The Slow Food movement and Martha’s Vineyard have a lot in common, and not just in our delight in eating locally grown plants and animals.

In the 1970s McDonald’s set its sights on the Island, targeting an area along the Vineyard Haven harbor. But the people said no. A grass roots campaign sent fast food packing.

Similarly, in Italy in 1986 the voracious appetite of McDonald’s spurred another movement that harkened back to a simpler and healthier time.

The sight of an old barn, a beacon of red in the midst of a green and yellow field, not unlike that of a lighthouse, often brings up visions of the past, and a more idyllic time when cows owned the earth and people, well, just milked them.

Artist Richard Dunbrack sees furniture.

Using recycled materials from old barns and antique oddities that have fallen from grace (he does not pillage), Mr. Dunbrack fashions whimsical yet functional furniture. Art you can take a nap in, if you will.

Transformed into what appears to be a room of curiosities, the Yard’s black-box theatre this week evokes a sense of wonder. A guitar leans against a funky metal chair, a streetlight stands in one corner, a piano is angled in the other and a lamp with no shade illuminates the stage.

But there’s a softness to the lighting that smooths what might be rougher edges of junk and turns it into a collection of life’s treasures.

“Listen Local” might be the theme of the evening on Monday, July 18. That’s when Jemima James hosts her third annual Variety Show at Featherstone Center for the Arts, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The show is part of Featherstone’s Musical Mondays concert series.

The Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury is more than just a pleasant experience with nature, although it is definitely that. It is a place to learn and become more in tune, not just with what nature has to offer, but the drastic changes taking place in our ecosystem on a daily basis.

For the Jim Thomas Spirituals Choir, the history is as much a part of the experience as the music. Tracing the evolution of American music through the Underground Railroad and the Middle Passage, Jim Thomas and his chorus sing a story of our cultural past.

He’s lived most of his life as the guy you couldn’t help but notice. Marc Elliot estimates that he has “tic-ed” 21 million times in his life. Two weeks ago he stopped.

Mr. Elliot, who was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome at the age of nine, tours the country speaking to audiences about tolerance and understanding. But Tourette’s isn’t his only hardship. Mr. Elliot was also diagnosed with Hirschsprung’s disease, which left him with only four feet of small intestine (the usual is 19 feet) and no large intestine.

I could never live in Florida or Arizona. I’d rather it snow than be 90 degrees and humid. The Weather Channel reported 117 degrees in Phoenix.

By LYNNE IRONS

I could never live in Florida or Arizona. I’d rather it snow than be 90 degrees and humid. The Weather Channel reported 117 degrees in Phoenix. Have mercy! I hate it when people say it’s dry heat. I only hear heat. I will say the warm, humid days are finally forcing some real growth to peppers, tomatoes and squashes.

July and August are exciting times for birders on the Vineyard. We check the tide tables daily to find which beaches have low tides at a time there aren’t a zillion beachgoers scattered across the sand and wading along the flats. The location found, we grab our spotting scopes and head for the flats produced by the perfect tide. Low tides changing to high tides appear to attract the best selection of shorebirds. These sandpipers and long legged waders have the food source produced in and on the mud and sand flats, plus the birds are concentrated closer to shore by the incoming tide.

Come out of your shell.

That is easier said than done if you are a bivalve. Bivalves are two-shelled animals that live in marine and fresh water environments. The word bivalve connotes “two leaves of a door,” which refers to its two-sided, or double-shelled, form.