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 […]
Read articleWhere a homegrown Christmas Tree grows in the Berkshires
While dreaming of a white Christmas, some of us 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 just […]
Read articleBy the way … I’m thankful (BTW column)
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 […]
Read articleMountain Meadow on a fall morning
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 […]
Read articleBTW A week of story — talks, songs and poems
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 […]
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