• Inside the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art

    A season of student and community activity By Patricia Platt For over 80 years, the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Trust has endowed Yale University’s summer music and art programs in Norfolk. The renowned Yale Norfolk School of Art opens the 2026 summer season on May 23, before the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival begins, and shares its […]

  • Trio Revives Local Farmers Market

    Northwest Farm to Fork launches at Norbrook By Andra Moss When Devin Grosso and her husband moved to Norfolk in 2024, she was disappointed to learn that the town’s farmers market had permanently closed just the year before. However, a chance meeting at the Botelle School garden with Lisa Auclair, who had managed the Norfolk […]

  • Tracing the Dudley Legacy

    Family history and the truth behind Dudleytown By Jude Mead The Dudley name, with roots stretching back to 14th-century England, carries with it a long and often dramatic history. For Susan Dudley of Winchester, that legacy has been a lifelong source of curiosity—particularly her family’s connection to Dudleytown, the long-abandoned settlement hidden within Cornwall’s Dark […]

  • Cultivars, Nativars and Natives: The Lowdown

    by Susannah Wood It’s May and gardening is in full swing. At nurseries and on gardening sites, beginners and enthusiasts often encounter plants labelled “cultivar” or “nativar,” as well as “native.” What is the difference between a cultivar and a nativar? If someone wants to support local ecosystems and biological diversity, are nativars a good […]

  • Noteworthy Natives: Arrowwood Viburnum

    By Jill Chase For some, a mass of viburnums in bloom on the woodlands edge rivals the beauty of any formal garden around. The fresh white flowers on green foliage let you know that the spring garden season is well and truly on. There are several good varieties of viburnum—some produce blooms like snowballs, while […]

  • A Town Hall Treat for Pollinators

    The Norfolk Nature Alliance sponsored a student native plant garden project at Town Hall. The Northwestern Regional 7 Agricultural Education Program/FFA arrived on a sunny Sunday to install the donated native shrubs and perennials.

  • Birds Now

    A view on the prose and poetry of spring By Cheryl Heller As I write, the red-winged blackbirds are partying outside my window. Goldfinches, in their bright almost-summer feathers, make yellow polkadots in the dogwood that will flower any day. The phoebe (or her daughter) who has nested on our hanging porch light for the […]

  • Happiness Is …

    Smiles and squeals greeted “Farmer John” Coston as he surprised the Merrymakers group of kindergarten and first-graders with a lamb visit at the Norfolk Library’s after-school program on March 23. Cuties and lambs—need we say more?

  • Greenwoods Puppet Festival Returns to Norfolk Library

    By Bina ThomsonThe Greenwoods Puppet Festival returns to Norfolk for a third exciting showcase of puppet magic. Children’s Librarian and Event Coordinator Eileen Fitzgibbons, who has coordinated the previous two festivals, is busy fine-tuning this year’s offerings. In addition to a full day of performances, a puppetry workshop for adults will also be offered. Festivities […]

  • Botelle Beat

    Power Goals and WIN Time Personalize Learning at Botelle By Lauren Valentino One of Botelle School’s SOAR expectations is to Achieve Your Goals. We believe that when students know their goals—what they are learning, why and what success looks like—they are more engaged and motivated. They are partners in the learning process and own their […]

  • Courtney Maum’s Comedic Take on Capitalism

    On June 2nd, Norfolk author Courtney Maum launches her new novel, “ALAN OPTS OUT” (Little Brown) at the Norfolk Library in conversation with WAMC radio’s Sarah LaDuke. The book is a comedy about an ad exec who bombs the biggest pitch of his career and decides to move into a backyard playhouse, opt out of […]

  • “You Shall Not Pass!”

    Gandalf and the state Department of Transportation have spoken. Mountain Road at Westside Road is now closed through November for the Spaulding Brook bridge replacement project. Traffic is being detoured off Route 44 via Westside Road. Cars can still reach the ball fields along the short stretch of Mountain Road.

Articles

Ralph Nader Champions Revival of Winsted Newspaper

The Winsted Citizen to publish first issue Feb. 3 Text By Colleen GundlachPhoto Courtesy of American Tort Law Museum More than 100 people turned out on the evening of Jan. 24 to hear plans for Winsted’s new monthly print newspaper, The Winsted Citizen.  At a reception held at the American Museum of Tort Law on […]

Prepare Now to Combat the Next Spongy Moth Season

Defending Norfolk’s Trees By Susannah Wood Last year an outbreak of spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) caterpillars arrived in the Northwest Corner, defoliating the trees and turning entire hillsides back to early spring again. Norfolk forests suffered significant damage from these exotic pests, formerly known as gypsy moths. Towns to the west were even harder hit. […]

Noi Salon Turns Heads on Station Place

Around Town By Andra Moss People walking along Norfolk’s Station Place are doing a particular two-step these days when they pass the doorway east of the Hub—two steps past, then two steps back, a peer in the window, then a hand on the doorknob. They have discovered Noi Salon, the new full-service hair salon opened […]

A Norfolk Frog Makes Successful Hop to Sheffield

Out and About By Patricia Platt Longtime Norfolk natives who drive through Sheffield, Mass., might recognize a stylishly dressed frog on a sign outside a new business. Justin Vagliano has named his recently opened farm-to-table restaurant The Frog after a men’s haberdashery in Norfolk once owned by his father. Inside, you can see the original […]

Eversource Price Hike LEads Many to Seek Alternate Suppliers

By Avice Meehan Asking someone what they pay per kilowatt hour of electricity is more likely to generate a confused stare than spark a lively conversation. At least that was true until November, when local energy provider Eversource announced it would seek a 50 percent hike in the cost of supplying electricity to residential and […]

Stone Walls – Built to Last the Test of Times

It’s Only Natural By Jude Mead If stonewalls could talk, they would have centuries of stories to tell and would reveal a wealth of history. According to Susan Allport, author of “Sermons in Stone,” stonewalls date back to the agricultural era of the late 1700s. “Stonewalls have a checkered past in terms of how they […]

Dawn Whalen Retiring as Executive Director of Norfolk Foundation

Text by Leila JavitchPhoto Courtesy of Dawn Whalen Dawn Whalen became the first executive director of the Norfolk Foundation (NF) in November 2016, arriving after three years as executive director of Habitat for Humanity for Northwest Connecticut. Mark Burke, a Norfolk resident and former member of the Habitat board, urged her to apply to head […]

Two First-Time Playwrights Explore Lives on Stage

Text by Andra MossPhotos by Adam Heller Two one-act plays, written by Norfolk-based playwrights Sara Heller and Marinell Crippen, will premiere on Feb. 25 at the Norfolk Library. Both women are actors who have trained and worked in New York City, and Crippen is house manager at the Sharon Playhouse. Although neither had ever seriously […]

Norfolk Swimmer Olivia Olsen Changes Lane

High school senior recruited to row for Syracuse University Text by Kelly Kandra HughesPhoto Courtesy of Syracuse University Norfolk’s Olivia Olsen has spent her whole life swimming. Now a high school senior she had planned to swim competitively in college, and the SwimCloud coaching platform has her ranked 82nd in Connecticut in terms of recruitment. […]

Tanker Crash Emergency Ends, But Recovery Stretches On

Cleanup likely to take at least a year Text By Ruth MelvillePhoto Courtesy of Verdantas Over 75 people gathered in Botelle School’s Hall of Flags on Nov. 15 to attend an informational meeting about the current state of cleanup after the gasoline tanker crash on Route 44.   Seated behind the long table across the front […]

The Quiet of a Norfolk Street Is Upended Overnight

Residents cope with aftereffects of tanker crash Text By Andra MossPhoto by Joe Kelly Some were awakened by sirens, others by an alert of a power outage, but on Saturday, Nov. 5, homeowners along Maple Avenue soon realized that something very significant had occurred when the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department (NVFD) appeared at their doors, […]

How a Seabee Ended Up Working in the Northwest Woods

From Persia to Pines Text By David BeersPhoto Courtesy of Great Mountain Forest On top of a bookshelf in Matt Gallagher’s Great Mountain Forest (GMF) office is a photo of him in military fatigues with former president George W. Bush in Kuwait. How does this framed photo reside in a forestry office in woodsy northwest […]