A 30-year-old car cannot be your backup car. The problem with a 1995 Subaru Legacy station wagon — snazzy metallic teal and all — is that it’s not exactly what […]
Visual Stories
THIS WILD CAPE
Respect for the Gulls
Learning to look for yellow legs and other distinguishing features that make a bird not just a bird
[Here we are, anywhere on Cape Cod. We look up and see a gull. There’s a flock in a parking lot, or bobbing on a freshwater pond. Fifty miles out […]
WARRIORS WATCH
Nauset Spring Sports Preview, Part 2
Unified and co-ed track, golf, and tennis teams are optimistic
EASTHAM — The spring season gets underway in earnest this week as every team except unified track plays at least once. This is the second of a two-part series previewing […]
NATURAL SELECTION
Good for a Pain in the Apse
The smooth red-brown buds opening like hatches across from the Methodist Church in Provincetown may belong to Salix discolor, the native pussy willow, or they could belong to an introduced […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, April 1 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
ASTRAL PROJECTIONS
It’s Aries Season. Are You Feeling the Heat?
It’s hard to know when to fight and when to fold ’em
The stars are stirring up a lot of tension and conflict this week. What this means for you might depend on your sign. With Mercury, Venus, and Saturn sitting in […]
UNHINGED NEWS
April Fools Issue
Truro Decides All Can Vote at Town Meeting ‘Period of healing’ brings part-timers and year-rounders together By Paul Benson TRURO — Cape Cod’s smallest town took a giant step toward […]
MORNING FLIGHT
The American Woodcock’s Got the Moves
A peent and a sky dance announce the arrival of one goofy bird
It was a still March evening, and I was watching the sunset along the Pilgrim Spring bike path in Truro. For what seemed like a long while, the marsh there […]
LOGGING IN
Fungi Are Forever
Leo Parent’s carved wooden mushrooms spring from finds on forest walks
Leo Parent takes a hand torch to the top of a large wooden mushroom, and the smoke puffs up, gray and fragrant. The torching technique is called shou sugi ban, […]
TO THE MAT
Awakening Your Body From Its Winter Slumber
In yin yoga, holding a deep gentle stretch brings ease
Spring brings renewal: it’s a time to embrace the vibrancy of a new season. But as those of us on the Outer Cape know, the transition comes only gradually. As […]
WHEN THE WOLF IS AT THE DOOR
Fruits, Under the Circumstances
Re-reading M.F.K Fisher on how to face scarcity with grace
M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf was published in 1942. This is not a cookbook nor even a memoir, really, but rather a guidebook to feeding each other and […]
CROSSWORD #61
Wally and Friends
ENVIRONMENT
As Right Whales Shift, Cape Cod Remains Safe Haven for Now
With warming, whales follow food to new waters, and a key source declines
[PROVINCETOWN — North Atlantic right whales, critically endangered with a population of only around 370, move widely around our ocean. They have traditionally ranged from below Cape Canaveral, Fla., where […]
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
Gearing Up for the Season
Striped bass catches have been reported in southern New Jersey
Last week, I wrote about all the things boaters need to do to get their boats ready for the season. Now, what if you’re not just a boater, but also […]
WARRIORS WATCH
Nauset Spring Sports Preview, Part 1
Softball, baseball, and lacrosse squads look to make the postseason
EASTHAM — Spring is officially here and with it come the sights and sounds of athletes on the fields, courts, track, and, in the case of the sailing team, the […]
