West Tisbury

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Anyone driving through North Tisbury has no doubt been enchanted by Argie Humphreys’ old orchard, now newly flower-filled. Purple and white wildflowers have replaced the earlier carpet of daffodils. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Tom Hodgson and Christine Gault invited me over for a tour of their amazing vegetable garden. Their next-door-neighbor and our mutual friend, Sue Hruby, says they work all day all summer tending their garden. It looks it, picture perfect, and already abundant. There are leeks as big as me, kept over from last season for seed. Shallots, peas, potatoes, lettuces, and best of all, two thick rows of strawberries. I came home with a big boxful of strawberries to eat and a pot of leek seedlings to plant in my garden, a plot of dirt hardly entitled to the name by comparison. Tom’s middle daughter, Darcy, and her son, Tristan Neago, here for the month from North Carolina, played on the lawn nearby.

The Farmers’ Market will open this Saturday outside the Grange Hall. Hours are 9 am to 12 noon. I love the anticipation of the first market with its early produce and soft-colored bouquets. Equally exciting are first glimpses of summer friends newly arrived, at what will become a weekly meeting.

During the same hours Saturday morning, West Tisbury sixth-graders will hold a car wash fundraiser at the Public Safety Building. For $10, they will wash and polish your vehicle, removing for the moment the film of yellow pollen we have lived with these past weeks.

I am happy to welcome West Tisbury’s newest citizen, Oscar Read Flanders, born on May 22. Oscar is the son of Frank and Caroline, baby brother of Jean.

Welcome back to Carol Craven, who is rejoining her fellow up-island gallerists. The Craven Gallery will open for the season at its new location in North Tisbury. Watch for the sign.

“My Mom is Trying to Ruin My Life” opens Friday evening at the Vineyard Playhouse. Playing the role of Julie is West Tisbury School student Samantha Cameron. Who could resist a play with that title? Performances run for the next two weekends.

Also this Friday evening, June 11, 6-8, come to the Ag Hall for an auction to benefit Windemere. Funds raised will be used to provide activities and programs for residents. “Our goal is to keep residents engaged in life and involved in the Island community which they have contributed to their entire lives,” says Betsy Burmeister, Programs Director. Some of the items included in the auction are a trip to France, your name as a character in one of Cynthia Riggs’s mysteries, a handmade quilt, and a Wendy Weldon painting. Windemere is an amazing place and an amazing resource for us all. Please support it.

Dr. Enid Haller will repeat her program about Lyme disease next Wednesday and Thursday, June 16 and 17, from 7 to 9 pm, at the West Tisbury Library. She will show a film, “Under Our Skin,” and lead a discussion. The program was SRO last time, so if you missed it, here’s another opportunity.

Paul Carrick is artist-of-the-month for June at the library. Come see his three-dimensional graphic work.

The library is hosting a public forum Tuesday, June 15, at 7 pm to talk about and answer questions about an addition to our building. Please come and share your thoughts.

On June 26 at 5 pm there will be a celebration of the life of our beloved Paula Black, who passed away last October 12. It will be held on the library lawn, where a tree planted by her husband, Michael, will be dedicated to her memory.

I have been reading a compilation of Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” columns, a daily presence in newspapers from 1936-1962. Not only am I touched by her eloquence and perspective on events earth-shattering or quietly homey but also by the thread of reminders that those who are not mindful of history are bound to repeat it. So many of her columns could have been written today. The book will be back at the library as soon as I finish it.

Along those lines, last week Lynne Irons included the following quotation from former-President Jimmy Carter in her The Vineyard Gardener column of the Gazette. It bears repeating.

“I’m asking you, for your good and for your nation’s security, to take no unnecessary trips, to use car pools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostat to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than common sense. I tell you, it is an act of patriotism — the solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity — give our nation and all of us, individually, a new sense of purpose.”