There was a homecoming at Whippoorwill Farm in West Tisbury on Wednesday for a rescued barn owl.

I know it is unpopular, but I am a lifetime lover of snow.

Then out across the ocean, Martha’s Vineyard came in view, and St. Nick suggested landing, to all his reindeer crew, in Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs, when they above it flew.

Now is the season for leaf-crunch ing. Of course, the red and gold leaves on the trees remind us that it is still fall. But on the ground there are crisp brown ones that I have been enjoying, too.

As this summer departs, I am remembering summers long past, during the 1940s and ‘50s, that were so different from today’s Vineyard summers.

Clearly, I have a propensity for islands.

I recently returned from travels abroad — the first since the onset of Covid.

Clearly, this isn’t a book to curl up with at bedtime or for beach reading.

Spring, of course, arrived last week. In West Tisbury, daffodils heralded it by blooming in Ann Burt’s yard.

It was some years ago now, in 2012 after the outbreak of war in Syria, that a friend and I were in Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, Turkey.