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Columnists

Dump Days

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 24

Category:

Island Notes

On a Sunday at mid-day, any Sunday, any time of year, it is odd to find the Neck Road so empty one can stop and take a photo without pulling over, without waiting for at least one vehicle to pass. Even in winter it is dump day. It was back when the dump was a casual operation, when refuse was less...
A brief overview of the refrigeration cycle

Wade Ortel

Fri, Jun 24

Category:

The Solar Report

In my last article, I offered an introduction to the operating principles of refrigeration. Let’s continue where we left off. I believe a closer examination of the thermodynamic cycle and the construction of the applicable components will offer greater utility for consumers who want a deeper...
The Geezy Sailor

By J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jun 17

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

As we stack decades we all realize that on a good day life is a humbling thing. As we age stuff happens on a daily basis, and we are constantly reminded of how limited we are in moving our bodies into contorted positions as we once did - when we were ahem, young. For example, in my 40s, and 50s, I...
Patterns

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 17

Category:

Island Notes

My peonies were late to open this year. It has been a cool spring but other people on the island had them in glorious bloom while I had the single plant by the door graced by multiple buds that seemed so tightly clenched I could only think “white knuckle.” There were three plants from sometime in...
- Promotional feature -

- THE SOLAR REPORT -

Wade Ortel

Fri, Jun 10

Category:

The Solar Report

Before embarking on a closer examination of refrigeration, it is prudent to begin with a somewhat mundane and innately familiar scenario: boiling water on a stove. To begin this process, one typically fills a pot with roughly room-temperature water drawn from a tap. This pot is then placed on a...
On the Way to Summer

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 10

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Yesterday I went out to check on the dog’s whereabouts, thinking it is coming to that time of year when I have to pay her better mind. She’d been under the big maple at the corner of the yard but seemed to have vanished from that nice, shaded spot. As my eyes adjusted to the bright sun I realized...
Nods to the past and present

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jun 10

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Okay, Joe Joe, we’re taking car reservations starting today for the summer,” said Janette Centracchio. “Here are the new ledgers, and could you please write as legibly as you can, okay?” In 1980 this is the way car reservations were done at the Block Island Ferry. Here was the drill when Janette...
Back to the Hill

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 3

Category:

Island Notes

It is always the same this time of year. The “summer” beach roses are in their fullest glory, some days in bright sun, others in fog, the grasses that have not yet been cut have gone to seed, but are still young and pliant and run before the breeze. The lilacs have truly faded while the blue flag...
Teddy Boy of Galilee

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Jun 3

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Over the past three years or so if you’ve driven or walked off the Block Island Ferry, there is a good chance you might’ve seen a local guy walking a rather large brindle-colored dog. The guy’s name is Keith Smith and his dog’s name is Teddy Boy, who is a purebred known as a Leonberger. He is a...
Saucy Swallows

Martha Ball

Fri, May 27

Category:

Island Notes

Today, I have no words. A little over 23 years ago I was at a friend’s house. We told each other we would not watch the memorial service about to be broadcast, live, from Columbine, Colorado, site of a horrific school shooting. There was nothing to be gained, nothing to be changed by our wallowing...
A Story about Diane

John Willis

Fri, May 27

Category:

Tails from Beacon Hollow Farm

This is a story of the life of a plain and simple person who lived on an island out on the sea. Her name was Diane (Jones) and that explains who she was, nothing more. If you lived on this island, you would have known Diane. She was seemingly around the inner town on any given day that she wasn’t...
- THE SOLAR REPORT -

Wade Ortel

Fri, May 27

Category:

The Solar Report

Electric current, the flow of electron that powers our lives, can be classified into two broad categories. Direct current (DC) is a unidirectional flow of charged particles. The current and voltage can be time variant or invariant, but the polarity remains fixed. Plotted versus time, DC often...
Stages of Spring

Martha Ball

Fri, May 20

Category:

Island Notes

Every year I try to take a photograph of the lilac at the corner of the dooryard, and every year I have varying degrees of failure. The wind is always blowing, the sun is never quite right, the blooms are never as lush as they appear to the naked eye. They are, on the other hand, great examples of...
Bad actors, acting!

J. V. Houlihan

Fri, May 20

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Okay, Joey we’re doing a panning shot of you and Jo Anne walking into the barn while she struggles,” said Pete. “Then you’re going to tie her up and sing ‘Tip Toe Through the Tulips,’ to her. She’ll look frightened as you’re trying to calm her down with the song. Ya got that?” “Yup,” I said. “Will...
Everyone knows it's Windy

Martha Ball

Fri, May 13

Category:

Island Notes

Yes, it is a line from a song, a very old song, from the 1960s. It was cute and catchy and did not make a whole lot of sense. Unlike some of those tunes there is no “oh, that’s what they were saying” revelation when I read the lyrics. No, it’s just Windy. It’s been windy, the hard, lasting wind...
Hope

Martha Ball

Fri, May 6

Category:

Island Notes

It is Rhode Island Independence Day, a fact I feel obligated to share every May 4. I am greatly chagrined these words will not be printed until well after this date, as I am writing of it only after the fact. It did not fall off my calendar in the usual way of dates forgotten, rather this late-...
2022 Block Island electric vehicle subsidies available

Wade Ortel

Fri, Apr 29

Category:

The Solar Report

Transportation accounts for more than a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. By switching from vehicles powered by gasoline to those powered by electricity, each of us can make a significant change in our personal environmental impact. The adoption of EVs today, along with the...
Mist over New England

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 29

Category:

Island Notes

I was, as usual, half-listening to the news, and not watching at all. It was almost 7:30 and had been on for quite a while, recycling some bits of local events and human disasters that have become the staple of newscasts, no matter how distant, and a blurb or two about the machinations of Hollywood...
The Zen of E-Biking, maybe

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Let’s get something straight right from the rip, here. I’m not a Zen kind of guy so don’t get all alpha- stated and mediative on me. Moreover, I’m not a Yoga-Gumby guy, either. I’m just not that guy; I guess I just like to see the word Zen in front of a noun. For example, if you plug the word Zen...
After the Storm

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

Island Notes

Easter Sunday on Block Island was beautiful, sunny, not too warm, with a dip of short-lived clouds in the afternoon before a golden end. Monday, I looked out and saw the egret closer to the house than I’d ever seen it, walking down the lane just beneath my dining room window. It is usually right...
Celebrate Earth Day – help plant beachgrass

Kim Gaffett

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

Ocean Views

It’s time to plant beach grass! The last time the island marshaled a beachgrass planting brigade it was 2019. Because of Covid restrictions, gathering for grass planting was curtailed in 2020 and 2021. Weather-wise we are at the end of the beachgrass planting season, and we are all systems go. On...
THOUGHTS FOR THE SEASON

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

Columnists, Features, Community, Religious Services

Easter 2022 Dear island friends and visitors: “He is not here.” It does not sound like a theological declaration. It sounds more like a receptionist stating the CEO is not in. Yet, when one is working through the impossible and unbelievable, theological profundities are inadequate. Describing an...
Thanks and celebration

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

Island Notes

A few times I have opened the door from the hall to the open entry and heard a flurry of wings, birds in a nest location scouting or building mode I presumed. It is not an issue, as long as they stay out of my way. And my bookcase when all the doors are open. It is a bit of a haven for them down...
From noisy and smelly to quiet and clean:

Wade Ortel

Fri, Apr 15

Category:

The Solar Report

On Block Island, the reassuring call of the spring peeper marks the arrival of spring. However, another, less pleasing sound is soon to follow: the inexorable drone of lawn mowers and other petroleum-powered equipment. While we have been dulled to this veritable aural assault, it is, unfortunately...
First on; First off

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Rather than write about how gobsmacked I was at 0500 on a freezing cold Monday morning before going to load a ferryboat after seeing an Oscars’ clip of a guy smacking a gobsmacked guy over an insult to a guy’s wife in front of millions of people worldwide, and upstaging what could’ve been a fun...
Old Yaller

John Willis

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

Tails from Beacon Hollow Farm

Living on a farm no matter how small or large and living with animals is a great feature of life if you are lucky enough to manage it. Observing Mother Nature is at its best watching free-range ducks, chickens, goats, cats and the rest, fenced in but with plenty of open space. Hens are providing us...
More than a wildflower

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 8

Category:

Island Notes

The building should look familiar, it is the old Odd Fellows Hall, today its anchor business a café of the same name. This piece should have been in March, for Women’s History month but it is rainy and gray in April, it feels like March. When the Ragged Sailor Gallery, the creation of Eileen Lee...
Your mileage may vary:

Wade Ortel

Thu, Apr 7

Category:

The Solar Report

While an internal combustion engine vehicle can be refueled rapidly and universally at any gas station, the state of EV charging is stratified, and recharging times vary. EV charging typically falls into three major categories, referred to as levels 1, 2, and 3. It is important to emphasize that...
Lapland and springtime nods

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Apr 1

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

My wife got it in her sights to see Lapland in late February; as she roamed the Arctic Circle she spied: reindeer, the northern lights, the IceHotel. (Yup, people sleep on a bed of ice in a hotel made of ice - I guess there is a market for everything. They sleep on furs and in a sleeping bag. Ahem...
April too soon

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 1

Category:

Island Notes

It has seemed overall a milder winter than many. We had one big snow, but it was cleared quickly and what was left was gone in the fast-arriving rainy mild. The wind has been great, it has felt the last two winters it was even more omnipresent than before if that is possible. So I am somewhat...
Block Island Seal Count:

Kim Gaffett

Sat, Mar 26

Category:

Ocean Views

On Tuesday, March 15, 25 volunteers surveyed nearly 100 percent of the island’s perimeter in an effort to get a count of seals in the area at this “peak” season for wintering seals. This effort was in coordination with Save The Bay’s annual bay-wide seal count, which surveys all possible seal haul-...
Red Roof, Blue Sky

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 25

Category:

Island Notes

One day last summer or early fall someone came into the photography gallery on the corner with an old photo. They’d been sent to me - not to the gallery - as a last-ditch effort in identifying the location in the faded shot. It was taken from somewhere on High Street they thought and following that...
Energy independence and renewables

Wade Ortel

Thu, Mar 24

Category:

The Solar Report

Most cogent arguments for the adoption of renewable energy technology hinge on the far-reaching environmental benefits of such actions. However, demand side electrification coupled with an energy generation mix that heavily favors renewables would also be a boon for achieving energy independence...
Cranes, Concrete, Wood and Steel

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Mar 18

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Concrete and steel go together like chocolate and peanut butter.” —Bill Rose, President of Block Island Concrete Co. Sometimes words and observations can come out of a person’s mouth and grab me so fast that I need to ask them to please repeat them. I just can’t process certain stuff that fast...
The end of winter

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 18

Category:

Island Notes

It is winter, still, by the calendar. The vernal equinox comes early, in late morning on the twentieth of March, a whole week after we have “sprung ahead” I feel obligated to note. The world makes less and less sense. It is the end of winter, the last of the days we can see what will be hidden by...
In Tribute to the People of Ukraine and to their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Nancy Greenaway

Fri, Mar 18

Category:

Columnists

Lost in debris of Ukrainian genocide, we search for fragments of hope and find them in faces of children and teddy bears pressed against windows of trains and buses, in elders, fingers pointing, scolding Russian soldiers face-to-face, teetering across river-soaked, wooden planks, pushed in shopping...
The Ides of March: Tree Swallows, Spring Peepers, Peak Seal ...etc.

Kim Gaffett

Sun, Mar 13

Category:

Ocean Views

Beware the ides of March – not! With all due respect to Shakespeare: celebrate the ides of March – the first full moon in a new year. Sparing the reader a long, complicated treatise on ancient calendars, let’s just accept the premise that the only good reason to keep a calendar is to track seasons...
The Green Van

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Mar 11

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

It had bald tires, it ran on about four cylinders and was an eyesore. The van was modified for Ernie Woolf, a guy I surfed with in Point Judith, Rhode Island. He was about 6-foot 4-inches, and wanted to stand upright in this rig to put on his wetsuit so he cut a 3 by 3foot hole in the roof, framed...
Among the Lobster Pots

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 11

Category:

Island Notes

Sunday, it was gray when I left the Harbor Church after worship. By the time I reached the Seaside I had either driven down into the fog or it had deepened: the Surf was clouded by gray. Turning down the Neck Road it was a wall, none of that rolling-in business, just a wall, so dense I pulled over...
Batteries: Only as strong as the weakest link

Wade Ortel

Thu, Mar 10

Category:

The Solar Report

The electrical potential or voltage of a battery is dictated by its chemistry. There is a specific range of operating voltages over which each type of chemical cell operates. For example, the nominal voltage of a lead-acid battery cell is approximately 2 volts. Common lead-acid batteries, such as...
April Illusion

Martha Ball

Fri, Mar 4

Category:

Island Notes

Thirty years ago there was a snowstorm on the vernal equinox. I remember it well, I was transitioning from a typewriter to a computer with a word processor and misfiled the piece I had written and had to re-write it. Which, because it was all new, I could recall and still do, opening with putting...
Shifting years, gears and ears

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Feb 25

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

On 25 March, I’ll be shuffling into my 72nd trip around the sun and being the adaptable kind of guy that I am - ahem, do we actually have a choice? – I have come to embrace rather than despise the technology of the digital age. These extraordinary and life-enhancing changes are inevitable as the...
Sunday, 6:03 p.m.

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 25

Category:

Island Notes

Sunday, 6:03 p.m. The time of the photo, taken on February 20. Sunsets have their own glory on the east side of the island and in middling-toward-late February it is the aftermath, the light lingering so much after the sky would have been dark in December that is such a balm to the soul. We are...
February Bird Questions and Answers

Kim Gaffett

Sun, Feb 20

Category:

Ocean Views

Have you heard red-wing blackbirds trilling yet? Maybe you are wondering: are there more northern cardinals around than usual? Or, maybe you’ve seen a purple sandpiper and are curious about why it’s called “purple”, when its orangey-ochre colored feet and legs are so striking? Ahhhh, February, so...
Mr. Cricket

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Feb 18

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Life can take care of things if we let it; we need to simply get out of the way and let it do what it’s going to do. When we get older we finally figure this stuff out because we’ve all learned through our life’s experience that if we set up an expectation and things don’t go as we planned, then we...
By virtue of inefficiency

Wade Ortel

Fri, Feb 18

Category:

The Solar Report

Internal combustion engines, such as those found powering gasoline or diesel-fueled vehicles, generate a lot of waste heat. Of the energy yielded by combustion, a larger portion is lost to the surroundings as heat than is available to propel the vehicle. While limited efficiency is certainly a...
Climbing temperature

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 18

Category:

Island Notes

Earlier, around mid-morning, I stood washing dishes, looking out over the snow-dappled field. It looked like winter, the good winter of clear, sunny skies and the remnants of a storm. It was not the rare, perfect snow fallen in the calm, a gentle blanket on the land that could last days in sub-...
Hidden in Plain Sight

Martha Ball

Fri, Feb 11

Category:

Island Notes

A photo of the west side of Front Street from roughly 1900 shows an iteration of many of the buildings that stand there today, seeming to be neatly aligned, their facades a wall facing the newly constructed harbor, from the National to the Seaside. The street, such as it was, did not move, the...
Skip the oil change

Wade Ortel

Thu, Feb 10

Category:

The Solar Report

For more than a century, the internal combustion engine has reigned supreme in the automotive industry. Consumers and mechanics alike have become accustomed to the maintenance regimen for this type of powertrain. While decades of engineering progress and refinement have resulted in a significant...
Cool vs. Style

J.V. Houlihan

Fri, Feb 4

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

When I was about 17, I would ride my Schwinn Varsity ten-speed to the East Side of Providence and visit Thayer Street. It was a totally different place from my hometown with lots of college-town characters and local color where I’d scope the scene and check out the cute Brown University and RISD...

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