The first potluck supper at the Chappy Community Center is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 19, hosted by new CCC board member Nancy Slate and Dennis Goldin. I’ve had the good fortune to taste Nancy’s cooking, so I’m certain that the appetizers will be out of this world. Gossip starts at 6 p.m., dinner at 6:30. If you’ve already made plans with Lady Gaga, it’s okay to bring her along.

Lisa and Jason Gruner of Edgartown announce the birth of a daughter, Ella Sea Gruner, born on August 23, 2012 at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Ella weighed 5 pounds, 15.5 ounces at birth.

Welcome to the skies of September. Our nights begin with two viewable planets. Night ends with two planets to view.

Mars and Saturn are low in the southwestern sky after sunset, with Saturn being closer to the horizon. Mars, the red planet, has moved away from Saturn and appears slightly higher and more southerly in the sky. Saturn resides in the zodiacal constellation Virgo. In just the last several weeks, Mars has moved from Virgo into the zodiacal constellation Libra.

Temperature: Precip.

Day Max. Min. Inches.

Fº Fº

August 24 82 64

August 25 82 64

August 26 80 64

August 27 78 55

August 28 78 71 .01

August 29 82 64 .03

August 30 76 56

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 77º F.

Last Wednesday, under bright sunny skies and light seas, Dan Farren completed his 1,500th crossing of Nantucket Sound for the Falmouth-Edgartown ferry service. Captain Farren, 63, began working the run in 2001. For the crew and many passengers on the ferry Sanderling, it was a routine trip. But for the captain, it was a special notation in a little notebook he carries in his shirt pocket.

Preseason practice awaits high school athletes regardless of what sport they play, but only the fall warrants its own moniker: Hell Week, which began this year on August 23. After the relatively lazy days of summer comes a fast-paced week of tryouts and tune-ups. Dawn workouts are considered the standard of Hell Week (some groups prefer the early practices because they allow players to continue their summer jobs a little longer), but on any given day in the week leading up to school you’ll find at least two teams on the fields in both the morning and the late afternoon.

Political comedian Scott Blakeman is back to deliver laughs to Island crowds for his third summer this Saturday, Sept. 1.

Mr. Blakeman specializes in humor from a liberal Jewish point of view — his words. He has been featured on MSNBC’s live coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner and also appears regularly on the live webcast Fox News.com Live. He is an original member of the New York-based political comedy show, Laughing Liberally, and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.

PeaceQuilts for Haiti founder Jeanne Staples is seeking the Vineyard’s help to secure a $20,000 donation from More Magazine, which is sponsoring an online contest for female entrepreneurs.

Mrs. Staples started the nonprofit PeaceQuilts in 2007. Since then, she’s launched eight quilting cooperatives in Haiti that provide training, materials and mentoring to artisans whose quilts are sold in galleries, in museum shops and online. For more information on PeaceQuilts, go to haitipeacequilts.org

How many ways can a person prepare and enjoy summer squash and zucchini? I don’t know the answer but am seriously working on it. Last night I sautéed some squash and onions and served it over red quinoa with Bragg’s liquid amines. I felt as if I’d been transported back to the sixties. There were years of brown rice and vegetables. Sometime in the eighties I stopped eating rice so much. Because of gardening and growing my own food, rice no longer appealed to me.

Sleeping is wonderful when there is a chill in the air. So is going to the post office and not being stuck in stop-and-go traffic. The weather is also a wake-up call to birders on the Island. Northerly winds bring birds from their nesting grounds toward their winter haunts. This is an exciting time for birders known as fall migration!