The Mytoi Spring Cleanup is scheduled for the day before Mother’s Day, Saturday, May 12 from 10 a.m. to noon in the garden. Young and old are invited to awaken the garden from its winter nap. Bring work gloves and rakes. TTOR will provide refreshments. I stopped by the garden on Monday to see if the snapping turtle was up and about. Still a bit early for her yet, according to Chris Kennedy. However, a batch of painted turtles were sunning themselves on the bank of the island. Since the recent northeasters damaged the bridge structure it has been roped off. Apparently, the turtles learned quickly that they have gained a little more sanctuary from humans. Usually, they plop into the water as soon as I appear on the shore. Today, they just craned their necks and squinted at me without budging. The goldfish are swimming slightly faster than they were a month ago. Warmer water.

The Edgartown Highway Department has been making an all-out effort to repair the dirt approaches to the Dike Bridge. Rocky hardener fill has been coming over on the ferry by the very full truckload as well as a huge roll of geo-fabric. One of the northeasters in particular caused a very high tide in Pocha pond which over-washed the road. It doesn’t take much flowing water to scour away dirt.

Back at the time of the spring equinox, drivers of vehicles loading onto the Chappy ferry from the Edgartown side early in the morning were looking directly into the just risen sun on cloudless days. Nowadays the sun is already well above the horizon and quite a way off to the north at that same time of the morning.

Just a reminder that the next household hazardous waste collection will be on Saturday, May 19 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Edgartown transfer station of the M.V. Refuse District at 750 West Tisbury Road. See their website for details regarding which substances in particular are accepted that day. For instance, latex paint is not hazardous once it’s hardened. Products containing mercury are collected free of charge at all of the district facilities during their regular business hours. This includes watch batteries, hearing aid batteries, thermometers, barometers, fluorescent bulbs and neon bulbs. The district operates transfer stations at the old dump sites in Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury. The days and hours are listed on the website.

Remember the old dumps on Chappy? Old timers will know of at least three different locations of the dump behind the fire house. It depended upon who had the deal with the town at the time. They were all at the edge of the same swampy area. Now all that remains are large rusty metal objects. Visibly anyway. Hopefully the elements have dealt with the invisible objects. There was even a dump out at Cape Poge in the sixties consisting of a long and deep trench dug by a backhoe. At least once every summer somebody covered the trash with dirt and extended the hole. You would be hard pressed to find that spot now among the thick growth of pines and prickers.

One of the problems with the old m ethod of open dumps was that it was too easy to come home with more stuff than you dropped off. It was a wonderful way to recycle house hold items like sinks and tubs. If you needed a two by four on a Sunday afternoon to finish a project, the dump would have one. Of course it might be full of nails and have a little spaghetti sauce on it, but it was still a two by four on a Sunday afternoon.

I’m pretty sure that the first Vineyard recycling program for glass, plastic and tin containers was at the Chappy dump. And I’m pretty sure that Woody Filley was the one-man-show that got it going. It was a huge deal to convince people to participate. Now it’s an integral part of every transfer station around.

It was also a huge deal when the town closed the Chappy dump and we had to haul our rubbish and garbage to town. You should have heard us complaining about it. Talk about righteous indignation. We were being deprived of our constitutional right to a convenient dump site in our own neighborhood. Fortunately the trash collection companies were willing to help out by venturing over to the wilds of Chappy. Some of us welcomed the excuse to go to the big Edgartown dump where the selection was so much greater.

Send Chappy news to peterchappyferry@gmail.com.