The Holmes Hole Sailing Association continued its summer season of handicap sailboat racing from Vineyard Haven Harbor with two Harbor races on June 26.

Vineyard Herbs Award

Vineyard Herbs, Teas & Apothecary’s Mandarin-Pine Organic Arnica Liniment was awarded third place in salves and ointments at the 10th annual International Herb Symposium held June 26 at Wheaton College in Norton.

“This is our company’s third award from the Herb Symposium, and we appreciate the opportunity to present our products alongside organic apothecary products from around the world,” said Holly Bellebuono.

From the streetfront, the Vineyard Arts Project appears to be another large house on Main street. There is no hint that past its picket fence is unfolding, in turn: life on the Texas-Mexico border; family drama at a racially-charged estate; and people singing and dancing about the financial crisis.

Take a drive up-Island and you’re guaranteed to spot a horse or two grazing in a field. Draft horses, show horses, miniature horses — equines of all sorts flourish here.

What came first — the chicken or the egg? It’s one of those questions that has plagued the human race for ages, but Up-Island Eggs owner Katherine Long settled the debate on Friday afternoon as she was giving her chickens a treat of corn.

“The thing that laid an egg wasn’t a chicken, the thing that hatched out of the egg was the chicken,” Ms. Long said. “Whatever laid the egg first was something else. The egg came first.”

As this year’s Fourth of July parade approached its grand finale at the Old Whaling Church on Main street in Edgartown, the faint whistling of fife and drum could be heard above the roar of the crowd, signaling the arrival of the parade’s leaders, the Island’s veterans, at their final stop.

As police lights flashed and sirens wailed through the heavy fog that settled in over Moshup Trail, 100 children, clad head to toe in their red-white-and-blue finery, paraded down Old South Road in Aquinnah.

What started nine years ago as a group of eight children strolling on Philbin Beach has transformed into a neighborhood event every year on the Fourth of July.

Recreational boat traffic in Vineyard harbors was off during the first weeks of summer, but harbor masters report that all changed last Friday, when all four harbors were suddenly full for Independence Day weekend.

“I don’t know if it is the weather, the price of gasoline and the economy,” said Dennis Jason, Chilmark harbor master. “It could be all three.”

About midday yesterday, the lady bather was treading her way carefully through the dunes, ducking as a small group of avian aggressors swooped around her, piping angrily. Only when she finally plunged into the sea did they break off the attack.

About 100 feet away, Caitlin Borck was encouraged.

It’s not that she enjoys seeing other people get swooped, or likes getting swooped herself — and occasionally, deliberately, unerringly excreted upon — by the little birds.

The Vineyard Family Planning clinic — for now — has been spared deep state budget cuts that threatened the 30-year old clinic with possible closure.

“It is a huge step in the right direction, it’s a big relief,” said Elizabeth Torrant, chief operations officer of Health Imperatives Inc., in a telephone interview Friday morning. Formerly Health Care of Southeastern Massachusetts, the health group manages the Vineyard clinic.