• Sweets on the Green

    A Decade of Decadent Desserts By Andra Moss How is your naughty versus nice rating? Those needing to influence Santa with an especially impressive treat should grab their stockings and head to the Norfolk Historical Society (NHS) for the 10th Annual Cake Auction on Saturday, Dec. 7.     Now a Norfolk holiday tradition, the event was […]

  • Artist Tom Burr Brings His Torrington Project to an End

    Performances celebrate studio closing By Stephen Melville Norfolk resident and artist Tom Burr organized a day of performances and exhibition at his studio in Torrington on Oct. 26, marking an end to what he has called “The Torrington Project.” For the past three and a half years, Burr has rented a vast—15,000 square foot—former industrial […]

  • New Meanings for a Monument

    Light Shines on the Memorial Green By Joe Kelly On Monday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, a crowd of about 100 gathered for the rededication of Norfolk’s World War 1 memorial, artfully restored under the auspices of the Norfolk Community Association. It was sunny. Temperatures in the low ‘60’s. Another day of no rain. Everyone talked […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1920s postcard shows Memorial Green just after the War Memorial, designed by Alfredo Taylor, was built. It was Taylor’s wife Minna who first proposed that a memorial “heroes grove” be planted on the small lot of land known as the Triangle opposite the Catholic Church. The lot had been left empty with the demolition […]

  • Restored war memorial to be celebrated on veterans day

    plaque now honors all who served By Patricia Platt A World War I monument, designed by Alfredo Taylor and erected on Norfolk’s Memorial Green in 1921, bears the inscription, “for those who gave and those who offered their lives for liberty, the people of Norfolk have built this monument and crowned it with the Liberty […]

  • NLT Tail Ablaze with Runners

    More than 120 runners enjoyed perfect fall weather as they wound their way through picturesque Barbour Woods in the 11th Annual Norfolk Land Trust Trail Race. Some chose to add a challenging loop over Haystack Mountain, while the half-marathoners just kept moving on up—topping out at over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. *photo by June […]

  • Can you spot the Real Curler?

    There was movie magic ice to be made, and the pros of the Norfolk Curling Club were the first to get the call. In October, NCC’s Jon Barbagallo, Lou Barbagallo, Rachel Barbagallo, Mark Walsh, Harvey Chalmers and Phill West were hired by a production company to make curling ice at a Rhode Island hockey rink […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1917 photograph is a timely reminder of the long struggle fought by many dedicated women for basic civil liberties, including the right to own property, hold public office, sit on juries, participate in public assemblies and vote. The group of 25 suffragists—20 women and five men—gathered on the porch following their meeting with Congressman […]

  • The chicken who wanted to be a star and other tales from a norfolk movie set

    By Andra Moss Secrets and small towns don’t often pair well, and Norfolk is a small town. Yet, for eight weeks this summer, a crew of nearly 100 people quietly transformed Tim and Paula Webster’s 1908 Norfolk farmhouse into a film set for a feature-length production, all the while staying under the local radar.  It […]

  • great blue heron rookeries

    working together to provide sustainable breeding habitats By Jude Mead Great Blue Herons are a familiar sight in Norfolk and are one of the largest of all North American herons, standing up to four feet tall with a wingspan of close to six feet. They are most noticeable in flight as they soar across the […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    Tennis at Town Hall? The building we know as Town Hall was originally the Eldridge Gymnasium, built in 1892. Located within easy walking distance of hotels and boarding houses in Norfolk at the turn of the last century, the Gymnasium was a popular gathering place for both residents and visitors. People played croquet on the lawn […]

  • Looking Back Over the Years

    The End of an Era for Norfolk Now By Colleen Gundlach After 10 years and over 30 issues, Ruth Melville has put on her Norfolk Now editor’s hat for the last time. In June, the paper marked the end of an era with the publication of Ruth’s final issue as one of the executive editors […]

Articles

Tom Burr’s Latest Project Is Inspired by Iconic Building in New Haven

  A public homecoming for a local artist By Courtney Maum Conceptual artist and Norfolk resident Tom Burr has a magnetic pull toward structures that have preceded him, and the Marcel Breuer-designed Pirelli building in New Haven is no exception. Burr was born in New Haven only a few years before the building’s construction, so […]

Thorncrest Farm Magically Turns Milk into Chocolates

By Chris Sinclair When rare ability is married with a singular passion, the results can transcend the exceptional and wander into the realm of magic. Such a marriage is on vivid display at Thorncrest Farm, in Goshen, where Clint and Kim Thorn, along with their crew and beloved “girls,” make some of the finest chocolates […]

Piping in the Curlers

  To celebrate the last day of this year’s afterschool curling program, bagpiper Daniel Ward led the students across the ice. This is the second year of the Botelle program, which the school hopes to offer every year. Dave Beers, Jon Barbagallo and Bill Brodnitzki share the instruction duties. With young students learning the sport, […]

Northwest Connecticut Regional Food Hub Starts up this Spring

New Venture to Help Farmers Connect with Wholesale Market By Ruth Melville After over two years of research and planning, an innovative approach to supporting local farmers is about to get underway. The Northwest Connecticut Regional Food Hub is scheduled to launch in the 2017 growing season. What is a “food hub”? The U.S. Department […]

Foundation Offers Local Students Scholarships in the Arts

Every year, the Battell Arts Foundation awards scholarships to students who want to pursue a dream in the arts. The next deadline for scholarships is Monday, April 3, 2017. Applicants must be residents of Norfolk or Colebrook and in grades 3 through 12. They must be currently engaged in an artistic endeavor. For application requirements […]

Working Toward a Low Salt Diet

  By Susannah Wood As winter started up in earnest in late fall, drivers around town began to see scatterings of greenish chunks on the roads before any bad weather had actually arrived. Was this something new? Why was it being applied before the snow and not after? Turns out, there’s a good reason, a […]

Creating a Comprehensive Support Net

  By Wiley Wood The village green in Norfolk, shaded by trees, its grass well tended, is a gracious space. Yet recent economic data puts the town’s poverty level at nearly 10 percent. Responding to this, a group of town leaders gathered at Battell Chapel recently, forming a loose coalition known as Norfolk NET, to […]

Multiage Classrooms Are Coming to Botelle School

  By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo If public school teachers are often wary of innovation after recent waves of federally mandated programs, that is not the case at Botelle School. Kindergarten teacher Deb Tallon and first-grade teacher Bea Tirrell have enthusiastically embraced plans for the first multiage classrooms in the fall. Tallon and Tirrell will be splitting […]

A Third-Generation North Canaan Dairy Adopts Cutting-Edge Technology

Freund’s Farm is first in state to install robotic milking machines   By Colleen Gundlach Driving through East Canaan, one can’t help noticing the bank of 500 solar panels alongside Route 44. These are impressive, but only a tip of the iceberg of the advanced technology actually at work at Freund’s Farm and the three […]

After Devastating Fire, Lone Oak Campsites Begins Reconstruction

East Canaan’s Brown family has invincible optimism   By Colleen Gundlach “In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.” So said French philosopher Albert Camus, but it could also have been said about the Brown family of East Canaan. Less than a month after a fire completely destroyed their […]

Freshman Lawmaker Brian Ohler Heads to the State Capitol

Republican state representative to focus on state and local issues   By Ruth Melville On cold sunny morning in February, Brian Ohler, state representative for the 64th District, sat down at the Berkshire Country Store to talk with Norfolk Now about his first weeks in office. Ohler describes his first month as “a whirlwind experience.” […]

Thrift Shop in Winsted Gives $3,000 to Norfolk Ambulance

Director asks for donations of clothing and household items   By Wiley Wood The thrift store is behind a modest shop front on a side street in Winsted. The contents are the familiar assortment of men’s and women’s clothing on racks, children’s toys, hardback books, slightly battered sports equipment and delicate knickknacks. On a weekday […]