I am the queen of justification. My latest is that I am leaving the cutting back of the perennial beds until the dead of winter.

Martha Stewart didn’t get the memo.

On her Web site, the domestic diva highlights porcelain berry as a “no maintenance plant with attractive fruits” and suggests that gardeners “grow it as a ground cover by letting it sprawl or train it as a climbing vine.”

Little Tin Horn is the name that Eric Cottle gave the bird that seems to be gracing everyone’s feeders this season. Nothing sounds more like those penny whistle tin horns than the red nuts — (the name bird-watchers give the red-breasted nuthatches).

Cable Future Forum

MVTV, in cooperation with the towns on Martha’s Vineyard, is seeking input on the future of cable service, community media and technology that will be available on the Island for the next 10 years. Comcast has submitted a request to have its cable franchise agreements renewed. As a part of the process of exploring the future cable communications needs of the Island there will be a series of focus groups.

Vineyard Nursing Association aides Lisa Larsen and Lena Vanderhoop have been nominated for special awards as part of the 40th annual Homecare Aide Celebration in Boston on Nov. 17.

Lisa Larsen was nominated for her exemplary service during Hurricane Earl, when she provided personal care to a medically fragile patient who was housed at a Red Cross shelter. Ms. Larsen has been working with the VNA for three years.

Buffeted by sharp northeast winds whipping off Nantucket Sound, marchers in the annual Island Veterans Day parade yesterday were met by a burst of bright sunshine as they headed up Lake avenue in Oak Bluffs toward Ocean Park. It was the first time anyone on the Island had seen sunshine in over a week.

Warm, golden rays broke through the slate-gray cloud cover as uniform-clad members of the honor guard struggled to hold their flags upright in the ferocious wind.

Security for prisoners on work release programs from the Edgartown house of correction is likely to be tightened up following an incident this week in which a prisoner caught a bus to visit a friend and girlfriend instead of going to work.

Quincy A. Young, who was serving a 30-month sentence for drug and firearms offenses, was allowed out on Sunday to attend a work program at the Farm Institute in Katama. He was supposed to catch a public bus to get there.

A state review of Dukes County has found the current county structure renders it unable to deliver “strong and cohesive management” and recommends Island leaders look to a new model, if they are serious about providing better regional services.

Instead of the current structure, it recommends a council of governments approach, under which the towns would wield much more direct influence.

The commercial fishing quota for striped bass for the region will remain the same next year and beyond. At a meeting in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission striped bass management board voted to keep the quota the same. The commission had been poised to raise the quota.

From now until at least next spring, anyone who wants to put up a wind turbine — on land, except in Edgartown and at sea anywhere within three miles of the Island — must go before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for review.

With a yearlong moratorium on large wind turbines set to expire, the commission voted last Thursday to extend the period that towns have to develop final wind regulations until at least the next spring town meeting cycle.