s assistant sailing instructor to head instructor. So now they are looking for an assistant sailing instructor. Contact Lynn at the CCC at 508-627-8222 if you are interested or have a suggestion. The CCC is also looking for donations of musical noisemakers such as tambourines, xylophones, bells, and maracas for the little kids’ playgroup. Wind instruments are not a good idea for sharing. The center could also use an area rug of perhaps 10 by 12 feet in very good condition. Emphasis is on the very good condition requirement.

The latest news to come into the toot-my-own-horn department is about an award won by The Chappy Ferry Book. The book received an honorable mention in the culture division of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, which was created to promote writers, authors and independent presses. We now get to stick a golden foil medal on the cover of the book. I intend to wear one on my shirt as a badge. The only credit I can actually claim regarding the book is that I got the right crowd of people together on the project.

The Chappy ferry summer schedule begins on Thursday evening, May 22. Memorial Day weekend can sometimes feel as if summer has arrived if the weather is pleasant and brings out the crowds. You get to thinking that it’s going to be a busy summer, but then the Tuesday after Memorial Day arrives, everyone has gone back home for another month and suddenly the town feels more deserted than it did during mid-winter school vacation.

The Chappy ferry open public forum was rescheduled for Saturday, May 17, from 10 a.m. to noon at the CCC. Everyone is welcome to attend and encouraged to participate.

The Chappy ferry public forum was postponed last weekend because I didn’t want to miss Sandy Fisher’s funeral. He was only two years shy of living for an entire century. I always heard him referred to as “Old Man Sandy” to differentiate him from his son. Old Man Sandy worked the ponds of Chappy for nearly nine decades. Imagine the millions of scallops, quahogs and clams he harvested one at a time, holding each one in his hand for a moment before dropping it into his basket. He liked to fish for scallops by picking them up off of the bottom with a dip net. To enable him to see them he used a device called a peepsite. It’s basically a wooden box with a glass bottom. The sides taper in toward the top to block out reflections from above and the glass allows a clear view down into the water much like wearing a swimmer’s face mask. Old Man Sandy spent a whole lot of time peering down into the water through his peepsite. At his burial we were pleasantly surprised to find that his ashes will be buried inside a very small but functional peepsite. I imagine that Old Man Sandy would have gotten a chuckle out of it.