The football team plays its first home game of the season tonight at 6:30 p.m. against Old Rochester. Their next home game will not be until the end of the month.

On Saturday, the cross country teams host the sixth annual Vineyard Invitational meet, featuring 13 teams and over 420 athletes. The first races will be at 11 a.m.

Also on Saturday, boys’ soccer plays visiting Dennis-Yarmouth at 12:30 p.m.

West Tisbury library trustees asked the town selectmen this week for permission to cut down nearly 10 trees to make way for construction of the new library late this fall. The library also needs the money to take the trees down.On Wednesday trustee Linda Hearn asked the selectmen to put an article on the Nov. 13 special town meeting warrant asking for $6,000 for the tree removal. There are four large trees adjacent to the parking lot, two at the rear of Howes House, several small trees around the property and a large maple at the entrance to the parking lot, which Polly Hill Arboretum executive director Tim Boland called “diseased and dangerous,” according to Mrs. Hearn.

We enjoyed a gorgeous Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of the summer season. Cookouts and outdoor activities, including the beach, were the order of the day. Traffic was considerably lighter and parking spaces were not hard to find if you went into town. Business at the Dumptique was brisk as a fair amount of people were dropping off items they enjoyed over the summer but no longer needed. Signs advertising yard sales were numerous.

‘Tis derby season. In just two days the Vineyard community will undergo a large transformation as the 67th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, the Island’s annual Olympics for fisherman, begins.

There is nothing I appreciate more than hearing from folks with inquiries, observations and article ideas. Susan Gomez and I ran into each other in the grocery store, where she told me that she had an idea for an article, but couldn’t remember what it was. She followed up with an email, not only remembering her topic idea, but also with a flurry of great questions about hornworms. Susan got more than she bargained for.

Last September I stood in the kitchen at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School with 14 other volunteers and 1,600 pounds of fresh roma tomatoes, picked that morning at Morning Glory Farm. The farm owners realized they were not going to be able to harvest this bounty themselves before the ripe and tender fruit was past its prime, and had opened their fields to the Island Grown Gleaning volunteers to pick all they could.

Captain Warren, it turns out, was actually an accountant.

And the house at 62 North Water street may bear his name (along with the disingenuous title of captain), but the history of the building is not about Captain Warren. The once-stately home dates to the late 18th century and was the home of the Osborns, an old Edgartown family that traced its roots to the whaling era. Caroline Osborn Warren, Mr. Warren’s wife, inherited the house, and was a benefactor of the Edgartown Public Library next door.

As the Island starts to transition from summer crowds to autumn quiet, the Steamship Authority is reporting that traffic was up compared with last year.

“The summer was good; the traffic has been good,” Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson told the Gazette this week.

June passenger traffic to the Vineyard was up by 4.7 per cent; July passenger traffic saw a decrease of 1.9 per cent; and August traffic was up by 7.2 per cent compared with 2011, according to Steamship Authority data. Passenger traffic is up 4.6 per cent for the year to date.

Follow the drumbeats, the hum of singing and the waft of food up to the Aquinnah Circle this weekend as the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) celebrates their 25th anniversary of federal recognition at their eight annual powwow.

Festivities take place Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with The Grand Entry, a procession of tribal members from across the New England area, starting at noon on Saturday.

Turn over any rock, wander down a new
hiking path, take a closer look at a shell. Nature is full of surprises and the pages of the book Moraine to Marsh reveal just that. This field guide to Martha’s Vineyard is often tucked away on many Island bookshelves, maybe caked with mud or dust, a cherished and often-turned-to friend. But 25 years after its publication, the book is no longer in print, and just a few treasured copies remain.