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The Taconic Crest Trail crosses Petersburg Pass.

Category:
By the Way

Kate Abbott
Maple trees turn brilliant red and orange and gold at Williamstown Rural Lands on Sheep Hill.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Hikes

October touches Sheep Hill with brilliant color

October 19, 2022
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Halfway up the slope, young maple saplings are turning vivid red and deep orange in the meadow. They’re hip high, no taller than the purple asters and the last of the golden rod ...

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The windows of Mass MoCA's former mill buildings glint in the sun.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Visual Arts

Shaun Leonardo’s ‘You Walk …’ sets quests at Mass MoCA

June 9, 2021
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Two women are talking together, their voices are confident and clear and touched with laughter. The elder woman repeats the word for blue heron in Apsáalooke. I have come to Wendy Red Star’s exhibit many times now, and this is the first time I have heard her language aloud — I have to thank Shaun Leonardo.

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Wild azalea blooms on the Dome trail in Williamstown.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Outdoors

Walking up to the Dome Trail

June 2, 2021
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It’s a hot, bright day up here on the back roads — late spring spilling into summer. I’ve climbed up Henderson Road until the land flattens out, and everywhere I walk I can hear the sound of a brook close by.

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Mindy Lam blends blossoms from the Berkshire Botanical Garden with her jewelry art in Flights of Fancy.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Visual Arts

Mindy Lam infuses spring into wearable art

May 28, 2021
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The flowers tangle together like meadow grass in the morning, glinting with dew, and a small bright frog is climbing up the stems. Jewelry artist and fashion designer Mindy Lam opens the summer at Berkshire Botanical Garden.

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Trees are blooming, and the warm season is coming up fast.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Arts

Wishing for an Infinite Impossibility Drive

May 10, 2021
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Douglas Adams died 26 years ago at this time of year, and I am feeling gently sad because he is not somewhere in the world, tubing through New Zealand caves and tracing constellations in the glow-worms on the ceilings.

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A magnolia opens wide blooms above a stone bench at Berkshire Botanical Garden.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Gardens

Berkshire Botanical Garden opens in spring

May 10, 2021
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Trees that looked bare five days ago are shaggy with seed pods, and in the Berkshire Botanical Garden, magnolias are shedding petals. I love seeing things from the inside while people are working in their everyday clothes.

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Early crocuses bloom in Williamstown.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Writing

April opens with a poem a day

April 1, 2021
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Imagine a poem by Hafiz, the Sufi mystic poet, out loud in a rounded room with tall windows overlooking the mountains. The ridges are a light-imbued silver grey.

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Bog Laurel buds show deep pink in Hawley Bog.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Writing

A local woman invents a new kind of poem

March 31, 2021
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This time of year, I met a woman in a stand of laurel bushes. It turns out by the time she was my age, she’d invented a new form of free-verse.

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Photo by Kate Abbott
By the Way

Can we stretch out for a moment in the sun? (March 10 newsletter)

March 11, 2021
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The sun is coming out today for an hour or two. Where should we go for a walk? It’s one of those unexpected early spring days that jumps ahead for a flicker, like that afternoon in mud time in the Robert Frost poem …

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A Berkshire farmer stokes his wood-fired boiler to condense sap into maple syrup.
Photo by Susan Geller
By the Way

Can you feel the sap running today? (March 3 newsletter)

March 9, 2021
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Sweet — That scent in the air like caramel over wood smoke — it feels almost unreal after all this last year, but it’s here. The sap is boiling.

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Explore the Berkshires
From back roads to backstage
Kate Abbott
KateAbbott@btwberkshires.com
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