Construction of Wind Turbines on Flagg Hill Site Is Underway
By Wiley Wood The noise of heavy equipment near Flagg Hill is constant. The access road has been widened, a three-phase power line installed, and a tall yellow crane pokes up above the treetops. Turbine parts have been trucked through Norfolk to a staging site in East Canaan, including giant rotor blades. The Flagg […]
State Board of Ed Approves Regionalization Plan
Towns to hold hearings and referendums At its regular meeting on July 1, the State Board of Education approved the Norfolk-Colebrook Study Group’s plan for consolidating the towns’ primary schools under one roof and one regional district. Official notification reached the town clerks’ offices in both Norfolk and Colebrook on July 29. In the […]
Tobey Pond—From Glacial Kettle to Local Swimming Hole
By Christopher Sinclair Several thousand years ago a glacier inched its way through the southern Berkshires, and upon its retreat left the patch of land that would later become Norfolk, Connecticut, with a parting gift. Tobey Pond, the locally famous and universally beloved swimming hole, is that gift —nearly as pristine now as it was […]
Selectmen’s Corner—August 2015
By Sue Dyer We hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Anyone who has recently climbed aboard the wooden train by Station Place will have noticed the fine shape it’s in. The town’s Public Works Department took on the project of refurbishing it during the wet weather this spring. They dismantled it in the back […]
New Rails to Trails Committee Formed
Proposed seven-mile trail to run the length of the town By Ruth Melville On July 9 an introductory meeting of a new Rails to Trails Committee was held at Town Hall. The primary goal of the meeting, convened by Dave Beers, was to gather together interested residents and to set up small work groups […]
Tiles for Library Roof Custom-Made in South America
By Wiley Wood When the Norfolk Library’s new roof is laid in the coming months, its red terra cotta tiles will be modern replicas of the ones that were originally chosen in the 1880’s. Their material comes from clay beds in Colombia, and the custom-made S-shaped tiles will be produced at a family-owned factory […]
Rebuilding the American Chestnut Tree
Rescuing a Forest Icon By Ruth Melville From Connecticut to Mississippi, along the Appalachian Mountains and into the Ohio Valley, the American chestnut tree, able to grow as big as 130 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, once dominated the forest canopy. Although American chestnuts were almost wiped out by disease by 1950, […]
Norfolk Youths Work in Boston Soup Kitchen
Young volunteers from the Church of Christ in Norfolk worked in the Jamaica Plains neighborhood of Boston in early July packaging containers of soup for meals to be delivered to people with life-threatening illnesses. On this particular day, the crew helped assemble some 270 meals—double the usual amount done in the same span of time, […]
Historical Society Produces Walking Tour Map
Unfolding Norfolk’s Past By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo Just in time for the high season, the historical society has produced a walking tour map of town. The map is rather extensive—including a grand total of 50 places of historical interest all within one mile of the town center. The tour is intended to take about an […]
Through the Garden Gate
“All Gardening is Landscape Painting”—Alexander Pope By Leslie Watkins “The two arts of painting and garden design are closely related,” landscape architect Beatrix Farrand wrote in 1907, “except that the landscape gardener paints with actual color, line, and perspective to make a composition . . . while the painter has but a flat surface […]
