A member of the Moth’s general council recently checked in with the Gazette. She had a story to tell. But it wasn’t just any story. It was THE story. The Moth is coming to the Vineyard.

For those still basking in their chrysalis and unaware of the Moth, it is a storytelling series birthed about a decade ago in the bars of the lower East Side in New York city. True stories told live is their mantra, and now the Moth flies freely in many cities and on NPR as the Moth Radio Hour.

About four years ago I was working on a landscaping project on a horse farm in West Tisbury. Word quickly spread around the farm that a horse had lain down and died in its stall that morning. There was somberness in the air on that hot summer day, with the humidity promising a thunderstorm in our near future. Horses are not small creatures, and a front-end loader was brought in to extract the animal from the barn. The scene became quite loud as chains were rigged this way and that and the engine on the machine was revved for more power.

Dick Carlson of Oak Bluffs won the 15th annual Klays for Kids charity skeet shoot Sunday at the Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club. The event benefits the club’s three projects for Island kids.

Dick took first place with a score of 48 of 50 targets, while last year’s winner, Bill Damora, picked up second place, followed by Spider Andreson of Chilmark, who took third place.

It was never a good idea to bug Johan Christian Fabricius.

Fabricius was a Danish zoologist who specialized in insects and was way too busy for any mundane interruptions. In fact, he was considered one of the most important entomologists of the 18th century.

The four pairs of black skimmers on Norton Point are causing great excitement. Two families have four chicks, one family has three chicks and a fourth is on eggs. That brings the total to 11 black skimmer chicks. This is dynamite as the Vineyard has never produced a single black skimmer in the past! Questions about skimmer nesting behavior have been pouring in, so here goes.

I pretty much hate summer — fleas, poison ivy, sunburns, mosquitoes, traffic and countless insect pests in the gardens. The worst of all is the lack of significant rain. Even lawns with irrigation systems are beginning to crisp. The encouraging news is that the lawns will come back. The dried-up annual beds and window boxes will not recover. I cannot encourage you enough to water those areas every day ­— perhaps morning and evening.

Slave Songs

Almost 150 years after the emancipation of slaves in this country, slave songs still bring alive the pain of a past reality and the longing for a better future.

Tim Wakefield digs into a baseball just behind the horseshoe of the seams, a grip he credits to longtime Dodgers and Rangers knuckleballer Charlie Hough, one of only a handful of men in the major leagues who have been able to harness the sorcery of the pitch. In February, Mr. Wakefield retired after two decades hurling the strangest pitch in the game, a career that has led him to develop some unlikely skills.

After 10 and 17 years of living on the Island, respectively, Tanya Augoustinos and Maria Westby were thinking of moving off-Island. They needed a change. The arts scene in the wintertime was unsatisfying, and their day jobs were getting a little dull.

“We were ready to get out of here,” Ms. Westby said. “We were wondering, how do we change our lives? It was either move on or bring something here.”

Controversy breeds questions, and an Island visitor has some answers.

Harvard Professor of Law and Chilmark summer resident Alan Dershowitz presents Rights and Wrongs: How the Supreme Court and The United Nations Have Hijacked Our Rights, at the Chilmark Library on Thursday, July 26 at 5 p.m. He will address the issues facing individual rights in today’s political climate.

The event is free but seating is limited, so arrive early. For more information, call 508-645-3360.