If you won’t have many opportunities to kayak in Southern Vermont this summer, why not choose a rare body of water? The 200-acre Sadawga Lake is said to be named for Chief Sadawga, an American Indian known to camp on its shore, and rumor has it he could swim under its […]
Read articleAshintully’s Gilded Age ruins shelter a garden on a Hill
Four standing Doric columns are holding up the sky. They mark the site of Ashintully, the last remains of a Georgian-style mansion lost to fire in 1952. The columns guarded the entrance to a 35-room turn-of-the-20th-century “Berkshire Cottage.” Now the serenity of the view of brilliant white columns along the shore […]
Read articleThom Smith searches for spring wildflowers
Ever wish that you were first name friends with the wildflowers that begin coming up in April and fill the woods with color in May? This short stretch of spring is a season of its own — in these short weeks while the spring sun warms the soil, and light reaches […]
Read articleBackyard birds brighten Berkshire feeders in the cold season
As a snowstorm approaches, birds flock to neighborhood feeders. If you want to operate a frugal diner for flying visitors, variety remains the key word. Many feeders with different foods will attract the most species and often in the greatest numbers. Stock them with foods like black oil sunflower seed or […]
Read articleA winter walk on the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail ambles along Cheshire Reservoir
Pronounced Ash-oo-WILL-ti-cook, the Ashuwillticook bike path between Lanesborough and Adams in the Hoosac River Valley takes its name from the American Indian language. Ashuwillticook literally means “at the in-between pleasant river” or, more commonly today, “the pleasant river in between the hills.” Now the south branch of the Hoosic River […]
Read articleIce sculptures on the rocks grow naturally in the Berkshires
In what we like to call an old-fashioned winter, when temperatures fall well below freezing, we live in a shining land. Throughout the Berkshires I have photographed waterfalls and cascades both summer and winter, but locally few frozen spectacles cause as much excitement as the massive natural ice sculpture and […]
Read articleEvergreens, ferns and berries give color in the winter woods
What a difference a year makes. Thanksgiving morning, 2016, with camera in hand I hiked through the woods around Wahconah Falls, carefully avoiding the gorge and falls, as I was alone and the rocks were very slippery. It had snowed the previous day and night, and I was on a […]
Read articleSpringside Park in Pittsfield offers gentle walks in winter
Springside Park’s 237 acres of mostly undeveloped field and woodland fit gently into the residential neighborhoods of Pittsfield’s North End. Far more trees — and squirrels — live in this part of town than any other, in the city’s largest park. How large is the park? Jim McGrath, open space […]
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 articleMichael Melle sculptures make a treasure hunt for people of hay
Berkshire naturalist Thom Smith has gone searching for sculptures, from jazz musicians to refugees to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza … I have often called Berkshire artist Michael Melle’s sculptures, ‘straw people,’ but they are not straw — he chooses second cutting hay chosen for the best results. These hay […]
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