• 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

Spring Turkey Season in Progress

Hikers on or near state hunting lands should consider that the 2012 Connecticut spring wild turkey season, which started on April 25, continues through May 26. The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection advises hunters to avoid the colors red, white, and blue when walking in the turkey woods, as these colors are associated with […]

Dancer and Choreographer Brings Her Love of Movement to Norfolk

Moving to Music By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo In two short years, professionally trained dancer Kristin Mudge has taken Norfolk by storm. Donating her time and energy to a myriad of groups and endeavors in Norfolk and the surrounding area, Mudge’s most recent undertaking was choreographing the Northwestern Regional Seven High School musical, “Chicago.” A member […]

Maple Syrup Season Is Fast Out of the Starting Blocks

Early Preparations Pay Off This Year By Wiley Wood Sap flow in Norfolk’s sugar maples started three to four weeks early this year. Syrup producers who caught the early, unexpected flow had a good season. “We tapped our trees in January and started collecting in early February,” says Jude Mead, of Mead’s Maple Syrup, “the […]

Whitehouse Roof Restoration Underway

Driving through the center of town you have probably noticed the scaffolding and construction materials around Whitehouse across from the Norfolk Green. Workmen will be replacing the roof and restoring masonry around the chimneys and cornices. Construction is expected to continue into September 2012. Whitehouse was home to the Battell family from approximately 1800 until […]

Local Foundation Helps Area Children

Funds Available for Summer Camp Tuition By Barbara Perkins Just as there has always been a certain amount of privilege in Norfolk, there has also been a feeling that the privilege should be spread around. When Ken and Dottie Satherlie closed The Laurel School in 1985, they started a foundation dedicated to the belief that […]

For Now The Prevailing Winds Have Died Down

Some renewable energy projects take a hit By Veronica Burns A recent defeat in the U.S. Senate of a proposal to extend the Production Tax Credit for renewable energy projects has taken some wind out of the sails of the energy industry. The proposal was in the form of an amendment attached to the approved […]

Norfolk’s Ranking Takes a Nose Dive

Downgraded to ninth place by Connecticut Magazine By Lloyd Garrison Over the past decade, Connecticut Magazine has placed Norfolk among the state’s top five Best Small Towns Under 3,500, and Norfolk has been named number one twice in a row. Coming in to 2012, it looked like Norfolk was still on a roll. A total […]

Author Wally Lamb to Discuss His Writings

By Janet Gokay  “I’ve been told many times by readers that, after they’ve finished a novel of mine, they catch themselves wondering about how the characters are doing now, as if these people lived and breathed in the actual world. There’s no better validation than that,” comments Connecticut author Wally Lamb. “Writing novels is, in […]

Curtains Up for the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival’s 2012 season

A gala dinner, ice cream social and music in between Summer is almost upon us and once again music will pour forth from the Shed,  located on Yale University’s Summer School of Music campus in Norfolk. On Saturday, June 16, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival will commence its 71st season. A gala evening  will launch […]

This property is on Mountain Road, known as Robin Hill, recently sold at a record price for Norfolk, boosting hopes for an upswing in the housing market.

Housing Market On The Mend

Record price for Robin Hill spurs hope for turnaround By Lloyd Garrison With the warm winter and early spring, Norfolk home listings, long frozen in place have suddenly begun to thaw, and one of them, the estate on Mountain Road known as Robin Hill, has just sold for a record $3,950,000. The price, brokered by […]

Old Perceptions, Enhanced Recollections

Robin Yuran’s poems come alive at Norfolk Library By Joel Howard Poet Robin Yuran does not simply live on forested land in north Norfolk, rather she and her family live “in a nut-brown house at the edge of the woods.” It is through such vivid selection and placement of words that her poems seem infused […]

Curling Club Shaping A Comeback Strategy

Members refining plans for fund raising and design of a new facility By Lloyd Garrison There are no easy answers to two key questions in the wake of the vandalism and fire that destroyed the Norfolk Curling Club in December. The first question is how and when the club will be restored. The second is […]