Irish Alpacas

Skip the beer and go for the yarn.

Island Alpaca is having a St. Patrick’s Day open house on two consecutive weekends: March 12 and 13 and March 19 and 20.

Check out the alpacas on a self-guided walking tour, enjoy some hot cider and shop for one-of-a-kind alpaca products. Island Alpaca is located at 1 Head of the Pond Road in Oak Bluffs. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., rain or shine.

For more details, call 508-693-5554.

Next Sunday, March 13, at 11 a.m. the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard is going vocal with guest preacher, Reverend Bill Clark and special musical guests, the Pleasant Street Quintet.

The quintet is on holiday from the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Mass. They are composed of flautist Mies Boet-Whitaker, French horn player John Chapin, clarinetist Michelle Markus, oboist Carl Schlaikjer and bassoonist Jean Renard Ward and will be playing music by composers Claude Paul Taffanel, Amy Beach and Joseph Haydn.

Winter Walk

The hint of spring is upon us. Although the cold weather has not completely given up, the light lingers longer these days and there are moments when the cold wind gives way to a breath of warm air while out on an afternoon walk.

But these glimpses of what is around the corner are fleeting and therefore do not give proof of what is to come. For more concrete evidence that the change of seasons is already upon us, it is best to turn toward nature.

Book Group Assembles

The Edgartown Library’s book group’s next meeting will be on March 29 at 4 p.m. The book under scrutiny will be The Fiddler in the Subway by Gene Weingarten.

Poet Rebecca Gayle Howell is a reader first and foremost. When she started to read in a serious way at the age of 11, Ms. Howell would sneak away with her older sister’s high school English textbook. That’s how she discovered T.S. Eliot.

“I read the Four Quartets, and for the first time I knew something had changed in me,” Ms. Howell said in a phone interview with the Gazette earlier this week. “I just kept reading from there.”

Spring must be on its way; the Island Theatre Workshop’s spring play festival, now in its fifth year, is about to begin.

This year’s festival runs Thursday, March 10 through Sunday, March 13 and then again from Thursday, March 17 through Sunday, March 20. Evening shows begin at 7:30 p.m. with additional Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. All shows are to be performed at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.

March Madness is not confined to college basketball. Featherstone Gallery in Oak Bluffs is dedicating its month of madness to the arts. In particular, the art of Island students.

The series kicks off on Sunday, March 6 with a reception for Tova Katzman, a senior at the high school. The reception is from 4 to 6 p.m. and will feature Miss Katzman’s photography including digital, darkroom and video projects. There will also be pieces on display of work she did at the Art Institute of Chicago last summer.

Party in the Pews

Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, most likely conjures up images of celebrating decadence. From the beads and nearly-bare ladies on the balconies of New Orleans to the even more scantily clad bodies at the Rio de Janeiro Carnival parties, folks seem lit by a fire paralleling religious ecstasy.

Now add to that list the West Tisbury Congregational Church.

On Thursday, Feb. 17, I led the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation’s winter walk at the Phillips Preserve hoping to hear the great horned owls that nest nearby.

I have been happily emptying my pantry and freezer of last season’s produce. The pepper and eggplant mixture has been a great addition to the winter’s tomato sauces.