Chilmark

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Come and get it! Chilmark Coffee Company, the brainchild of Todd Christy, is producing locally roasted, organic, fair trade whole bean coffee, available at the Fischer family’s Beetlebung Farm stand on Middle Road. Last week’s supply included Squibnocket Rocket, Beetlebung Bold, and Middle Road which all ranged in price from $13 to $15 a pound. Todd has been perfecting his roasting and blending and seems to have the skills down. Keep a sharp look-out for the beans as you turn up Middle Road.

Jenny Christy’s sister, Chris, along with her husband, Barney Hodges, and kids Sophie, Sam, and Malia visited from Cornwall, Vermont this past weekend. Not only did Dash, El, and Wren get to celebrate Malia’s ninth birthday, but they also got to kick off the Chilmark School’s Hiking Challenge with all of the cousins in tow.

Yes, the Chilmark School kids are participating in their annual spring hiking challenge to raise money through sponsorship for the school garden. Each child sets out to hike as many Land Bank trails as possible during a one-month period and hopes to find generous friends, family, and neighbors to sponsor them for maybe $1, $5, or $10 per trail. If you know a student at the school and you’d like to support the community garden, what better way is there to do so?

This Saturday, April 9, is the Chilmark Preschool’s annual Spring Celebration at the Community Center from 10 am to 2 pm. Once you have paid the $5 per child admission (adults are free) you will find games, face-painting, crafts, pony rides, food, and chicks for sale. Funds collected will go towards offsetting the costs of special programs such as weekly violin lessons with Becky Barca-Tinus.

After watching last week’s WBZ TVs segment about the Japanese Society of Boston, Chilmark School 4/5 assistant teacher Susan Larsen has proposed a cultural awareness activity for her students and our community as a whole. The project known as Senbazuru is the concept of folding 1,000 origami paper cranes as a wish for well-being. As a caring learning community, we, along with the students, can make a paper crane out of something as simple and readily accessible as discarded newspapers. Although a donation is not mandatory, many are donating $1 with each crane which will go to the Japanese Disaster Relief Fund-Boston. Please contact Sue at 508-645-3805 if you would like to participate.

Next Thursday, April 14, at 7 pm, the public is invited to the Chilmark candidates’ forum at the Chilmark Library. This yearly event sponsored by the League of Women Voters offers an opportunity to learn about candidates in the upcoming local election and participate in a Q and A session with each.

Well, she did it. Fat Sally, the black-and-white speckled pig that calls the Grey Barn Farm home, gave birth to 16 piglets. Sadly, three were stillborn but the 13 remaining are thriving at their mother’s side. Fat Sally was two days past due and decided to give birth while Jakie, Noah, Molly, and Eric Glasgow were at a Boston Bruins game. The family rushed to Wood’s Hole, caught the last boat and made it back to confirm that her 73-inch girth had shrunk to a much more svelte figure.

Jessica and Mariah Campbell, Samantha Bunker, Sadie Dix, and Bella Maidoff are all members of the U-15 girls’ travel soccer team that won their first game of the season at Vineyard Haven’s Veterans Memorial Field this past Sunday against the visiting Oceana Soccer Club of lower Cape Cod. The girls won, 2-1.

The U-10 boys’ travel soccer team under the guidance of coach Damon Burke and assistant coach Stephen Taylor also had a big win at their off-Island game versus Wareham. Adan Knight, Liam McCarthy, Ben Taylor ,and Cary More-Straton, all students at the Chilmark School, played hard in a 2-0 win.

Sarah Slater Bennett along with husband, Aaron, and boys Scott and Jack of Attleboro visited Sarah’s parents Herb and Jane last weekend at their Menemsha home.

Twenty-six cyclists, including our very own Mike Broderick and Mary McConneloug, represented the United States at the 2011 Pan American Mountain Bike Championships in Bogota, Colombia, this past weekend. Although I don’t have the results to share at this time, you may see our biking friends on the windy trails of Chilmark during the next couple of weeks. Keep your eyes open and maybe you’ll have the opportunity to get a firsthand account of last week’s experiences in South America.