Mass MoCA’s 2017 spring shows beckon with light, color and reflection, from Nick Cave’s glimmering maze to Elizabeth King’s human figures.
Read articleIoka Valley Farm serves maple syrup in mud time
The steam off the boilers smells richly sweet. The whole room is filled with it — open the door and step in, and you’re dipped whole into damp, warm air and the scent of maple sap boiling down.
Read articleTramping in Mud Time — Japanese Impressions sink in
We stood side by side taking in the man cupping a bowl of sweet potato soup and the magnolia light in the sky. It was early morning or late evening at the tea house at Mariko, on the coast road south and west of Edo, in 1833.
Read articleSaturday morning in mud time — By the Way column
We went from a coffee shop on Spring Street in the rain to a tea shop on the Tokaido Road between Kyoto and Edo. And we walked most of the way. Saturday morning began at Tunnel City with my parents and their old friends. My mother and Joan have known […]
Read articleThom Smith Watching for wood frogs
For some, it’s the first pussy willow that marks spring. Others claim the spring peeper to be the true harbinger. Not quite, but close. It is hearing the first wood frog issuing his quacking-like, mate-attracting song that marks spring for me.
Read articleBTW expedition — Tramping in mud time
I looked carefully for the goat. It was a raw early spring afternoon when I coasted to a stop in the driveway at Clover Hill, and I could see clear across the valley to Pine Cobble.
Read articleThe earliest signs of spring show unexpected color
By mid-March the magic of winter, like ice on our ponds, grows thin, and we begin looking for spring, the slowest of seasons to take hold in The Berkshires.
Read articleBartholomew’s Cobble guides explore the woods in the bare season
A week ago, I watched Carrianne Petrik-Huff take the temperature of a skunk cabbage. The thermometer, held inside the curl of the young plant, read 36 degrees — almost 20 degrees warmer than the outside air.
Read articleInternationally acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni celebrates life and liberty in the Berkshires
Internationally acclaimed poet and writer, professor and activist Nikki Giovanni took the mike and talked about “life, liberty and — what I most love — ‘the pursuit of happiness.’”
Read articleArt in her hands at International Women’s Day — By the Way column
Women known around the world in art and music have come to the Berkshires, and we remember them as Women’s History Month honors International Women’s Day.
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