Marchh, Persephone Returns
After spending the past four months searching for her missing daughter, Demeter (a.k.a. Mother Nature) will finally be reunited with the lovely Persephone on March 20, 2017, at 6:28 a.m. Persephone will be released from the underworld at the vernal equinox. This marks the beginning of spring and the reawakening of the earth in the […]
Ask Mrs. Washington
Dear Mrs. Washington: I have been living in my house near Norfolk’s downtown for over 10 years. My wife and I bought it when our daughter was in pre-K, and she is now in high school at Regional. But people still say: “Oh, you live in the So-and-so house,” and they mention a family that […]
Aton Forest Holds Annual Census of Early Winter Birds
By Wiley Wood Although she has been taking part in Christmas Bird Counts for over 50 years, when Ayreslea Denny describes her bird encounters on the morning of December 31 in Aton Forest, her voice is full of excitement. “The number of birds we got was just unbelievable,” she said. A small group, […]
Notables—Senator Frederic Collin Walcott
Businessman, Humanitarian, Conservationist, Statesman By Michael Kelly Frederic Walcott was born in 1869 to a prominent family in New York Mills, NY. His great-great grandfather established the first cotton mills in New York state and garnered a sizable fortune. Walcott’s father married Emeline Alice Welch, daughter of noted Norfolk physician William Wickham Welch, forging […]
Berkshire National Fish Hatchery
Volunteers work to preserve indigenous fish habitats By Michael Kelly It’s all about the water. At the Berkshire National Fish Hatchery (BNFH) in Hartsville, a hamlet of New Marlborough, Mass., 14 miles from Norfolk’s Village Green, 200 gallons a minute of pure 45-degree water from a deep underground aquifer course through 148 acres of […]
Norfolk’s November and December Weather and a Yearly Summary for 2016
A Snowy End to a Very Warm and Dry Year By Russell Russ After tracking a growing precipitation deficit and above average temperatures for the entire year, it was quite the twist in weather fate to have an early winter with snowy conditions before Thanksgiving. The closing months of 2016 were still a little […]
Through the Garden Gate
February, Precious Snowflakes By Leslie Watkins “Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated.”–Wilson Bentley Avalanches are sudden, unstoppable forces of nature. They gain mass, volume and momentum as they sweep down mountainsides. But even the mightiest of avalanches is made up of many small, harmless, fragile things—snowflakes. […]
Berkshire Mountain Springs—From the Fountainhead to Your Door
By Michael Kelly The most direct way to access Berkshire County’s wealth of cultural amenities is to drive north on route 272, a felicitous, forested, rural byway. Just 4.5 miles from Norfolk’s village green, near the cutoff to Campbell Falls, you cross into Massachusetts and subconsciously absorb subtle, topographical changes. Two miles further up the […]
