Just in case you forgot, I’m reminding you again about the ferry slip repairs scheduled for the school vacation week in April. For eight days the ferry will carry only passengers. No vehicles will be carried on Sunday April 17 and continuing through Sunday April 24 at 6 p.m. Passengers will be carried during the entire time. See the full notice on the Chappy ferry website or Facebook page. The captains have informational handouts. If you have any questions, suggestions or advice, my cell phone number is 508-627-1577.

Also here is a reminder about the spring egg hunt scheduled to start at 3 p.m. on Saturday March 26 at the community center. Bring a basket and arrive at least 10 minutes early. The hunt is fast paced and is over very quickly. Stick around afterward for light refreshments and snacks. This will be an opportunity to watch how other people’s kids are affected by heavy doses of sugar. You might see that your kids actually handle it pretty well. The Chappy egg hunt is a very low-key local event.

Perhaps you could use a practice run to warm up on your egg hunting skills. Then you will want to make sure to hit the big time at the MV Community Services second annual Easter egg hunt celebrated in honor of Island veterans and their families. It’s the morning of the same day, Saturday March 26. The Community Services campus is right across from the high school. The egg hunt starts promptly at 10 a.m. Afterwards you can participate in arts and crafts projects, listen to live music and enjoy snacks. This event is also free and everyone is welcome.

Even though there has been ice on the puddles some mornings Mother Nature has gone right ahead with redecorating all outdoors. Daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths and a lone blue iris are blooming on the sunny side of the house. The buds on the forsythia are nice and plump. One day I will look over that way and it will be a yellow cloud. It seems to happen overnight. The same thing occurs with the shadbush. All of a sudden you become aware of it on a foggy day and wonder if the blossoms have been out for days but you were too preoccupied to notice.

I’ll leave the snow fence up in the field opposite the community center for a few more weeks. I don’t want to be blamed for charming another snowstorm out of the clouds. This winter season did not provide sufficient blowing snow for me to reach any conclusions about the assumptions I made regarding the positioning of snow fencing. Though folks have been generous in sharing their observations and critical analyses.

This was also an easy winter for ticks. Unless the air temperature was well below freezing every time the dogs came in from an outdoor romp there were at least a few on each. I enjoy using the Scotch tape method of tick removal and encapsulation. If you press a short piece of tape against an unattached tick you don’t have to touch it to catch it. Many times I have picked a tick off myself or the dogs and kept it tightly squeezed between my fingers while I searched for the tape only to discover that it has vanished when I opened my fingers. That tick had to go somewhere. For hours afterward every tiny itch will conjure up an image of that little vampire augering a hole into your skin. Not a pleasant sensation. Keep that roll of tape handy. When I do successfully get a tick stuck to the tape I fold the tape over it. There’s no way for it to escape from that sticky lamination and you can get a good look at it. Maybe even save a couple to show to visitors from the tick-free states.

Many of the big oaks here on Chappy have died. The highway department has taken down a few of 24-inch diameter right along the main road. The community center lost the big oak that stood at the first fork in the driveway. Ralph Harding used to say that when he first arrived on Chappy in the twenties that from the high vantage of Sampson Hill a person could count all the houses and the big trees. These trees that are dying now would have been saplings the first day that Ralph stood atop Sampson Hill.

Send Chappy news to peter@chappyferry.net.