It might not be obvious, but right from the start in 1950, the Steamship Authority has followed fairly clear lines of thought when it comes to naming ferries and freight boats.

The Vineyard Gazette’s special coverage of coastal erosion last summer has won a first-place award for best investigative or in-depth story or series from the National Newspaper Association.

The Martha’s Vineyard Sharks snapped a six-game losing streak Tuesday in an away contest against the Worcester Bravehearts, but fell 5-1 to the league-leading Brockton Rox on returning to their home field the next night.

An air of satisfaction prevails at the animal shelter these days due to the outstanding success of the garden party last Monday.

A year has passed since Richard and Jennifer Schifter took a plunge into the Vineyard unknown and moved their 8,000-square-foot house away from an eroding Chappaquiddick bluff.

Looking back at the complex project this month, parties involved pronounce the project a success.

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank reported revenues of $277,872.53 for the business week ending on Friday, June 27, 2014. The land bank receives its funds from a two per cent fee charged on many Vineyard real estate transactions.

The Grey Barn Farm in Chilmark started with just three cows. Now there are 25 Dutch Belted ladies grazing the fields, as well as pigs and chickens.

Early summer arrived like a small lurch on the Vineyard this year, as if someone had hit the gas pedal a little too hard. Clear June days with warm sunshine and cool evenings beneath star-splashed inky skies are in the rearview mirror now, replaced by the heat and humidity that portend the long, lazy beach days of July. The landscape is dry and muted with fewer wildflowers than usual due to lack of rain. And everywhere you look, the pace of life has changed.

I am told that multiflora roses are invasive and that it was all a mistake when the first of them were planted in the 1950s or 1960s to border up-Island fields. It is true that I must now duck under a sharp-thorned multiflora rose bush to get to my compost heap, but why should I mind?

Near the end of the school year my son had a field trip to the Boston Museum of Science. As I drove him to the ferry I put on some traveling music, Billy Bragg singing Woody Guthrie tunes.