Miss Field was my third and fourth grade teacher at the Earl J. Hyatt Elementary School in Rew, Pa. She sent home a note along with my report card that read, “Lynne talks too much in class.” It seemed I always had something to say.

This week — not so much.

Having polished off the rest of the Thanksgiving leftovers, I cannot seem to jump right into Christmas. Others don’t seem to have a problem. The Main streets suddenly are in full Christmas regalia. People have trees, advent ceremonies are a couple of weeks along at the church and off-Island shopping trips have begun in earnest.

I have yet to bring in all the dahlias, still have some unplanted winter rye and wish I had done those repairs on the greenhouse. The weather has been so beautiful that I’m pretending winter won’t come. I know I’m in for a rude awakening any day now.

One thing I did attend to was the draining and coiling of hoses. They are expensive to replace if left to freeze and thaw all winter filled with water. A word to the wise, those frost-free faucets that many folks have these days do not work if the hose is still attached.

Trust me, every bit of advice I’ve ever given is a result of learning the hard way. My mother used to say that my middle name was “Do it the hard way.”

I still have a couple of pickings left of my late summer planted beets. I neglected to thin them but they still are the size of large marbles and really delicious. Like carrots and other root vegetables, a few cold nights sweetens them.

I hope I cover or bring in the baby rosemary plants. They rarely make it through a Vineyard winter out in the open. Brought inside, they will reward you with lovely tiny blue flowers most of the winter. Legend has it that when Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus were fleeing into Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, they stopped to rest near a rosemary bush. Mary put her cloak upon it and blue flowers formed.

I noticed enormous rosemary plants on the Palatine Hill above Rome last spring. We took a picnic lunch to enjoy that day. I was fortunate to travel with Violet’s eighth-grade charter school class for 10 days in April.

I’m particularly fond of the tiny forest of Christmas trees in the little park next to CB Stark. Also, Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs is very nice. Violet and her Korean friend, Yujin, ran around the colorful faux trees over Thanksgiving vacation.

I better get with the program. I still have pumpkins at my front door. Oops.

In 1965 the Army Corps of Engineers completed the Kinzua Dam across the Allegheny River in the next county over from Rew. The Seneca nation lost many communities and thousands of acres when the dam began filling up. I remember a little Native American town of about 500 people being sadly abandoned. The Seneca nation lost in court after much opposition to the project. The Seneca chief was promised the land “as long as the sun shall shine,” by George Washington. No matter, Pittsburgh needed the hydro power and the land was taken by the U.S. government for “flood control.” At any rate, it is interesting to see the Standing Rock tribe being supported by the Army Corps all these years later.

Did the American people elect the Trump children? I can imagine the exploding heads if Chelsea Clinton sat in on meeting with foreign heads-of-state.