The real kick-off to the Oak Bluffs summer season, which precedes the monster shark fest and all the other festivities that make Oak Bluffs the hub of the party wheel, is coming up this weekend. The annual Oak Bluffs Harbor Festival is on Saturday, June 22.

It may be the end of the school year but that’s no time to put your groove away. Alex’s Place is hosting a middle school dance party on Friday night, June 21, and everyone in grades six to eight is invited.

Admission is $5 and the DJ starts spinning at 8 p.m. Alex’s Place has a no-reentry policy, so kids are encouraged to say inside until a ride comes.

Maybe you have a pale blue thumb and are wondering how to turn it into a nice shade of green. Or maybe you just wish you didn’t kill every chrysanthemum that comes your way. Enter Vineyard Gardens which hosts gardening lectures on Saturday mornings. There are just two left, though, for the season.

In case you’re wondering what flowers and fine art have in common, Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club will enlighten with its Bloomin’ Art exhibit at the Old Mill building in West Tisbury. The event pairs artwork by 30 Vineyard artists with interpretive floral arrangements created by the club members. The art is available for purchase with proceeds funding ongoing projects such as scholarships for Island graduates and the preservation of the Old Mill.

If you save this date you may just help save the Gay Head Lighthouse. The Keep on Shining campaign to relocate and restore the lighthouse will kick off Friday, June 21, with a community open house and solstice celebration.

Juneteenth traces its beginnings to June 19, 1865, when slaves in Texas first learned of their freedom two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The Martha’s Vineyard branch of the NAACP will hold its annual Juneteenth celebration on Saturday, June 22, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the First Baptist Church on Spring street in Vineyard Haven.

Their life can only be described as short and sweet.

Boston-based artist, teacher and long-time Vineyard visitor Elizabeth Carter opens an exhibit of her work at the Chilmark Library on South Road from Saturday, June 22. The reception is from 3 to 5 p.m.

Luanne Johnson and crew from Biodiversity Works recently had an opportunity to help capture willets and fit them with geolocation data loggers, which are also known as bird loggers, geologgers, geolocators or GLS. Joe Smith, a research ornithologist from New Jersey and a pioneer in geolocator tagging, came at the request of Biodiversity Works. The crew went to three locations: Little Beach in Edgartown, the Narrows and the beach next to Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick.

It’s truly astonishing how quickly weeds and other unwanted greenery can grow and get away from me. I kept a horse and a donkey on the back part of the property for at least a decade. They kept all vegetation trimmed right to the ground. The donkey, a Death Valley rescue, even ate poison ivy and prickers. He wrapped his little donkey lips around wild roses and berries.