Winter makes me nostalgic for my Edgartown childhood, for sledding at Sweetened Water Farm and ice skating on Jernegan Pond, for pink cheeks and frozen toes that didn’t bother us because we were having so much fun. It seems like when I was a kid there was significantly more snow, and more opportunity for ice skating on ponds, but probably every generation says that.

It is interesting how we remember things. As a nutritionist, my nostalgic thoughts often turn to food. Was food and nutrition simpler back then, I wonder. My family’s farm was certainly simpler than it is now — just an open roadside stand across the much less busy West Tisbury Road in Ed Tyra’s old lot. At that point we also still sold raw milk from our three Jersey and Guernsey cows, and fresh eggs from our 25 farmyard chickens out of the back door of our house.