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Category: Nature

  • Maple Sugaring Along the Mohawk Trail

    When nights are cold and daytime temperatures rise above freezing, sap starts to run, and buckets hang from maple trees all over rural New England. Visitors, eager for some diversion between ski season and summer, flock to sugarhouses to watch the evaporation process, buy maple products, and eat at sugarhouse restaurants. Colonists first learned about…

  • Kagoshima, Mon Amour

    My favorite city in Japan made the news a few months ago, following a burst of lava from the side of its volcano, Sakurajima, sited in Kagoshima Bay. Sakurajima has had small eruptions for some time now, which are of concern because a nuclear plant lies only 30 miles away. For me the concern is…

  • Wim Wenders’ Salt of the Earth

    I once wrote a book about Wim Wenders.  It covered the first 20 years of his career, his breakout years in Germany, where he became one of the luminaries of the New German Cinema, which sought to separate itself from the mostly mediocre studio films of Germany’s postwar economic-miracle era, and his foray into American…

  • Sugarshack Restaurants in Western Massachusetts

    Gould's, the iconic sugarshack restaurant on Route 2 in Shelburne, has closed.  Gould's has served tourists and locals alike since 1960 and will be sorely missed.                                          Davenport Maple Farm Sugar Restaurant But off Route 2…

  • Black Swallowtail

  • Apples in the ‘Hood

    Outside the store at Pine Hill Orchards No country experience satisfies like picking apples in the fall, especially when it’s followed by pies, soufflés, pancakes and every other sort of apple delight.   In Charlemont we’re favored with four orchards in three nearby towns, Shelburne, Colrain, and Ashfield, and they all offer “Pick-Your-Own," from mid-September through late…

  • Late Autumn

      Late Autumn is the name of a film by Ozu, who often named his films after seasons: Late Spring, Early Spring, Early Summer (despite being best known for Tokyo Story).  Western culture doesn’t usually draw such fine distinctions between the seasons, but country life has sharpened my sensitivity to the differences between the early,…

  • Mill Brook House Reopens June 1

    Flower by flower, Mill Brook House is coming back.  There are bluebirds in the birdhouses, yellow-bellied sapsuckers tapping up a storm in the woods, and a great blue heron is frequenting the Irene-enlarged stream that runs behind the house.  Having channeled the entire Mill Brook for one week, the stream is now large enough to…

  • Re-Opened Route 2 Greets the New Year

    A year that started out so hopefully for us in Charlemont, a new windmill and an old store turned 150, turned out to contain multiple weather disasters for Western Massachusetts with Hurricane Irene causing the most distress in the hilltowns.                Avery's store c. 1880     The Mill Brook off…

  • Good-bye, Goat Rising

      Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye With enormous regret we announce the departure of John Miller and Goat Rising from the farmstead at the corner of Route 8A North and Mountain Road.  Goat Rising, under new ownership, has moved to Plainfield while John and his Jerseys have joined the centuries-old Appleton Farms in Ipswich. John…