It is astonishing how rapidly spring progresses once it finally starts. It seems the lawns and fields have greened-up overnight.

Sengekontacket Pond has been closed to shellfishing for another summer, Edgartown selectmen announced at their weekly meeting on Monday.

Landmarks Makes Mark

Coldwell Banker Landmarks Real Estate of Vineyard Haven is proud to acknowledge the designation of licensed real estate broker awarded by the Massachusetts state division of professional licensure to Diana Lynn, Karl Buder, Lynn Buder and Dave Federowicz.

Judy Federowicz is principal broker of Coldwell Banker Landmarks.

A pair who robbed a well-known elderly Oak Bluffs man of his life savings last month have been arrested, although Oak Bluffs police said they have not recovered all the money. Police said $85,000 was stolen from the man, whose name is being withheld, but only about $37,000 has been recovered.

The robbery occurred on March 19, when the man reported to police that his safe had been stolen from his home while he was off-Island visiting family for two days. It contained his life savings of about $85,000, police said.

Welcome Esther

Luciana Brito and Fabio Coutinho of Oak Bluffs announce the birth of a daughter, Esther de Brito Coutinho, born on April 12, 2011, at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Esther weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces at birth.

Two neighboring Oak Bluffs businesses squared off at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday over plans to expand the Ocean Club restaurant to include a second-story 500-person function hall. Surfside Motel owner Jeff Young claimed that sound from the expansion, which he characterized as a nightclub, would drive him and his family out of business. Ocean Club owners Mike and Mark Wallace argued that the issue would be more appropriately dealt with by the town.

Poetry can be called an esoteric art for but what homeowner can’t relate to Alan Dugan’s Love Song: I and Thou

Nothing is plumb, level, or square:

the studs are bowed, the joists

are shaky by nature, no piece fits

any other piece without a gap

or pinch, and bent nails

dance all over the surfacing

like maggots. By Christ

I am no carpenter.

He would fashion a paintbrush from a twig and some of his own hair, he would grab whatever was available — plywood, masonite, a seashell — and in this way, Captain John. J. Ivory created an eccentric artistic legacy befitting his legendary vagabond life.

Around this time every year, for the past 17, a group of children have come to Martha’s Vineyard for the same reason as many do: for refuge. The children’s need is usually greater than most, for they are children living with HIV/AIDS. Next week, Camp Safe Haven returns to the Island, where this now global nonprofit was born. As part of the week’s activities, all Islanders are invited to a fund-raising reception called Home Sweet Home, on Tuesday, April 19, from 5 to 8:30 p.m.

C.L. Fornari Will Give Talk

To Garden Club Tuesday

Artist, garden writer, host of the radio show Gardenline, and associate producer of PBS documentary Odyssey, expert gardener and landscape consultant C.L. Fornari is also the author of A Garden Lover’s Martha’s Vineyard. She will be speaking on the Island at the Garden Club’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 19 at 1 p.m. at the Wakeman Center on Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury.