TOM DRESSER
508-693-1050
What upcoming events should you mark on your calendar? (Answers at end of this column.)
Vineyard Power intends to create rural renewable electricity by whatever means possible, solar, tidal or wind. Ever have your hat blow off? Wind is most feasible along the coastline.
Vineyard Power offers membership by meter. Membership is $50 through March 31, then rises to $100. Get in on the ground floor and support this cooperative, run by and for its members. Generate power off the southwest coast of the Vineyard and keep the savings on Island. This is our chance to be part of a renewable energy group. Check out Vineyardpower.com
The second annual Technology Fair is at the Oak Bluffs Public Library, tomorrow, Saturday, March 20 from 1 to 4 p.m. The door prize is an MP3 Player, courtesy of the Library Friends of Oak Bluffs. Community, school, library and business leaders will present new information and communication technologies.
You can learn about e-book readers — Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader and Barnes and Noble Nook. Find out all you can about downloadable audio books and MP3 players. Learn online language learning, classroom technology, Google tools, Nintendo and Wii Sports Resorts. This is an electronic gadget extravaganza, designed for all ages, all interests, all capabilities.
At 1 p.m., Doug Cabral, editor of the Martha’s Vineyard Times, will talk about the plight of newspapers facing the Internet. How many of us check the online edition before we finger the newsprint itself?
The library has a doll and book exhibit by the Green Mountain Doll Club. The dolls portray characters from children’s books. The exhibit will be in the children’s room through March 26. And check out preschool and toddler time in the same room on Wednesday mornings.
What’s all the chatter about butterscotch pudding at Slice of Life? Seems like it’s making the rounds of Facebook and e-mail.
Acemv.org is the Web site with bunches of neat classes as the product. And you benefit from the wonderful opportunities ranging from cooking to landscaping, from writing to potting. We are so fortunate to have such a wide array of classes offered at the high school through acemv.org. Check it out. Even if the class has already started, I bet you can find something else that will intrigue, amaze, interest or enthrall you. (Last year my wife, Joyce, took a course in landscaping and I ended up chopping up the sod on our front lawn and chipping up a cement sidewalk so she could plant a garden. Be careful what you wish for!)
Oak Bluffs summer resident Ruth Wilcox turns 98 on March 23, going full tilt, we’re told, down in Florida. Ruth and her late husband, the Foote Memorial vet Bill Wilcox, lived here year round for many years. Happy birthday Ruth!
This is our last week writing the Oak Bluffs column, so we take a final glimpse at the plentiful Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank properties all around us.
Trade Winds on County Road is a “classic sandplain grassland,” according to the land bank. I see it as an idyllic dog park, where canines and masters get acquainted. Of course it doubles as an airport, so hikers and dogs are advised to keep an eye in the air for incoming aircraft. Besides looking down for the obvious, look around for bushy rockrose, purple needlegrass and sandplain blue-eyed grass in the 72 acres of wood and field.
Wapatequa is not all ours. Most of it is in Tisbury, but it is part of the “greenbelt” of a hundred or so acres that surrounds Vineyard Haven. People enjoy hiking and mountain biking or dog-walking (provided one of you is on a leash). It’s a trick to find Wapatequa because you go out State Road to Stoney Hill Road, drive a mile down a rugged road, not designed for low-slung vehicles, and the trailhead is on the left.
Another sweet little property is Weahtaqua Springs Preserve, which is 35 acres nestled by the blinker. It earned its name from a Wampanoag word meaning head of the Lagoon, which it overlooks. The land sits atop myriad springs which flow into nearby Stepping Stones Brook. A beech grove is emerging in the forest, which is bedecked with reindeer lichen and bearberry. It’s a good place for peace and quiet and so close to the four-way intersection, although parking is a challenge.
Mark your calendar for these upcoming events:
Remember, Saturday, March 20 is the Technology Fair at the library.
Turn out your lights at 8:30 p.m. for Earth Hour on Saturday March 27.
The fourth annual Park Serve Day will be Saturday, April 24 at the State Forest. Watch for details. Last year we cleared a half-mile trail.
The annual Cross-Island Land Bank walk is Saturday June 5.
Bea Phear reminds us the Oak Bluffs candidate forum takes place Tuesday, March 30, at 7 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs Public Library, sponsored by the League of Women Voters.
The 10th annual Alzheimer’s Walk kicks off Sunday May 16; registration at 11, walk at noon from Little Bridge to Big Bridge and back, weather and road crew permitting. Hardy kayakers will paddle the adjacent route.
Thanks for reading this column over the past few weeks. And do welcome Holly Nadler back from vacation on March 26.
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