Wind farms, deer hunting, and ghosts: this week on Block Island

Flipping through the weekly paper. Gives a great sense of the everyday life out here. My sister Jean taught out here for a year, and much of this echoes her stories (for example: ghosts do not fly over the water, a common bit of Block Island lore). Some headlines:

— Pursuing programs for Block Island school’s non-athletes – there was a big meeting about it last week, parents, teachers, administrators – and it sounds rather contentious.

— Trade trailer storage now allowed on Island (this is a big deal for independent contractors who want to keep their trailers in their yards in between jobs and ferry rides)

— Fuel leak postpones Old Harbor project. Sam Bird, the project’s Clerk-of-the-works, said, “It means you will have to live with the old dock for one more season.”

— There is a cartoon showing a man and a woman sitting at a bar. The woman asks the man, “So … what do you people do out here all winter long?” The man replies, “Before or after Groundhog Day?”

— There is a section for Letters to the Editor and they all are about the proposal for a wind farm out here (a hot topic – the electric bills out here are astronomical, I have heard from Jean they are among the highest in the United States) – so renewable energy, solar power, and wind farms are big big issues out here, and all you have to do is stand still in the grocery store for 30 seconds and you’ll hear people talking about it.

— There is a weekly column by Martha Ball called “Island Notes”. This week’s column is about winter on the island as well as the seals (which I saw this past weekend, so I feel very in the loop):

There is damp in the forecast, the cutting wet that can make a day of moderate temperature feel more frigid than one of deep but sunny cold … The beach has a cyclical life, its sandy covering usually beginning to rebuild as soon as it is torn away. January is often a good month, healed from the storms of the fall, before those of the early spring that leave visitors who come too soon aghast, wondering whatever happened to the dream they have held since the previous summer, sustaining them through the cold. January, though, is often a gentle month; some years it offers a smooth strand running from The Surf to Clay Head.

This is not one of those years. Raging seas and wind driven, coursing rain have left the shore battered; the north end of the crescent that faces the sea is the harsh winter beach, not the inviting summer shore. It is blanketed with mounds of stones, not the foot size rocks that have some stability but the smaller ones that shift under even the sturdiest soles. At high tide, it is not an inviting space, that last stretch, between the Mansion access and Jerry’s Point where the boulders begin, is narrow and rough …

There is sun on the beach and out on the water, sun from the south reaching past Jerry’s Point in a way that a setting sun will not in summer. The tide is very high, only the top of the higher boulder showing through the water and atop the nearest are seals, one per rock, there is no room for more …

A head pops up and I realize there are no birds on the surface of the sea, rather there are more seals swimming about, each looking for its own rock.

It is an exercise we witness on winter days when we are able to stop and watch, the seals, sleek and shining in the sun, trying first to lay claim to a rock, throwing themselves up out of the water, shimmying, flopping, rolling, then trying to maintain their hard fought perch as the swells around him.

I think they must be very cold but, of course, they are seals.

— There is an ad for the ferry to the mainland, with website info, telephone number, etc. It shows a picture of the boat. The ad reads like this:

Ice Skates
Snow Shovels
Warm Mittens
Hot Chocolate
Cold Remedies
Long Johns
Firewood
Rock Salt …

Old man winter will bring the cold.
Everything else comes on the boat.

— There is a story about the “Deer Task Force”, whose aim it is to reduce or eliminate Lyme disease on the island. You hear about “wind farms” and “the deer problem” out here – those are the two main topics. I myself have seen deer everywhere. They almost outnumber the population, that is how bad the situation is. It’s hunting season right now.

— Speaking of deer, there is a recipe for Venison Stew in the paper, in the cooking column, written by Becky and Mike Ballard. They write:

Now that we are in the midst of Block Island’s hunting season, we looked around for someone who has had real success cooking venison. Fred Leeder’s name came up, because of a venison stew he brought to a party at Johanna Ross’s house last year. People still remember that great, tender, savory stew. If you don’t know Fred personally you at least know him from the post office. He worked there a total of 23 years; for 13 he was the postmaster. Before that he cooked professionally on the island. Fred and his cooking skills in combination with the quantity of deer on the island are a perfect match. In fact, some of Fred’s venison moves directly from his back yard right into his cooking pot …

In the national quest for locally grown, organic, grass-fed meats, Block Island deer easily fill all the requirements. Our free-range venison is practically fat-free, tender (if cooked correctly), juicy and full of flavor. With concerns over the increase in deer numbers, what better way to help control the deer herd than to make a big pot of one of Fred’s venison stews?

It’s illegal to sell any wild game, but seek out a hunter friend who may be eager to provide you with a venison roast, a tender back strap or juicy ribs. Chris Blansfield suggested that two or three families could obtain an entire carcass, send it to Wakefield for butchering and then divide the packaged meats up among themselves.

— There was a listing of the Block Island deer hunting rules and regulations.

— There is a regular feature called “Guess This House”. Photo, and you can send your guesses into the Times.

— There is an interview with Islander Fran Migliacco, who just wrote a book called More Ghosts on Block Island, a sequel to a previous book she had written, about various spooky stories and haunted houses out here. Ghosts cannot cross water, apparently (ask any Islander) – however, they CAN travel on boats. Stories abound. Ladies in bonnets and corsets walking around upstairs, knitting needles disappearing never to be seen again – some are scary, some are benign. One lady, Iris Lewis, lived in a haunted house and told Migliacco: “The Scottish side of me has a tendency to be a little ‘fey’, which I resist because I live alone.” I’m with you, sister. Migliacco gives this charming portrait of Ms. Lewis: “While on Island, she dressed in bright scarves and jackets, adorned her jaunty hats with bits of jewelry, and loved new adventures. At the age of 100, she was taken iceboating for the first time in her life by local ice boater Charlie Gale.”

— There is a regular feature called “News & Views from Other Islands”. Happenings on Jamestown (another Rhode Island island), Nantucket, and even as far as The Hebrides.

— There are all kinds of ads in the newspaper from stores on the mainland, and their main selling point is: “We deliver to the ferry!” Because seriously, out here, that ferry is everything. I go down to the pier just to watch it come in.

— A list of events going on in the community this week. A sampling:
African Drumming Performance at the Baptist Church
Game Night at the Library
Fundraiser to benefit the 8th grade Cultural Diversity trip to NYC (I remember Jean’s stories of taking the Block Island kids down to Harlem, there is a sister school there, and how crazy and fun and awesome it was – the kids out here are country kids, island kids, sometimes with only 3 or 4 kids per GRADE, so these trips are really great for the kids) – buffet featuring foods from around the world
— Grades K-12 at Block Island school are asking for donations for Haiti. An address is provided, and the money will be donated through water.com, that sends bottles of clean water to Haiti.

And lastly, there is a calendar called “All Around the Block”, showing literally everything going on, down to the hour, on this island all week. Things listed on the calendar:
— Every AA meeting going on during the week. Multiple locations for that.
— Yoga classes, beginning and advanced
— Adult knitting circle, evenings at the library
— Women’s open volleyball – all welcome – at “school gym” (no address necessary)
— Every religious service during the week: Baptist, Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Episcopal

And I loved this. Again, a glimpse of life here, and how it operates:

— There is a story about a meeting of the Zoning Board. Here is a quote from the article:

The board approved an addition to a single family dwelling … Joseph L. told the board his house had been the Gully School House until 1933. He showed the group an old photograph in which the building had a front porch. At some later point, that porch was removed. L. said the proposed addition would resemble that front porch.”

The board approved the addition to the house. Good work, Joseph L., bringing in that photograph!