Announcing Lathrop

Hillary Noyes and John Keene of Chilmark announce the birth of a son, Lathrop John Backus Keene on July 7 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Lathrop weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces at birth. He is also welcomed by big sisters Adelaine, Thea and Ella.

The Farm Institute invites Island residents and visitors for family and community chores on Saturday, July 26, at 9 a.m. with author Norman Bridwell reading two of his beloved Clifford The Big Red Dog stories at noon.

Lend a hand big or small in collecting eggs, milking the goat, feeding and caring for the cows, sheep, pigs and baby chicks, and there are garden chores to enjoy as well. Dress for the weather — and to get dirty.

This is a free community event and no registration or experience is necessary. Donations are welcome.

From July Vineyard Gazette editions:

Ordinarily at this phase of an Island summer the hedgerows would be dusty, and dust would be coating the dry, hot sweet fern beside our sandy roads. The scent of huckleberry and bayberry thickets would seem to be part of the heat, part of the sunny day and the elixir of sunlight itself. Older inhabitants remember how the iron rims of carriage wheels used to sink into the sand, and how the heat and the dust mingled and then fell apart.

With six confirmed cases of tularemia and reports of Lyme disease coming in, the Vineyard has begun another season of documenting tick-borne illnesses.

Although cases are still being confirmed, official numbers will not be released until early next year. But initial reports from state public health officials and the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital indicate no slowdown in the high rates of tick-borne illnesses on Island.

While many nonprofits across the nation are cutting staff and programs due to the weak economy and rising operational costs, the Vineyard Nursing Association over the past six months has gone in a different direction, nearly doubling the number of patients under its care while hiring new staff and expanding its programs.

Massachusetts is in the midst of a blood shortage due to a decline in blood donations, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross said Monday. Meanwhile, officials at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital said demand for blood on the Vineyard has increased with the summer swell in population.

Those involved with blood supply agree the current situation makes a high turnout critical for this Thursday’s Martha’s Vineyard Community Blood Drive.

The names of Flip Scipio’s clients — Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, and Carly Simon among them — are testament to him as a guitar technician.

Other names you’ve never heard of are testament to him as a person. They are the names of soldiers in Afghanistan, whose music he also enabled. Not that he even mentions it until it comes up in conversation at his Aquinnah home.

They are tallish, spare and almost laconic men. Certainly, 350 years of pragmatic New England roots, courtesy of their mother, Barbara Flanders, is part of it.

For Doug and David Seward, there is another reason. They are identical twins. “Mirror twins” as Doug puts it. They don’t need to talk much though they’re working at talking more, so other people are included in their often soundless dialogue.

They have lived 61 years as intuitive brothers, raised as crickers, a term for Menemsha Creek youth of a certain age.

The 22nd annual two-day monster shark tournament in Oak Bluffs ended Saturday with a total of 27 sharks caught and submitted, the largest of which was a 399-pound thresher. The team on the Waterbury caught the shark Friday, beating the other 200 boats in the tournament. Their prize was an $80,000 boat.

Chilmark police responded to a high number of motor vehicle and moped accidents over the past week, including a two-vehicle accident on Middle Road on Thursday that sent six people to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.

Chilmark police chief Timothy Rich said the accident occurred just after 10 p.m. near the intersection of Tabor House Road when a 2005 Subaru Legacy driven by seasonal resident Donald Leopold, 18, crossed the center line and collided with a 1999 Volvo Station carrying seven occupants.