The tradition of contra dancing stretches from coast to coast and back more than 400 years. A caller teaches a series of simple moves, and dancers join in to live music with a beat and a quick melody.
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Fall wildflowers come in with a flourish
Throughout the Northeast, nature rushes to display one last event of the growing season. The late summer and early autumn flourish of brilliant wildflowers on a September or October afternoon are worth an outing. To see it at its best, you’ll need to stroll through meadows and fields, although in […]
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Berkshire labyrinths offer a quiet journey into a new future
A curve drawn in one movement becomes a pathway on a hillside. Walk slowly on a spring morning. The cherry trees are blooming. A woodpecker drums in the wood over the hill. The path turns with each step, toward the lake in the valley, toward the wooded slope above it. […]
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Thom 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 […]
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Rare butterflies thrive at Lime Kiln Farm sanctuary in Sheffield
Berkshire Naturalist Thom Smith takes a walk through a Mass Audubon property in Sheffield. From beginning to end, a visitor to Lime Kiln Farm Wildlife Sanctuary would be hard pressed to find a more beautiful walk that includes vistas of the Taconic Mountains beyond open hayfields and history with glimpses […]
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Thom Smith explores Bartholomew’s Cobble in wildflower season
Berkshire naturalist Thom Smith recalls a walk through Bartholomew’s Cobble, a Trustees of reservations Property in Sheffield along the Housatonic River.
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Berkshire writers travel in time with Berkshire Theatre Group
“Harriet Beecher Stowe had a manic depressive husband, and the roof leaked, and she had seven children, and she wrote ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’” said Berkshire playwright Barbara Sims. “She inspired me. I’ve raised children; I’m in a marriage; but how do you make your own identity?” She read Stowe’s journal […]
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