Unfortunately, there wasn’t any punkin chunkin at Living Local this year, but the entire afternoon was a blast nonetheless.
fall
Kids Derby
The 67th Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby is here!
The New York Times wrote a pretty lengthy piece on the Derby for this Sunday’s paper. Check it out; it’s a great intro to the event.
Anyway, this year I’m one of two reporters doing Derby coverage, and it’s been fantastic so far (here is a pretty lengthy piece I wrote last week about the four Derby fish). Fishermen are a bit hard to track down–since they’re always out on the boats–but they’re wonderful to talk to once you actually find them. They’re all very Hemingway-esque (shocker!), with their short, direct manners of speaking, and because fishing brings a mix of serious ego-quashing and quiet satisfaction, they have great perspective on life in general.
This morning, I covered the Kids Derby, which usually draws about 200 kiddos (and their parents) to the ferry docks in Oak Bluffs. This is the only time when the docks are used for anything other than loading and unloading passengers, and it couldn’t be for a better cause. I love seeing the youngest fishermen, the four-year-olds, rushing up to the weigh-in table clutching a teeny little scup, totally excited about the whole endeavor.
Island Grown Schools
One of my favorite things about Martha’s Vineyard is the commitment to locally grown food that the community shares. Schools get a sizable portion of their fruits and veggies from the farms here (I wish my school lunches had been that homegrown!), and the kids start learning about where their food comes from as soon as they get to kindergarten.
A couple weeks ago, I tagged along on a fourth-grade field trip to an apple orchard:
Autumn Leaves
The only thing prettier than New England fall is New England fall during magic hour.
Choate Sports: Football and Football
The football and soccer teams at my old high school played like polar opposites this weekend…football stomped all over NMH 54-7, but the boys’ soccer team lost 5-0 (I didn’t make it to the girls’ match. I’m hoping they fell on the stomping side of the spectrum).
I love how much closer you can get to the action at high school games. It makes up for only having a 70-200 to work with (regardless, most of these have been cropped).
