You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2008.
Here comes October, in my opinion one of the most spectacular months of the year. Nature provides a fiery display of color in October. The greens and vivid colors of summer have been replaced with the rusts and orange hues of autumn. The Vineyard is a beautiful place to visit in the fall months… there are plenty of activities to take part in or just relax and enjoy the cool, crisp, beautiful month of October.
Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce calendar of events
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Some of the events for October.
There are all kinds of “tastings” going on through the month. Here are two of them.
Oct 10-13 Featherstone Annual Chocolate Festival (that’s my kind of tasting)
Oct 17-19 MV Food & Wine Festival
*Oct 12 – 5th Annual Columbus Day Artisans Festival
*Oct 12 – Columbus Day 5K Road Race & One Mile Fun Run
*Oct 5 & 26 – Island Alpace Open House & Workshop
*MV Fiber Farm Fall Shearing will be Oct 25th
**It’s not too early to think about Christmas in Edgartown plans. Check out my post from last December.
A long awaited box arrived at our house today for my daughter Deb. It’s from Susan Gibbs from the Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm. Know what’s in the box? YARN… yarn from the fiber farm festival in April that we attended. We might have seen this actual wool being shorn ! How exciting is that. Considering that I don’t knit or spin I’m pretty darn excited.
Here’s Deb taking a picture of the box before ripping into it. The picture is of course on her blog – www.chappysmom.com Go take a look.
One, two.. yup, two 16 oz bags full of cormo wool, ready to spin or dye. Chappy, who was at the fiber farm festival too is excited to see and smell what’s in the bags.
And there it is. Isn’t it beautiful. It’s sooooo touchable and sooooo incredibly soft and sooooo delicious looking.
This photo is outdoors… this yarn is beautiful everywhere. Deb will turn this into something not only gorgeous but a one of a kind remembrance of Martha’s Vineyard… and of our favorite shepherdess, Susan and her favorite guy, Patrick.
Welcome to my house in NJ. This is the door into my kitchen from the garage. It pretty much says it all… you are about to enter, what we lovingly call, MV south.
Signs. Happy Chappy is for our dog.
Like many people I have magnets on my fridge.
This is the one and only jigsaw puzzle I’ve ever done. It doesn’t surprise anyone that it would be of MV. I thought the box said 100 pieces but no, it was 1000 ! The fact that I finished it amazes me.
Flying Horses poster
MV alphabet poster
Mad Martha’s ice cream poster (yummmm)
Miscellaneous art
I think it’s time to check my calendar and plan a trip.
Care to join me. C’mon let’s go.
On May 14, 1846 the Vineyard Gazette, founded by Edgar Marchant, published its first issue.
According to the Gazette’s history -
“At first, the Gazette carried a good deal of news from across the country and around the world. It was the only paper many Vineyarders received with regularity. In the last decades of the 19th century, though, its mission narrowed and its focus came home. It became an Island paper through and through, covering shipwrecks in Vineyard waters that killed hundreds, freezes that made travel across the water impossible for weeks, and the devastation wrought by gales and hurricanes and fires.
The Gazette wrote these first drafts of Island history, but from the start it recognized that Island news, at bottom, is different in size and scope from news that happens everywhere else. The best stuff in the paper, its editors believed then and now, concerns the commonplace – the comings and goings of the citizenry, the way the seasons change, how the crops grow, who marches in the Fourth of July parade, how the fishermen are faring, what the boatyards are up to, and how the quahogs are doing in the Great Ponds along the Atlantic. For the length of its life, the Gazette has covered what most other papers would overlook.
The Vineyard Gazette is published year-round every Friday, from June through September there’s also an issue published every Tuesday.
The New England Press Association named the Vineyard Gazette ‘Newspaper of the Year’ five times in the 1990′s, then again in 2001 and 2004.
Subscribers to the Vineyard Gazette are world-wide… it’s a great way to stay in touch with the Vineyard when you can’t be there.
According to the Vineyard Gazette today, Sep 16, 2008, insurance problems are holding up the progress of fully demolishing Cafe Moxie. This in turn is hampering Ann Nelson’s reconstruction plans on the Bunch of Grapes bookstore. You can read the entire article by clicking here.
The Field Gallery , began in 1971, is on State Rd in W Tisbury. There is no other gallery on MV (or perhaps anywhere) where you’ll find these larger than life whimsical statues, sculpted from fiberglass, by artist Tom Maley. Put your inhibitions aside and go cavort on the lawn with these beautiful works of art.
There are three indoor galleries also, offering rotating exhibits of local as well as nationally acclaimed artists.
Chilmark, located on the western (Up-Island) side of MV was settled in 1671and officially incorporated on Sept 16, 1694. It, like Tisbury, were named for towns in England. Chilmark is a town of rolling hills, stone walls and sheep farms. Alley’s General Store, the Grange Hall, Methodist church, and a handful of other buildings constitute what is considered to be the center of town, known as Beetlebung Corner. Alley’s General Store, pictured above, began in 1858 and is the oldest operating retail business on MV. It is part of the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust properties.
Menemsha Hills Reservation is a 200 acre preserve operated by the Trustees of Reservations. Allow yourself plenty of time to enjoy exploring this beautiful preserve. About 10 minutes into the walk the trail splits in two… one direction leading to Prospect Hill, the Island’s second highest spot… the other direction leading to the beach.
The fishing village of Menemsha is located on the northern end of Chilmark. The only Coast Guard station on MV is located here.
My mother’s step-cousin, Harold Rogers was born in this house in Indian Hill in 1911. He lived in this house, built in 1752, until he died. He was quite a guy. He was a master at building things and he could fix absolutely anything. Over the years he added on to the family homestead, and when there wasn’t anymore he could do there he turned his sights to –
— the one room school house up the road where he’d gone to school. He purchased the school house and set about renovating it. When his daughter got married she and her husband moved into it. I had the pleasure of going there for dinner and I was in awe. The original wooden floors had been beautifully restored, but more than that, you could see clearly the marks where the desks had once been. A couple of the desks had been salvaged and were part of the living room. The closet was, of course the former cloak room with, the original coat hooks. And to top things off <grin> the school bell was once again working. I hardly ever enjoyed being in a classroom quite as much as I did that night at dinner.
