Ice skimmed down the trees, touching them here and there. When the sun came out, it caught and glinted. It was five degrees that afternoon …
Read articleThe Berkshires are rich in walks and hikes — gentle rambles in the hills and treks along the Appalachian Trail, and anything in between. Kayak on a mountain lake or get a taste of white water.
An unexpected lift on a rainy morning (January 5 newsletter)
A wren is sitting just outside the window. She’s out in the wet and so close to the clapboards we can see her feathers puffed out to keep warm.
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Discoveries along the Chestnut Trail
I almost walked into a deer. It was a rare sunny afternoon in this odd fall, drawing out in warm, wet days, so the color comes late and it’s still lingering.
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Unexpected encounters around the full moon (October 20 newsletter)
Mindy Miraglia is good at finding places like this. She and Berkshire Camino are leading a guided walk on a fall morning from Housatonic to Chesterwood …
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A woman in the woods at Field Farm in fall
It’s an unusually warm fall day when I find myself eye to eye with a woman resting in the grass … and she’s warm glinting bronze, a sculpture in the garden at Field Farm.
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Looking for fall color and energy (October 13 newsletter)
These still days are rare — when the leaves are turning and before they fall — so I’ve taken an hour on a work day afternoon to walk up the old hay field on Sheep Hill.
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Walk across time in hiking boots (Sept 29 newsletter)
Abigail Haynes-Lennox is directing us — a soprano in the extended company of Roomful of Teeth, up here on a mountain leading a damp and sweaty bunch of hikers in Shaker hymns.
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We’re feeling for balance as the year turns (September 8 newsletter)
Broad Brook is running high for September. We’re up here at the top of White Oak Road, just on the line between one state and another, and we’re taking time on a weekday morning, because this is a holiday for you.
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How to meet a mountain in the rain (August 25 newsletter)
You can see 90 miles from here on a clear day. We can see about 30 feet across the meadow. Up here on the summit of Mount Greylock at the end of a storm, we’re islanded in cloud.
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Meadows turn golden below three-mile ridge (August 18 newsletter)
The day is bright with a heat we rarely feel up here in the mountains, and the brook runs shallow here in the sand with Joe Pye weed on the banks …
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