Town Column : Aquinnah
By Molly Purves
Published: April 9, 2009
Okay, I think it really is spring now. I still won't let my husband turn on the water for the outdoor shower for fear of one more freeze, but I think the worst is over. Our daffodils are blooming, and our shrubs are budding. There are some very noisy birds outside our windows that just arrived, or just started making noise, in the past week. It's time to start work on the yard and the garden and the lawn, cleaning up and re-seeding. It will be nice to be outside digging in the dirt and enjoying the sunshine, but by the end of the summer I'm sure I'll be complaining about all the weeding and raking and poison ivy and I'll be wishing for snow - or maybe just a gardener.
On Sunday I went to visit the baby lambs at the Whiting farm in West Tisbury, where Lynn and Allen were nice enough to give me and some friends a tour. It's really hard to be in a bad mood around cute baby animals, especially when you don't have to take care of them. There were two lambs that were one day old who were very friendly although the mamas eyed me suspiciously, and then a lot of lambs about a month or a couple weeks old, running and playing in the yard. It was a great pick-me-up - I highly recommend it. I hear there are some cute baby animals at the Native Earth Teaching Farm on North Road as well.
Scalloping season is officially over. People are now starting to turn their attention over to their summer employment, although with the economy the way it is, many merchants are not sure what to expect and what they should stock. I've heard the same thing from a couple of Aquinnah merchants who said they are being conservative in their buying or putting off orders for as long as they can while they try to get a sense of what the summer is going to be like.
Marcella Brown will be a first-time grandmother in August. She is delighted by the prospect and also quite happy that it's going to be a girl, as she had all boys. This is the second winter Marcella has spent in Aquinnah; she resides the rest of the year in western Massachusetts But she has spent many weekends and summers here over the last 30 years.
Jim and Kathy Newman just returned from a trip to New York City. Their son, Peter, and his daughter, Sage, will be visiting in the late spring from Colorado.
Carlos Montoya is collecting signatures for his re-election bid for the Land Bank.
Easter is this Sunday; don't forget about the great egg hunt at the Duck Inn from 1 to 4 pm.
I will be there with my son, but really I'm just in it for the chocolate. There will be chocolate, right? u
