Half the leaves are down now, littering lawns, sidewalks and farm fields, nature’s confetti ready for raking. Or not. In places up-Island where no one rakes, great piles of leaves have washed into freshwater streams, aided by this year’s copious autumn rains.

In a field near the old farmhouse, a majestic shag bark hickory has shed her leaves, blanketing the thick meadow grass with a layer of yellow and brown. But not all the trees are undressed yet. Nearby, a Kousa dogwood wears a stunning shade of deep russet. A small sedum in a clay pot that has graced the picnic table all summer has picked up the color theme, edged now in red and gold as the days grow short and the light casts angled shadows across the yard.

Down the road, the pretty field that rims the Polly Hill Arboretum is awash too in the warm, tawny colors of fall.

Halloween was yesterday; November begins today.

This is the month when commercial bay scallopers traditionally hit their stride on the ponds and bays, and while so far it appears to be a lean year for scallops, hardy family and commercial shellfishermen are still out there, plying the craft. In the finger coves of the brackish Great Ponds that rim the Island’s south shore, wild oysters are putting on fat in tannin-rich waters. They will be ready for harvest by the holidays.

Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend, ushering in the start of the real off-season on Martha’s Vineyard. With wedding weekends on the wane, more businesses are closing up shop for the winter, and from now until Thanksgiving the Island will be a little less busy. Even coveted ferry reservations are opening up, as Islanders head to the mainland for shopping or some other gone-to-America need.

On-Island, fall business has been brisk this year, a positive sign that the shoulder season has grown into something more than a bit player in the Martha’s Vineyard economy. The Martha’s Vineyard Food and Wine Festival last weekend was one example, with hundreds of visitors tramping from one event to another.

And as happy festival-goers sampled oysters and grower champagnes, tequila and tacos, outdoors the forces of nature were at work. On Saturday astronomical low tides exposed a bit of history in Vineyard Haven: an old causeway across the Lagoon Pond, running roughly from the Bangs shack to Beach Road.

Historical records show that the Oklahoma Causeway was built in the 1870s by Wallace Barnes, a Connecticut developer who was looking for a way to provide transportation from Vineyard Haven to his new summer resort named Oklahoma — situated on the banks of the Lagoon Pond. The development began with a hotel that proved to be a popular watering hole for revelers. But a plan to build cottages around the hotel later failed when Mr. Barnes fell on financial hard times. The hotel burned to the ground in a brush fire in 1906.

But the causeway — raised and lined with stones — remains intact albeit mostly submerged beneath the waters of the Lagoon, perhaps a testament to the engineers that built it.

While you’re pondering all that, remember to turn the clocks back on Saturday night!