February Viewing
The Celestial Sphere By Matthew Johnson The five planets visible to the naked eye, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, were present in our skies throughout the summer, fall and early winter of 2020, with Venus gracing the sky at dawn. The comet Neowise joined them briefly in July and August. But in January 2021, […]
Rick Schatzberg’s “The Boys” Combines Photography and Memoir
By Michael Selleck Looking at old photos from my youth is like eating comfort food. There‘s something about the brownish tint of the old color processing that’s like a magical haze. A recognition of people and places—some long gone—of a certain time. The friendships, the feelings of both invincibility and insecurity. A time capsule of […]
Annual Bird Event Counts on Norfolk Citizen Scientists
Text by Kelly Kandra HughesPhoto by Savage Frieze Over four days every February, people flock to the Internet to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). The GBBC is one of the most prolific citizen science projects in the world, with 268,674 participants from 194 countries in 2020. Started in 1998 by the Cornell […]
Slip-Sliding into Winter Fun, Norfolk Style
Text by Susannah WoodPhoto by Savage Frieze Over the years, winter in the Icebox of Connecticut has been a glorious season for those of us who love skating, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. Although climate change has made winter sport a chancier thing, there are still days when conditions are just right for an afternoon of […]
James Mars, Once Enslaved, to be Honored in Norfolk This Spring
A Witness to History by Rhonan Mokriski On the first day of class this past fall, I bet the juniors and seniors in my American history class that they could not name 10 famous Black Americans who were born before 1950. They quickly and confidently took up the challenge, but after a few painstaking minutes, […]
Norfolk’s November/December Weather 2020
Fourth Warmest Year on Record by Russell Russ The final two months of 2020 began our journey into winter. November, being warmer than normal with below-average precipitation and snowfall, might possibly indicate that we are in for a warm winter with below-normal snowfall amounts. December’s conditions were fairly normal for December. There was some snow, […]
Vaccine Rollout Underway in Connecticut
Should be available to general public by this summer by Colleen Gundlach Since the first Covid-19 vaccine was approved in December, people have been eager to sign up to receive their doses. According to The Washington Post, as of Jan. 22 at least 16.2 million people have been vaccinated against Covid. The process that has […]
February, Hellebores
Through the Garden Gate By Leslie Watkins It’s winter. There’s a blanket of snow on the ground, and everything is frozen. Yet, as if to prove that there is always hope, always beauty, always something wonderful and amazing, hidden under the snow are the blossoms of hellebores. Like a precious, silent secret that we dare […]
Donna J. Thomes , 1950-2020
Donna J. Thomes, a beloved partner, mother, grandmother and friend, passed away at her home in Norfolk, in comfort and peace, on Nov. 23, 2020, surrounded by her family. Donna was born in Winchester on Dec. 12, 1950, the daughter of Charles and Mary Thomes. Donna was a very caring person, always ready to help […]
2021 Brings New Challenge for the Connecticut State Legislature
An interview with State Representative Maria Horn By Jeremy Withnall On Friday, Jan. 15, Norfolk Now interviewed Maria Horn (D), recently re-elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives for District 64, which includes Norfolk as well as much of the far northwestern corner of the state. As she starts her second term in office, we wanted to ask […]
