Margaret Knight

508 627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

Brine’s Pond, the swamps, and even some of the salt marsh ponds had ice on them after winter swept in last week. With all the leaves off the trees, the late berries, including the bright red winterberry bush, show up nicely along the roads. There is a big patch of winterberry in the marshy area on the left just before the beach club, heading toward the ferry.

The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society will introduce a sparkling new voice to Island music lovers at its holiday concert this Saturday, Nov. 29.

At 7:30 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown, pianist and artistic director Delores Stevens will be joined by singer Krista River and violist Scott Woolweaver for a concert of music by Brahms, Bach, Hummel, Loeffler, Chausson and Noel Coward.

Ms. River, a celebrated young mezzo-soprano, will be performing for the first time on a Vineyard stage.

Read All About It

Take a reading safari at the Tisbury School library’s annual Scholastic Book Fair, Dec. 1 to 4. Everyone is invited to the sale, which this year has the theme Book Fair Safari. This annual event gives students, teachers, parents and grandparents an opportunity to add to their own libraries. After-school book fair hours are: Monday, Tuesday and Friday (Dec. 1, 2 and 4) from 2:45 to 4 p.m. and Wednesday, Dec. 3 from 2:45 to 7 p.m.

Martha’s Vineyard Rod & Gun Club opens its annual Fall Shotgun Shoot to the public on Sunday, Nov. 30. Everyone is eligible for prizes in this marksmanship competition the day before the shotgun deer season opens.

The performance by Venus and Jupiter has probably gotten your attention. The two planets are close together and setting in the west, soon after the sun. The show gets even better in the nights ahead.

Responding to the largest number of grant applications in its 26-year history, the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard last month awarded $35,050 in grants to 17 nonprofit organizations on the Island.

Happy Birthday, Rose

Island artist, self-taught seaweed scientist and passionate personality Rose Treat turns 100 on Sunday, Dec. 7, and everyone is invited to a potluck birthday party celebration at the Agricultural Hall from 3 to 5:30 p.m.

Approximately 12 times a year, the Vineyard is treated to the glory of a full moon dominating the night sky, spilling its light across farm fields, ponds and ocean when the weather is clear. Nov. 13 was the full moon for November, tagged the Beaver Moon by the Old Farmer’s Almanac, that trusty yellow handbook now in its 217th year.

I like the Old Farmer’s Almanac and continue to hold it in high esteem. But the naming of the full moons got me thinking recently, about our beautiful night sky on the Island, inky and unspoiled by light pollution.

Singing Service

Guest vocalist Jeannie Gagné will talk about Singing to Save the World and lead the congregation in hymns on Sunday Nov. 30, at 11 a.m. the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard on Upper Main street in Vineyard Haven.

Last Thursday night, having turned off the lights after the first full day’s trading at the newly-reopened Bunch of Grapes bookstore, Katherine Fergason sat down in the aisle, in the dark, in the silence and cried.

Happy tears this time.

It was not just that the bookstore was back — albeit in temporary form and in a temporary location — after the July Fourth fire.

It was the smell of 4,000 brand new books. And the smiles of scores of old customers.