BTW Berkshires 
Teenagers in the Berkshire foster care system can earn the chance to spend a few hours a week with half-grown kittens or a husky mix who want a walk. And when an animal finds a home, the kids know. As the Berkshire Humane Society helps animals, it helps people, says executive director John Perreault — women…
Berkshire naturalist Thom Smith goes looking for holiday evergreens. While dreaming of a white Christmas, consider making it greener. Christmas trees, the living kind, fresh cut locally by a family or the farm, continue a New England tradition. Christmas trees give open space for wildlife. They help cleanse the air and produce oxygen, and it’s…
Holiday Walks are in full swing — downtowns are alight, carolers are warming up, and the early-dark evenings are full of light and sound in The Berkshire Calendar Nov. 28 to Dec. 3. In the photo above, two spectators wait on Spring Street for the annual Reindog Parade. (Photo courtesy of Williamstown Chamber of Commerce) …
Blues music, a Shaker dinner by candlelight, downtown celebrations and regional artisans … Thanksgiving Weekend opens the holiday season with quiet festivities and a glow in the dark. For a larger lineup of events, check the weekly calendar.
On this raw, rainy night, my brother and I came in from walking my parents’ dog down the dirt road. My mother was slicing Stamen apples, the kind my adopted grandmother liked for pies. We pulled out the drop-leaf table to its full length and hunted through cupboards for the table cloth the family has…
Happy Thanksgiving! The holidays are beginning gently in a flood of lights. The Berkshire calendar Nov. 21 to 26 coasts into a week of turkeys and train rides and traditions, from Garrison Keillor and a tribute to Greg Allman to The Wizard of Oz on the big screen … Tuesday Nov. 21 Theater Hubbard…
From madrigals to mountains to memoir, people are moving and thinking in the Berkshire calendar Nov. 13 to 19. At Williams College, the Center for Environmental Studies is celebrating its 50th anniversary with hikes, talks and a look into the past and future. At Bard College of Simon’s Rock, Ian Spencer Bell, Visiting Artist in Dance,…
Berkshire naturalist Thom Smith takes a fall walk in the northern hills. With land in Pownal Vermont and Williamstown, Massachusetts, I cannot think of a lovelier autumn walk than the preserve we call Mountain Meadow. Choose an afternoon with few clouds, when walking will be even more pleasurable if skies are blue and foliage contrasting, and…
From Irish novelist Colum McCann to Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan’s Indian classical music, from engineer, physician and NASA astronaut Mae Jemison to fantasy artist Tony DiTerlizzi, the Berkshire Calendar Nov. 6 to 12 is filling with visitors, storytellers, music and stars … (Photo at the top by Susan Geller) Monday Nov. 6 Conversations Berkshire Jewish…
It was almost 70 degrees today. One of my neighbors has a morning glory in bloom over the front door. I saw it as I walked down the the river through my quiet neighborhood, taking in the jack-o-lanterns — real carved pumpkins with quizzical grins and swirling eyes and the shadows of black cats. The…