Earlier this month the Ecuadorian community of Martha’s Vineyard celebrated their independence day at the Old English Gazebo located at Morgan Woods in Edgartown. The event began with the commemoration of another year of the Ecuadorian Heroic Deed of 1809 that led to independence from the Spanish crown.

Where have all the flowers gone? The line from the old Pete Seeger folk song is a fitting metaphor for the Vineyard as one season comes to an end and another one begins.

Labor Day weekend has arrived. Summer residents and visitors are packing the cars, taking one last swim, sweeping sand from the cottage before closing the door on another Vineyard summer.

Water is an essential ingredient for the existence of life as we know it. Water is the only substance naturally present on the earth that exists in three distinct states — solid, liquid and gas.

In the water molecule, oxygen is the central atom. It has four pairs of valence electrons surrounding it.

This past June I went back to Bimini in the Bahamas to see old friends and to locate a few places that I visit in my dreams. One afternoon I rode my bike from the south end of the island three miles north to the tiny settlement of Porgy Bay, where my wife Bonnie and I spent magic summers when we were in our twenties.  I like to say to people that Bimini hasn’t changed much in the past fifty years but that is just something I wish to believe. I passed a new medical clinic and athletic center, and ungainly concrete houses on both sides of the dusty road.

On the west end of Edgartown a 350-acre plot of land called Pohogonot Farm is nestled deep in the scrub oak forest on the south shore of Martha’s Vineyard. In 1893 my great-great-grandfather George D. Flynn first visited Pohogonot Farm. He fell in love with this piece of property while recovering from a railroad accident, and ended up purchasing 1,500 acres of land between 1906 and 1917. Four houses built by the Samuel Smith family existed on Pohogonot when first bought.

Regional high school students start classes later than usual this year, but the fall athletes are already on the fields preparing for the upcoming season. Mornings and evenings bring a flurry of activity to the quiet school campus as football, field hockey, cross country, soccer and golf shake off the summer haze and get down to business.

It’s a time of tryouts, when varsity and junior varsity teams are created, and a time of camaraderie as teammates work through drills and circuits. It is also exhausting.

When I fell and broke my wrist in early August, my normal hectic routine — daily tennis, regular kayaking, and too many hours working at the computer — came to a screeching halt. With my left arm and hand encased in a high-tech black Exos cast, my choices at first seemed limited.

B.E.T. recently held its annual party at Hook’s (formerly Lola’s) in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. The evening was illuminated by a starlit sky, and the spirits and energy of those in attendance were shining just as bright.

The following letter was sent to the Chilmark selectmen: We read about your consideration of requests to lift the prohibition on liquor sale by our Chilmark restaurants. Unfortunately we will be unable to attend the public meeting on the subject but wanted to express ourselves.

The following letter was sent to the Chilmark selectmen: The request for allowing eating establishments to obtain liquor licenses is troubling. The fact that Chilmark remains dry while others have not should never be a reason to change the character of the Menemsha village. How it could impact the town and its future should be thoroughly examined before a decision is made in favor of one request.