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Columnists

October Rose

Martha Ball

Thu, Oct 18

Category:

Island Notes

On ce or twice a month I go to the airport to pick up some prescription, by a slightly out-of-the-way route, across the bridge and along the length of Beach Avenue. There is dramatically less traffic than there has been, the funny little jog when Beach and Ocean cross not a spot of merging traffic...
Sailing a boat

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Thu, Oct 11

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

The first time I attempted rigging out a sailboat was in 1959. It was at my uncle’s summer house on Greenwich Bay. My sister Janie, myself and a random beach kid — in July heat and slack wind — got the sail up the mast on a sailing dinghy called What, Me Worry? My sister was the brains of...
Bookends

Martha Ball

Thu, Oct 11

Category:

Island Notes

Th ere were, last night, traces of light in the western sky as seven o'clock approached and I reminded myself how differently I will feel on the other side of the the year when such is an indication of lengthening sunlight, a climbing out of the abyss of winter. Except there is no true counterpart...
The Osprey

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Thu, Oct 4

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“How come that windmill next to George’s fell down and those Osprey nests, don’t,” asked local fishing Captain Ralph Pearson one winter morning in a local coffee shop. Ospreys, also known as fish hawks, are clever hunters and great engineers — they’re persistent and forthright, too. Captain Ralph’s...
Autumn Water

Capts. Chris Willi and Hank Hewitt

Thu, Oct 4

Category:

Columnists, Fishing Report

For many New England anglers, Autumn marks the beginning of the end of the season. So unless you’re a hunter or like to ice fish, there is a desperate scramble to get as many fishing days in before December comes. Autumn also marks the “fall run” of striped bass, which as of late hasn’t been much...
From August into October

Martha Ball

Thu, Oct 4

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Th e birds in the collection at the school bear little hand-written tags, identification and history crammed onto small rectangles of aging paper, or they were, perhaps the originals have been archived. Nonetheless, I know some include a notation of being found at the Southeast Lighthouse,...
Rowing a boat

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Thu, Sep 27

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

As a young kid around age 10, the most transformative experience — besides riding a bicycle — I ever had was when I rented a rowboat on a small pond on Cape Cod. While on a camping trip, I noticed a beat-up rowboat to hire for short money — 50 cents an hour. I flipped a guy four quarters and hopped...
Sun Shower

Martha Ball

Thu, Sep 27

Category:

Island Notes

This morning it poured, thunder rolled, the radar showed green with localized, just over us, splotches of electric yellow. The rain slowed and stopped and the sky turned a dour gray. It is a time of seasonal uncertainty, and the first hours of the days were spent opening and closing windows,...
There are natural ways to kill your weeds

Renée Meyer

Thu, Sep 27

Category:

Gardening Report

In these times, when America’s most popular chemical weed-killer, Roundup, is undergoing more scrutiny and Block Island looks for a means of eliminating its use, it’s a good time to look into more natural solutions. One of the hallmarks of late autumn is the unmistakable smell of vinegar emanating...
Green and Gold and Gray

Martha Ball

Fri, Sep 21

Category:

Island Notes

In the morning my dog lies on my bed, her nose to the open, west-facing window, watching, waiting for a sign of activity on the road that bisects my front lot. Sometimes it is only an early deer, or five, that catches her attention and after a brief “are you sure you don't want to come?” wag of her...
North End

Martha Ball

Fri, Sep 14

Category:

Island Notes

La st week someone came into the photography gallery where I work, intending to show companions photos of the North Light. He was, he claimed, a descendant of the first keeper, something I thought unlikely, based on knowledge even more narrow than I realized. The first keeper was Hiram Ball; that...
Butterflies and Bouquets

Martha Ball

Thu, Sep 6

Category:

Island Notes

B usted, my dog is busted! Several days this summer I have come home to find her lying on the thick grass in the shade of the knotweed, the singular stand that has always been in place, a buffer, perhaps, from when the barn yard was truly that and twice a day cows trekked across it to the... barn...
On the Hill

Martha Ball

Fri, Aug 31

Category:

Island Notes

“S um mer is over!” was the proclamation several days ago, when the temperature dropped and the breezes swept away the lingering humidity. I delighted in the weight of a blanket on a cool night, knowing it would be a long time before there was anything approaching deep cold. Then the heat came back...
Print media in the digital age

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Aug 24

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

While taking a Mass Media course in graduate school, we had a professor who had a mesmerizing voice and an easy manner — a Mister Rogers for adults. He had a soothing tonality that could send us into a relaxing alpha state or a deep sleep; however, his class was so interesting that we were all...
Butterfly Morning

Martha Ball

Fri, Aug 24

Category:

Island Notes

It has been a hot, humid summer, but for those two weeks of heaven after the tropical stretch surrounding the Fourth of July. Rain has come at last, albeit sporadically, and every night I check the forecast before leaving my car windows open, one of those luxuries of the season. Mornings are...
Fishing Report: Summer blues

Capts. Chris Willi and Hank Hewitt

Fri, Aug 24

Category:

Fishing Report

Bluefish: the New England piranha, yellow-eyed devil, gear-wrecking gator… and the most underrated angling experience ever. The bluefish is a pelagic fish that is found everywhere in the world except the Northern Pacific. Here in New England, we see cyclic populations come through with year to year...
It Had A Sundial

Martha Ball

Fri, Aug 17

Category:

Island Notes

L a st week, when I swore I had hit that Wall of August and could not possibly write anything to fill this space the editor — instead of offering a soothing “you've earned a week off” — asked me about my first summer job. It was not only not the answer I wanted, the topic was, I protested,...
Cottage Farm House

Martha Ball

Fri, Aug 10

Category:

Island Notes

Today, looking in the register for the one-time boarding house up the road, The Cottage Farm House, I found an old photo, dated in my mother's even, penciled hand: “August 31, 1954, Hurricane Carol.” It is of a wooden bench, sitting in the brush between the dune and Mansion Pond. It belonged to a...
Work, work, work

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Aug 3

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“All you have to sell is your time.” My dad told me this when I was a kid. He also told me, “There isn’t a money tree in the back yard.” It was easy to connect the dots with what he was saying; if I wanted something, I’d need to work for it. I was a caddy — a looper — when I was 14. It was a short-...
Joyful Noise

Martha Ball

Fri, Aug 3

Category:

Island Notes

My Rose of Sharon is in full bloom!” I heard someone comment and thought “No, it is too early. It is an August shrub!” then realized it was very late July, almost August. Last night, while I slept, the calendar flipped to a new month and it is, now, August. My own Rose of Sharon, a living testimony...
South County Sound offers personalized service

Cassius Shuman

Fri, Jul 27

Category:

Trips Abroad

Seventeen years ago, business took Mark Gagnon to Block Island. After that fateful visit he “made the decision to be on the island weekly, year-round,” servicing his customers’ needs, he said. Gagnon owns and operates South County Sound and Video in Wakefield, an installer of commercial and...
The Galilee Free Library

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Jul 27

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Couples need a good base camp to live in as they age; if they are not vigilant their camp can get cluttered up with stuff that they just don’t need anymore. We live in a consumerist society; we need to buy lots of stuff to keep the wheels of the economy turning. However, there comes a time when we...
East Wind

Martha Ball

Fri, Jul 27

Category:

Columnists

The summer solstice wind blew from the southeast, coming over thousands of miles of open water. We wish for it to blow from the southwest, giving us a solid hope of months of cooling, beach building breezes. It is the wind that pulls the sand down from the dunes, where it has sought shelter over...
It’s on!

Capt. Chris Willi

Fri, Jul 20

Category:

Fishing Report

Coming into the middle of July and we have finally seen some bigger fish caught — and in good numbers — around the island. Fishing from the shore has been good all along the south side of the island using big swimmers and needlefish. There is a large presence of mackerel on all sides of the island...
Hope Roosa, motivated

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, Jul 13

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Motivation comes from within. It cannot be taught. There are no short cuts. What’s compelling about motivation is where it begins — there must be a spark — and where it can take you. When I meet motivated people, I look for the spark and invariably it is clearly explained by the...
Order this... Tasty baked goods at Aldo’s Bakery

Amy Lockwood MacDougall

Fri, Jul 13

Category:

Columnists, Order This

When I first started coming to Block Island in 1989, my husband told me we had to get Portuguese sweet bread from Aldo’s, toast it, and slather it with freshly made blackberry jam. We’d eat it while we were here on vacation and always grabbed a loaf right before we got on the ferry. What I never...
July Sun, September Air

Martha Ball

Fri, Jul 13

Category:

Island Notes

Th e Fourth of July was a wonderful holiday week, and while I think of most parades days as being hot they do not usually fall in a week of dreadfully heated humidity as still as August doldrums. It will “break on Friday” we were told, that perennial promise that comes with any spell of truly...
July 4, 2018

Martha Ball

Fri, Jul 6

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Th e parade has come and gone, the Community Service Officers, the young men (so far I have seen only guys this year) in the bright vests, are removing the temporary parking ban signs, and replacing the pedestrian crosswalk markers removed for the parade. The front street has gone, in thirty...
East Side Sunset

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 29

Category:

News, Columnists

Y e sterday, or perhaps it was the day before, these long, green days meld together, especially when I turn off Mansion Road and head up across my front field, I had an epiphany. It was a summer cow pasture in my earliest memory, the garden protected from marauding beasts by a single strand of...
Wakefield Liquors

Michael Schroeder

Fri, Jun 29

Category:

Trips Abroad

Wakefield Liquors takes great pride in the process of selecting wines by sampling dozens each week to create a unique selection of name-brand items as well as lesser-known boutique wines. The friendly staff is happy to assist customers in making a selection just right for every occasion, whether it...
Fishing Report: The bite begins...

Capt. Chris Willi

Fri, Jun 22

Category:

Fishing Report

Unseasonable weather and cooler water has made the start of the 2018 season a little slower than normal. However, we can report the island fishing has turned the corner the week leading up to Father’s Day. This is the week fishermen can have nights of catching a dozen fish or more. That’s the case...
Edge of the Solstice

Martha Ball

Thu, Jun 21

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

L ast night, I walked into my living room in the near darkness to be surprised by the lingering pink in the sky, not where it should be on the edge of the summer solstice, in the northwest, rather glowing brightly in a south-facing window. It disappeared, quickly, as I moved toward it and I...
The Canopy

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 15

Category:

Island Notes

The lilacs down the lane behind my house, the ones which produced the best blooms this year, are holding their gone-by flowers, clumps of lifeless brown among the green. They do not seem to be in the best spot to flourish, on the north side of a wall, seemingly exposed to both the northeast wind...
‘Melville in love’

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Jun 8

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

Sometimes a great book will find us when we least expect it. A book can appear to us in bookstores, flea markets, lost and found bins, yard sales, and libraries. Or, a friend may flip us a book that they may think we might like when we least expect it. A friend of ours named Cindy — another Cindy...
The Price of Privilege

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 8

Category:

Island Notes

Traveling the Neck Road can be an adventure in high summer, but it is early June. Yesterday, just south of Mansion Road, a truck was stopped, collecting cardboard which had fallen from a bed loaded with what appeared to be trash. At first I thought the driver had turned around to gather what had...
Make it fit: Redefine your comfort zone

Eileen Birk

Sat, Jun 2

Category:

Columnists

When I started on my weight loss journey, I thought the hardest part was the workouts. I would wake up the day after “leg day” and feel like my legs were made of Jello. The day after would leave me wincing just to lift my water bottle. I often questioned my sanity for returning day after day for...
Heading for the Light

Martha Ball

Fri, Jun 1

Category:

Island Notes

It was light when I walked outside after a meeting last night. It was light but while I had been inside fog had settled over the land, a complete surprise in this time of year when I pay little mind to forecasts other than those for heavy rain. The sky was pale and it was oddly disorienting. There...
Beyond the Lilacs

Martha Ball

Fri, May 25

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

This is morning there were a few crashes of lightning and some rolls of thunder. I stumbled out of bed and went downstairs to close the back door through which rain falls no matter the direction of the wind, and went back to sleep. It was sunny not too long later, a lovely May morning, before the...
Down to the second

J.V. Houlihan Jr.

Fri, May 18

Category:

News, Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

As the Oldport launch was heading over to Fort Adams at 0800, we passed very close to the Volvo Open 65, Dongfeng Racing. In very poor visibility and light air she was the fourth boat in the fleet to finish in the Newport leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. The word around the Newport docks was...
Storm Skies

Martha Ball

Fri, May 18

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

It was dark when I came home Friday the 11th of May. All the day's light was gone from the sky but night had not deepened and there was visible only one brightest star, or planet, or plane, I thought at first, then, as my eyes adjusted, I realized there were pinpoints across the whole heaven. Had I...
Heart of Springtime

Martha Ball

Fri, May 11

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Everyone lauds the fall, and the fall on Block Island is beautiful, with its sharply blue ocean and grass restored to green after even the driest and hottest Augusts; September can be stunning, between hurricane scares, but by its end already I am feeling the closing of the vise of approaching...
Senior projects presented at school

Cassius Shuman

Mon, May 7

Category:

News, Inactive Columns

The Block Island School’s senior class exhibited their senior projects to the public on May 2 at the school, demonstrating innovation, individualism, and intelligence. Music as a way of expressing emotion; art therapy as an alternative to medication; the importance of exercise; the filmmaking...
The Block Island Factor

J. V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, May 4

Category:

Columnists, The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“The Block Island Factor is a degree-of-difficulty figure by which one multiplies mainland estimates to achieve Block Island realities. The Factor is always greater than one and may go as high as five depending on one’s ability to adapt to weather, cost, transportation, and...
May Day

Martha Ball

Fri, May 4

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

The spring is filled with times of contrast. The old adage “April showers bring May flowers” usually holds true in this part of the world, where it may be the “cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” That oft quoted...
The Chief

J.V. Houlihan, Jr.

Fri, Apr 27

Category:

The Ferry Dock Scribbler

“Hey, Joe, check out my new guitar,” said Chief Vin Carlone as he came into the car shack one February day a few years back. It was freezing outside and it was quiet at the docks. He cracked open his case and pulled out a pristine out-of-the-box Taylor guitar. Then he ran some scales up and down...
As close to happy as he can get

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 27

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

It was raining, again, on Wednesday, on Dump Day, the anchor of the winter week for the Pesky Pond Troll of Clay Head Swamp ( aka PPT). It was the day there was lots of traffic on Corn Neck Road, and it was especially easy to scamper out to the bank beside the pavement, hop on a truck and...
‘Passion for satisfaction’ at Ocean State Hearing

Michael Schroeder

Thu, Apr 26

Category:

Trips Abroad

Rapid changes in technology are making it easier, more economical and more effective to counter the effects of hearing loss — and a firm right off the boat is committed to delivering those results to their clients. “Over the next two decades the hearing aid industry will bring about dramatic...
Saving Block Island one blade of grass at a time

Kim Gaffett

Sat, Apr 21

Category:

Ocean Views

“A steady sea wind sweeping across the beach carries grains of sand inland. When its motion is interrupted by a log or grass clump, the wind drops its burden of sand. Slowly, a mound builds up. Growing higher, broader, merging with other mounds, it becomes a hillock, a ridge — a dune. Rolling up...
Snake On The Grass

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 20

Category:

Columnists, Island Notes

Saturday the sun came out, the wind died in the middle of the day, and I went out for a few minutes to rake a few weeds from a long-ignored flower bed. Years ago, when I paid more attention to such things, a bonus pack of some odd iris arrived with an order of baby plants. They all thrived as long...
Waiting For Spring

Martha Ball

Fri, Apr 13

Category:

Island Notes

The geese are moving from noisy flight to noisy landing to noisy swimming. They are the big Canadas, singularly beautiful when they were few, with their softly brown bodies and black velvet necks and spots of perfect white. That was a long, long time ago, before their numbers grew exponentially and...

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Island Buzz

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Riverhead Building Supply offers TimberTech by AZEK Building Products. Click here for the latest collections and styles...
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