“November is often our wettest m1onth of the year,” but this November, we had less than two inches of rain, Richard G. Hendrickson wrote in his monthly weather report from Bridgehampton. “There are many years when a November month has given us our four inches, and sometimes over six inches of rain and some snow.”

Mr. Hendrickson, a United States Cooperative weather observer for eight-plus decades, reported rain on six days last month, for a grand total of only 1.79 inches.

The warmest day of the month was the first day, when it was 66 degrees, and the coldest night, he said, was Nov. 25, when the temperature dropped to 17.

“From now on there should be many northwest winds of 30 to 40 miles per hour. The night temperatures might make for skating by the Christmas vacation. The turkey has flown away until next year, but Santa and his sleigh will come with snow.”

       East End Cares, which was formed on the heels of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and Gurney’s Inn in Montauk are joining forces to host a fund-raiser on Friday, Dec. 13, to benefit victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which caused massive destruction in the Philippines last month.

       The event, East End Cares for Leyte, will run from 7 to 11 p.m. and feature music by local bands, Filipino-inspired hors d’oeuvres prepared by local chefs, wines donated by Osprey Dominion, and raffles. Tickets are $25.

       According to Melissa Berman, one of the founders of East End Cares, the loosely knit organization works with Paddlers for Humanity, which can be contacted at p4h.org, to funnel donations to those in distress.

       The group has been working with Venus Yunker, who is Filipino and lives in Montauk, to provide relief to residents of her family’s village, Hindang, on the island of Leyte.

       Brian Lydon of East Hampton, whom Ms. Berman described as a “superstar volunteer,” has traveled to the Philippines to help with the relief effort.

       Among the items being donated are medicine, water-filtration kits, and solar chargers.

       “The good thing is money goes far,” Ms. Berman said, adding that a new roof can be put on a house for as little as $40.

       She said that East End Cares is not technically a relief organization. “We’re a Facebook page group,” she said. “We try to connect good will with opportunity.”

       Ms. Berman thanked Paul Monte, the general manager of Gurney’s Inn, and its staff for providing so much help in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and for the current relief effort.   

With the holidays fast approaching, the food pantries that serve East Hampton Town residents see the number of people they serve increase and their need for money to help keep their shelves stocked increase as well.

Those who would like to donate to a local pantry can send checks, money orders, or gift cards from local grocery stores to the following addresses:

East Hampton and Amagansett

East Hampton Food Pantry

219-50 Accabonac Road

East Hampton 11937

Donations can also be made online, at the pantry’s website, easthamptonfoodpantry.org

Montauk

Montauk Food Pantry

Montauk School

50 South Dorsett Road

Montauk 11954

Sag Harbor

Sag Harbor Community Food Pantry

P.O. Box 1241

Sag Harbor 11963

Springs

Springs Community Food Pantry

5 Old Stone Highway

East Hampton 11937

Wainscott

Living Waters Church Food Pantry

P.O. Box 370

Wainscott 11975

Representative Tim Bishop has joined a bipartisan group of 38 House and Senate lawmakers urging Congressional leadership to include fishing disaster relief in the final budget to fund government operations in 2014.

In a release dated Nov. 14, Mr. Bishop said that the group, which includes Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, represents fishing communities in 10 states and is asking that $150 million in funding for collapsed fisheries be made available quickly.

“Since 2012, the Department of Commerce declared a number of fishery failures in the U.S. Regrettably, funding has not been appropriated yet to deal with the effects of these disasters, which continue to affect communities in our states and districts,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor is hosting Typhoon Relief for the Philippines, a night of music by East End musicians, on Sunday beginning at 7. Among the participants are Lola, the Vandettas, Nancy Atlas, Inda Eaton, the Hoodoo Loungers, Rick Davies, Joe Delia and Thieves, and Gene Casey, with more performers expected.

Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman and Bonnie Grice of WPPB 88.3 FM will co-host the event. The suggested donation is $25, though any amount would be appreciated. A raffle will raise additional money.

Crossroads Music of Amagansett is providing the sound gear, and several local restaurants will deliver food for the bands and crew. Those who have friends or family in the areas affected by Typhoon Haiyan have been invited to attend and share their personal stories. Donations will be accepted at the door or can be made by taking checks payable to the Red Cross to the Bay Street Theatre box office.

       Fishermen who pack out their catch from a commercial fishing dock on West Lake Drive in Montauk learned last week that a $120,000 Empire State Development agency grant was approved for the restoration of a packing and distribution building that a fire gutted in May 2012.

       The release, issued last Thursday by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., said the money would be used to purchase machinery and equipment that was destroyed and to expand the dockside processing and distribution services. “The commercial fishing dock is a vital part of the fishing infrastructure,” Mr. Thiele said.

       The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and the total cost of $560,000 is being paid through a combination of grants and loans. Historically, commercial fishing has been crucial to the regional economy, and the rebuilding and dock improvements should help generate additional revenue in the future, Mr. Thiele said.

       The scene: Tuesday, Nov. 4, Stuart’s Seafood Market, Amagansett, one day after the start of the 2013 scallop season. A man stands before the store’s display case. A woman, a longtime friend, enters, greets her friend and stands beside him looking into the case.

       As the counter clerk approaches, the man begins to ask: “Have you come for . . . ?”

       The woman gives the clerk a furtive glance, leans closer to her friend, turns her head toward his ear and whispers as though fearing to appear disloyal, not wanting to jeopardize a future supply: “I’m getting them from someone else.”

       The Harvest Restaurant in Montauk five days later: The restaurant’s famous bay scallop dish, plump nuggets lightly dusted with corn meal, resting in a puddle of buttery sauce, is not listed on the menu. The server approaches, leans close to the table like Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte hawking letters of transit at Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca and says, sotto voce: “We’ve got them.”

       Thanksgiving Day does not arrive until Nov. 28, but for many East End locals, it began — with an undercurrent of secretive expectation in case of a short supply — on the first Monday of the month in state waters including Orient Harbor on the North Fork and Northwest Harbor on the South Fork.

       The season opened a week later in town waters including, in East Hampton, Lake Montauk, Accabonac, Three Mile, and Napeague Harbors, the latter body last year producing one of the best harvests in recent memory, certainly since before a series of brown algal tides decimated the scallop population beginning in the mid-1980s.

       Accabonac Harbor will remain closed to shellfishing until the end of the month by the State Department of Environmental Conservation because of incomplete water testing. Cold Spring Pond in Southampton will also remain closed until month’s end.

       By most accounts, this year’s scallop crop is not as strong as last year’s, yet strong enough to keep dredges working into the winter. Nat Miller, an East Hampton bayman and town trustee, said it looked like he’d be able to work on scallops into the winter.

       Steven Tettlebach, a professor of marine science at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University has studied the scallop resource for decades and has surveyed the population’s recovery since the dark days of the brown blooms.

       “When we did our surveys in October we saw scallops everywhere we looked. Not massive concentrations, but they are out there, maybe not as big a bonanza as last year but guys are going to be able to grind out a catch.”

       The survey looks at waters from Flanders near the head of the Peconic Estuary to Orient and Northwest Harbors. Mr. Tettlebach said the upper reaches of the estuary do not appear to be as productive this year.

       On the other hand, there are plenty of bug (juvenile) scallops in evidence, and the meats, the delicious abductor muscles of Argopocten irradians, seem to be larger, at least those from Orient Harbor, 51 count per pound as compared to an average 55 count last season.

       The slimmer pickings have also adjusted the price upward from about $22 per pound at the start of the state season opening to about $28 on Tuesday, but the flavor, many say, is priceless.

       The beaches in East Hampton Village were largely a success story in 2013, the village board was told at its work session last Thursday, but its trees are suffering and in urgent need of protection.

       Olivia Brooks, chairwoman of the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s tree committee, and Michael Gaines of C.W. Arborists in Sagaponack told Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and members of the board that construction and other vehicles that park over trees’ roots while at job sites are damaging them to the point that they may not be able to survive.

       Last summer, Ms. Brooks said, she had invited Mr. Gaines to help select a site for her committee’s arboretum tour. Instead, he had suggested a personal tour of the village’s street trees, to which she enthusiastically agreed. In mid-September, Ms. Brooks said, a tour included several sites that were “very disturbing.” These were construction sites “where homeowners have hired builders and contractors whose trucks, cars, and vans . . . are sitting on the village tree lawns over roots of our trees,” and often atop memorial plaques placed at trees by the L.V.I.S. A photo she distributed to the board depicted a plaque she said had been upended by a vehicle.

       “The reason I’m here is to ask you, as owners of the village trees, to consider a protection plan that is enforceable, perhaps by the building inspector, and ensures the perpetuity of the village trees.” Ms. Brooks suggested that the plan be part of the permitting process, prior to construction, “so homeowners are aware and responsible for the welfare of the trees on their village tree lawns.” Fencing, she said, “should also be of substance so vehicles do not run into or park over it.”

       Such damage, Mr. Gaines told the board, does not always become apparent until years later, but can result in the need for a tree’s removal after 10 years, “that maybe could have lived another 40, 50 years, indefinitely, under the right conditions.” Heavy machinery or vehicles atop a tree’s roots, he said, compact the soil, “and the air and water doesn’t move through soil like it needs to, to help these trees grow and flourish.” He agreed with Ms. Brooks on the need for “a program to begin at the very beginning of the construction process, followed through and enforced.”

       Richard Lawler, a board member, asked if there is a uniform area that would be designated around a tree to protect it. “It’s going to be very difficult for . . . the building inspector to enforce varying distances. . . . Do you have a recommendation?”

       There are standard industry practices, Mr. Gaines replied.

       Becky Molinaro, the village administrator, asked Mr. Gaines if there are other municipalities that have codified such a program. “That might make it easier for some of us, to take a look at things that are already enacted,” she said.

       “You’re identifying a valid concern,” Mayor Rickenbach said to Ms. Brooks and Mr. Gaines. “Let’s see if we can codify it further. Lets make it user-friendly but understand that we are doing it for a specific reason.” He asked Ms. Brooks and Mr. Gaines to provide information on other municipalities’ tree-protection programs to Ms. Molinaro’s office.

       Mr. Lawler asked Linda Riley, the village attorney, if such a plan could be included as a requirement in the building permit process. “I have to take a look at that,” Ms. Riley said.

       “If we could do it without codifying it into the code, I’d certainly like to pursue that,” Mayor Rickenbach said, “and make it part of the building permit process as applicable.”

       Ed McDonald, the village’s beach manager, then delivered his annual report to the mayor and members of the board with a summary of what he described as “a rollercoaster year.”

       Mr. McDonald said he and his crew faced an immediate crisis in April when they surveyed the Hurricane Sandy-ravaged beaches and the structures at Main Beach and Georgica Beach. At those beaches, he said, “there was very little beach left, the dunes were severely eroded.” Repairing the damage in time for Memorial Day weekend, he said, seemed impossible. 

       Fortunately, the village’s Department of Pubic Works removed sand from the parking lots and debris from everywhere, and a village-hired construction company “did a first-class job of making major repairs” at Main Beach. “Mother Nature did the rest,” Mr. McDonald said. “Luckily we had some very calm weather throughout the summer.” Unfortunately, “we did lose considerable dune” to Sandy, but “throughout summer it just got better and better.”

       Mr. McDonald described the crowds at village beaches as “so well behaved and well mannered.” He pointed to the village’s no-alcohol policy as playing a significant role in crowd behavior. “I’m hoping . . . maybe Mr. Cantwell can get that adopted in the town,” he said, in reference to Larry Cantwell, the former village administrator and incoming town supervisor.

       As the work session commenced, Mayor Rickenbach had extended his and the board’s best wishes to Mr. Cantwell and to Fred Overton and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, incoming members of the town board. “We wish them a great tenure, and I would underscore that the village looks forward to working in unison with town government on matters of municipal interest to both parties,” he said.

“October was so beautiful in many respects it is hard to realize just how fortunate we have been,” Richard G. Hendrickson wrote in his monthly weather report from Bridgehampton. “First, there were no heavy rains, therefore no flooded cellars, no washouts, or deep gullies in our large potato fields, no gullies that eroded severely for public transportation. Our roads, walkways, and cellars were all spared a flood, yet during our next month it could happen.”

Mr. Hendrickson, a United States Cooperative weather observer, recorded a scant .15 inch of rain in October. Compare that to 1.35 inches in October of last year.

The highest temperature last month was 79 degrees on the 4th. The lowest Mr. Hendrickson recorded was 25 degrees on the night of Oct. 26.

“November should give us cooler weather, heavier rainfall, cloudier days, and stronger winds,” the veteran weather observer predicted.

       Cynthia Wilder and Giovanni de Moura of Springs and New York City were married on Sept. 3 at the Bronx Courthouse, with his brother, Lou de Moura, and their friend Marirene Heisler as witnesses.

       They will celebrate their nuptials on Saturday at the Abigail Adams Smith House in New York with friends and family, including each of their five children, who are coming from as far away as Australia. This is the second marriage for both of them.

       Ms. Wilder de Moura, who is known as C.Y., worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 17 years in ancient Near East art, leaving that post in 2003. She spends a great deal of time in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Siberia studying indigenous people and cultures.

       Mr. de Moura is a fine-art painter and contractor. The two met 13 years ago, while he was renovating an apartment she had just moved into.