Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss unveiled an eye-opening $3.5 million budget for the coming fiscal year last week, a 20 per cent increase over 2006.

The bulk of the hike in the superintendent’s budget can be tracked to a greatly expanded special needs program for elementary school children, negotiated teacher pay raises from last year and a new position of facilities manager for school buildings. The superintendent is asking for total additional funds approaching $600,000 over last year’s $2.9 million budget.

More and more ghosts are being drawn to Oak Bluffs’ attractive summer housing. “Some spirits have a sliver of their psyche attached to some place where they were happy,” explains Holly Nadler, Haunted Island author, bookstore owner and part-time ghost-hunter. As these properties change owners more frequently, some are becoming crowded. “This place is gooey with ghosts,” said Ms. Nadler, conducting a tour of the Camp Ground last weekend.

The Island has more than its fair share of ghost stories — tales of haunted swamps, buried treasures, spiteful spectres and benevolent phantoms.

At night I see stars and by day see horses. Felix Neck (and the Vineyard, by extension) is a good place to be.

It is not that the stars shine brighter here; you can see them from your home no matter where you are. It is seahorses that might be harder to find.

What are Nancy Drew, The Cat in the Hat, and Winnie the Pooh doing hanging out on Main street? They are waiting to be judged in the eighth annual scarecrow contest sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School.

This year’s contest has a literary theme, with characters from Where the Wild Things Are, Charlotte’s Web, The Wizard of Oz and other children’s classics braving the winds and weather this week.

It is not proper for birders, naturalists or any type of scientist to anthropomorphize: a 50-cent word that means giving a human personality to something that is not human. It’s often hard to avoid this, but the most difficult test for me is the Carolina wren.

By LYNNE IRONS

It is difficult to set my priorities this time of year. It is still so warm and pleasant. Should I finish picking and processing those late peppers, tomatoes, and green beans, or should I clean out the wood stove and gather kindling? I had so much to do the other day that I became paralyzed. I sat on a stool and picked dead leaves off the ladies’ mantle. It is rather like organizing the Tupperware when in the middle of a crisis.

Pigs. Goats. Compost. What do they all have in common? They all love pumpkins! And they especially love those tasty, candle-roasted, day-after-Halloween jack-o-lanterns — the perfect nosh for the farm (minus the wax, please)!

The Island Grown Initiative presents the first annual Feed a Pig a Pumpkin Day‚ Saturday, Nov. 3.

Post-Halloween pumpkins can be dropped off during regular business hours at:

Allen Farm in Chilmark,

FARM Institute in Edgartown,

Native Earth Teaching Farm in Chilmark,

Julianne Vanderhoop’s front yard in Aquinnah features a modest house and small pond fed by a Black Brook underground spring. The property is otherwise unremarkable — unless you count the 20,000-pound beehive-shaped bread oven, made of several thousand terra blanc tiles mined from a clay quarry in France.

The wood-fired oven produces 30 to 40 pieces of baked goods a day for The Orange Peel, Ms. Vanderhoop’s new home bakery.

Federal and state regulators have issued their approval for the merger of The Martha’s Vineyard Co-operative Bank and Dukes County Savings Bank.

The combined bank, to be named the Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank, will continue to be mutually owned and locally based, with more than $460 million in assets.

The merger will become effective for customers over Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 10 to 12, when the two banking operations will be united.