The annual Aquinnah Fourth of July parade will begin in the usual place on Old South Road on Thursday at 9 a.m. Enjoy the American flags, the parade of vehicles, face painting, music and the treasure hunt.

Congratulations to Senator Edward Markey, who certainly won the confidence of Vineyarders.

Our weather was delightful and summer-like last weekend. It is getting busier each day as more people continue to arrive for their vacations. Starting on Wednesday the crunch will be upon us as some folks will get a head start on the long holiday weekend. Independence Day is Thursday and all municipal buildings and post offices will be closed. The up-Island bus traffic has increased in just a week and next weekend is the start of the busiest week of the summer season.

Our Island Club, a consumer savings program that raises money for local organizations, contributed more than $50,000 to Island charities last year.

On June 1, 1897 John F. Murphy of Boston published a tourist guide on the resorts of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, which included a highly complimentary homage to Cottage City. Murphy wrote, “Upon a well-chosen and marvelously attractive site of this Island exists one of the most wonderful of community centers — Cottage City!” Later he makes the laudatory comment (that I of course agree with), “It is probable that the great majority of people who make reference by voice or pen to Martha’s Vineyard are thinking when they do so, only of Cottage City, that place being the grand centre of attractions and interests for the whole Island, and, indeed, the summering centre, par excellence, of all the land and water thereabouts.”

I have often wondered how one justifies the $50,000-plus tuition fee of a private high school. It was out of our range 20 years ago when our kids were teenagers. And then, just when I’m praising myself for all that money saved, Bill Dennehy walks rapidly past our house with his determined step and iPod ringing in his ears.

Did you miss me last week? I was so overwhelmed with driving Nonna back to the Island for the summer as well as my two dogs and one cat, that I was too exhausted to file a column on time. We had partied so hard at Nonna’s farewell party on her porch in White Plains that we were a day behind schedule.

I have a new friend. He is a turtle. I think we get along because we see ourselves in each other. Like me, he is a procrastinator. Without fail he begins his trek across the ninth fairway of my golf course only after he hears the oncoming hum of my mower. I imagine him at home with best intentions to “this time” begin his journey to the swamp before the advent of my intrusive mowing, but each time finds himself only heading out the door once it is a bit too late. He crosses the hundred or so yards that bisect my back and forth mowing in about 30 minutes; his top speed is slower than most others’ lower gears (again, a reminder of myself).

Every morning Rosileia Mandelli wakes up to bird song. Actually, bird symphony might be a better description for the trilling and twittering that emanates from her kitchen in the early hours of the day.

Alongside family portraits and vacation photos, six bird cages hang on the kitchen and living room walls of her Oak Bluffs home. Adriano, her husband of 13 years, has raised and bred canaries since he was a boy growing up in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, the westernmost city in the state of Paraná.

Island first responders fielded a 10 member team for a Boston Strong First Responders workout marathon last weekend at Gillette Stadium. The 26-hour endurance event was a fundraiser for The One Fund Boston, which aids victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

At 6:45 a.m. on a Saturday
morning near the Poucha Pond salt marsh at Chappaquiddick, a few fishermen lined the shores and a handful of binocular-bearing biologists and birders walked through the dunes. Otherwise, the land was bare of human activity.

But in the sky a bird with deep black and bright white striped wings swooped nearby. The binoculars went up.

“That’s a willet,” said Luanne Johnson, director of the nonprofit BiodiversityWorks dedicated to wildlife research, monitoring and mentoring.