This whole scallop thing has me puzzled. There aren’t enough to go around as far as a commercial take goes, but I have had my best year ever diving for them with a mask and snorkel. This has given me a chance to mess with them in the kitchen in a way I would not if I had anted up for a pound or two.

I would love to think I’m a lover of the natural world, but it’s hard to be a naturalist when twice in recent months tick larvae have rendered me so infernally itchy, and for so long, that I’ve thought more than once of paving everything over — our lawn, our garden, our bosky woods.

Springs Auto Repair, which had been closed since Sept. 21 after a driver crashed into the back of the building and damaged a cinder-block wall, reopened earlier this month. The shop is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.