A thin crescent moon appears under the bright planet Venus tonight. Take a look about a half hour after sunset. The two appear just above the glow of where the sun has set and it is a pretty scene.

More and more observers will see the crescent moon in the nights ahead when it is higher in the sky. The moon is to the left of Venus tomorrow night. Both are about the same height above the horizon.

The western sky gets prettier on Sunday night when the moon is even higher in the southwestern sky, but it is also close to the ringed-planet Saturn.

Family Dance-O-Bama, a special edition all-ages disco party at 4 to 6 p.m. at Flatbread Company next to the airport in Edgartown. Free admission. Call 508-693-1137.

Has the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard been listed in the Best of the Vineyard? From the number of visitors walking through the doors lately, the shelter is the place to visit while on-Island. All the pets have been thriving on the human attention. Even Michael, the most reclusive of cats, has emerged from his hidey-hole to be admired. He has been joined in the cat room by Genevieve, a three-year-old tabby who has been an indoor cat throughout her life.

The town of Oak Bluffs has re-opened two Lagoon Pond beaches Monday morning to swimming. Medeiros Cove off the Sailing Camp Park and the drawbridge beach at Eastville were closed last week when water samples revealed high counts of enterococci, a bacteria that can indicate the presence of fecal contamination. Follow-up tests this week confirmed that water quality now meets state standards.

For her 60th birthday, Margot Datz gifted herself the ultimate luxury.

“I gave myself the time to paint 12 hearts,” Ms. Datz said of her new collection, The Illuminated Heart.

“It was a personal project 10 years in the yearning,” she said. “Not 10 years in the making, because I painted them this summer, 10 years in the yearning, because the ideas have been in my head for years.”

A dozen detailed hearts make up The Illuminated Heart, which will be on display for one night only at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury on August 10.

For Stephanie Yakely Danforth art is her second career.  She was a pediatric nurse practitioner for 20 years. In 2000, she traveled to Kenya and had an epiphany.

“My soul was touched forever by my experience there,” she said. “Since then, every dollar I make with my art goes directly to help provide education for children in need. My years in pediatrics and art blend together to make the purpose of my creating art even more profound to me. I love creating my art but my art allows me to help change lives.”

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank reported revenues of $111,433.94 for the business week ending on Friday, August 2, 2013. The land bank receives its funds from a two per cent fee charged on many Vineyard real estate transactions.

At Owen Park, in downtown Vineyard Haven, a little red trailer is hitched to the back of a Chilmark Spring Water van. On the side of the trailer, painted in expansive gold script, it says: The Vineyard Haven Band Est. 1868.

Frank Dunkl, owner of Chilmark Springwater with his brother and sister, serves as the band’s board president, french horn player and passionate historian.

As a jury deliberates in a Boston federal court over the fate of notorious mobster James (Whitey) Bulger, families of victims, law enforcement and a fascinated public await the outcome of the long saga of Whitey and the corrupt FBI. In the United States v. James J. Bulger, the famous South Boston resident is charged with 32 counts, including extortion, money laundering and 19 counts of murder.

It was hard to tell which came first in the hearts of Islanders last Sunday — the chicken or the egg. The Coop de Ville Tour sponsored by Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard offered the opportunity for an egg-centric brunch followed by tours of chicken operations on several farms around the Island. All the chicken love had a purpose, too, according to the people at Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard.