• 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

Correction to Print Article: Constitutional: Amendment Question is Two-Pronged

Norfolk Now regrets that its fron-tpage article on the proposed amendment to permit early voting suggested that a yes vote would allow new procedures that would diminish the security of the voting process.  There is only one question at issue: whether or not Connecticut should permit in-person voting prior to the actual election day.  Authorization […]

Art Meets Nature In New Commission for City Meadow

By Patricia Platt “There is an ability for sculpture to move people in a unique way when they’re engrossed in looking at it and everything else falls away. It’s called the silence of sculpture,” commented Norfolk’s Jon Riedeman when he unveiled his sculpture of a Great Horned Owl on Sept. 17 at an event for […]

Board of Ed Examines Turnover at Botelle

By Colleen Gundlach At a Board of Education (BOE) meeting held in August, a delegation of parents and other concerned citizens urged board members to address several issues that had been raised in light of the departure at the end of the 2021-22 school year of four of the five Botelle classroom teachers, as well […]

Woodland Stewardship Training Helps Them See the Forest and the Trees

Program creates a state network of land stewards Text By David BeersPhotos by William Carter   For many years, the third weekend of September at Great Mountain Forest (GMF) has been devoted to an intensive training for Connecticut woodland owners and land trust stewards. This year, 26 students from across the state were ensconced at Yale […]

Veteran Teacher to Offer Afterschool Violin Lessons in Battell Chapel

The Sounds of Music Text By Ruth MelvillePhoto Courtesy of Meg Hill In 2018 the Norfolk Board of Education reluctantly decided, for budgetary reasons, to eliminate the strings part of Botelle School’s music curriculum. But thanks to the talents of Meg Hill, a professional violinist and experienced teacher, children—and adults—will soon be able to again […]

Caught Between Two Worlds: A Neighbor Shares His Immigrant Story

By Kelly Kandra Hughes  The Norfolk Library will celebrate National Immigrants Day a little early this year when they welcome Birol Bahadir, Norfolk resident and German immigrant, to the library on Monday, Oct. 24 at 5:30 p.m. Bahadir, who recently published his autobiography, “Between 2 Worlds,” will speak about his dream of living in the […]

Exploring the Northwest Corner’s Live Music Scene 

Out and About By Michael Cobb With the end of summer, Yale’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival goes dormant until next season. Fortunately for fans of live music, there are plenty of other options—from folk to rock—scattered throughout the northwest corner.  In downtown Norfolk, Infinity Hall seems to be picking up programming, although the exact relationship […]

Iron Strong for 175 Years

Text By Andra MossPhoto By Jen Pfaltz The 1840’s in the United States was the decade of the telegraph, the Mexican War and the Gold Rush. America’s rail network began its rapid expansion westwards as technology and investment took off. In 1847, Thomas Alva Edison was born; so was Jesse James. The United States was […]

Norfolk Hub Talk Focuses on Drone Use at the Front Lines of War

By Andra Moss Dozens gathered in the Norfolk Hub, with many more watching via Zoom, on Saturday, Sept. 24 to hear from Ian Miller and Evan Platt of the non-profit organization Zero Line on their view of the war in Ukraine and how Zero Line is supporting the Ukrainian citizens in their battle against the […]

GoodWorks to Turn Infinity Hall Building Over to Town of Norfolk

One more act in the life of the historic theater By Ruth Melville “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” sang Bob Dylan, and if you lived in Norfolk you didn’t need a crystal ball to know that change was coming to Infinity Hall. A glance at the venue’s diminishing […]

Campaign to Slow Speed of Traffic Through Town is Long and Frustrating

Keeping the Roads Safe By Colleen Gundlach The first letter to the editor about slowing down traffic traveling through Norfolk was published in Norfolk Now back in 2017. The writer, Barry Webber, encouraged townspeople to make a concerted effort to travel the speed limit when driving around town. He wrote, “If each of us pledges […]

Local Conservation Groups Work to Protect Connecticut’s Bat Population

Friends Not Foes Text By Avice MeehanPhoto By Pamela Velez Don’t be surprised if you see a strange-looking vehicle with an antenna on its roof crawling along Goshen East Street late at night. It’s a scientific bat mobile, deployed by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to assess Connecticut’s bat population. Moving […]