And suddenly it’s May. We feel the change coming for weeks, fizzing in catkins and lapping up the lower slopes — and then the sun comes out and the maples open their leaves, and the world turns green again. Somehow spring always seems to come like that in a morning, and here last Saturday was that day.
This Saturday we’ll have farmers markets outdoors. We’ll walk downtown and hear live fiddlers in the crowds among the sourdough and fresh eggs and asparagus. Berkshire Botanical Garden will set out plant starts in their annual spring sale.
Last night I walked down to vote in the town election, and every crabapple tree in town has come into bloom. After months of cold, the air is sweet again. I joked to my family that the blossoms made a glorious incentive to come out and vote. And I was laughing, but I meant it.
A crabapple tree blooms in Williamstown.
Farmers markets
Even on a downtown street a few miles from the fields, farmers markets can bring me close to the interconnected lives on a farm, with voices around me and the colors and scents of cut flowers and and iced coffee and sandwiches toasting on the grill.
READ ARTICLEAt twilight the trees are foaming and dense with petals, as exuberant as fountains twice my height. Long-tongued bees will drink their nectar, and their leaves will feed the caterpillars of hairstreaks and tiger swallowtail butterflies.
And I see a relationship in all this. When I look at the candidates running for Select Board, and when I talk with my neighbors about our ideas for the town and the community, it feels like a solid gauge to ask what we pay attention to, who we see and hear, and how we feel about everything and everyone alive around us. ...
Trees show crimson buds at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge.
Andromeda opens cascades of cuplike blossoms at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge.
Beech trees unfurl new leaves in spring at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge.
Daffodils blow along the walkway at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge.
Marsh marigolds bloom by the pond at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge.
Beech leaves unfurl and daffodils and Andromeda bloom at Berkshire Botanical Garden.
Events coming up ...
Find more art and performance, outdoors and food in the BTW events calendar.
