By Credit search: For the Gazette
By EVELINE MACDOUGALL
A rollicking group of women who bonded through a class at Franklin County’s YMCA in Greenfield have produced a calendar for 2025 that celebrates beautiful humans in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Let’s meet some water nymphs who could grace your wall if you get your hands on one of these fabulous calendars.
By TOM LITWIN
During migration season this past fall, researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, using Nexrad weather radar, tracked approximately 4 billion birds migrating from Canada into the U.S. and 4.7 million birds leaving the U.S. for the tropics. Clearly one strategy for dealing with New England weather is to leave it behind. But other species’ strategies have traded the benefits and perils posed by thousands of miles of travel for the benefits and perils of northern winters.
By LISA GOODRICH
Richardson’s Candy Kitchen in Deerfield celebrated its 70th anniversary last year. The Woodward family has operated the business since 1983, when they took over where the Richardsons left off. Owner Kathie Williams (née Woodward), grew up in the business, which has always had strong ties with the local farming community.
By MICKEY RATHBUN
Although Emily Dickinson is now considered one of America’s greatest poets, during her lifetime she was better known for her horticultural skills, as Dickinson scholar Judith Farr has observed. From a young age Dickinson was fascinated by the natural world. She enjoyed helping her mother in the gardens that she kept both at the Dickinson Homestead and the house the Dickinson family lived in for several years on North Pleasant Street where Ren’s Mobil Station now stands. During her year at Mary Lyon’s Female Seminary (1847-48), now Mount Holyoke College, she studied botany and made an extensive herbarium, a collection of pressed flowers and plants from the local area, that eventually contained more than 400 specimens. A family friend is said to have commented, “Emily had an uncanny knack of making even the frailest growing things flourish.”
By JOAN AXELROD-CONTRADA
Life is like a washing machine – complete with cycles and plenty of agitating to get at the messy stuff. If I were a songwriter (spoiler alert: I’m not), I’d pen a catchy tune about that simile, weaving together verses and a killer refrain set to the hum of a real washing machine.
By RICHARD MCCARTHY
I was biking in the countryside of Montague one summer day (remember those?), and I pedaled past a house with a substantial side yard furnished only with a small table and two simple chairs. Later, when I was home, I watched the sunset from my back porch, and found myself envisioning two people sitting at that side yard table in the twilight.
By STEVE PFARRER
During my last several years as the Gazette’s arts and features writer, I compiled a list of my favorite books of the year each December, given that newspapers all do that best-of-the-year thing and I thought it would be fun to get on board...
By MICKEY RATHBUN
It’s not unusual these cold gray days to despair over the appearance of our gardens. It wasn’t so long ago that late-blooming asters and brilliant foliage punctuated the landscape. Now that I’m leaving garden cleanup until spring to help feed and...
By JOAN AXELROD-CONTRADA
Taylor Swift’s song “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” has turned me into a full-on Swiftie. Yes, you read that right: This 60-something widow is now belting out lyrics about pain and power with a vigor that could rival any teenage girl wrapped in...
By JACOB NELSON
The Christmas season, for people who celebrate, tends to be full of traditions. Maybe it’s watching the same corny holiday movies every year. Maybe it’s making Grandma’s special cookies, a yellowing index card with her faded cursive handwriting...
By RICHARD MCCARTHY
Recently I had an appointment with my primary care provider, and after checking in with the receptionist, I looked to find a seat in the waiting room.One of the only seats available was perpendicular to a young woman with a child about 5 or 6 months...
By ZICHANG LIU
AMHERST — University of Massachusetts professors Chang Liu and Xiaojun Wei have discovered a new method to detect per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — “forever chemicals” found in water, soil, air, food, and other consumer products, paving the way...
By STEVE PFARRER
War has been a regular horror in Lebanon for nearly half a century, flaring most recently this fall with Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in attacks against the Iranian-backed paramilitary group Hezbollah, a spillover in turn from the brutal,...
By JACOB NELSON
In South Deerfield, the North Main Street bridge over the railroad tracks has been closed for repairs since May. “I was joking that we’re probably the only ones on this street happy about the detour,” Kelly Kicza says with a laugh.That’s because cars...
By JACOB NELSON
Jared Duval built his farm around Massachusetts’ innovative Healthy Incentives Program (HIP). Since 2017, HIP has helped tens of thousands of lower-income households buy fresh produce grown by local farmers. By most accounts, it’s been a wild success,...
By TINKY WEISBLAT
“The Bridge of Flowers” by Phil Billitz; CreateSpace, 91 pages, $24.95Phil Billitz of Shelburne Falls published his picture book “The Bridge of Flowers: A Garden of Inspiration” in 2020. At that point, COVID-19 had shut down most local businesses and...
By JULIAN MENDOZA
Making his way from Springfield to Greenfield during his annual walk to raise money for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, local radio personality Christopher “Monte” Belmonte looks to increase the visibility of one of the country’s greatest...
By MONYA RELLES
I got on a train headed from Albany, New York to Charlottesville, Virginia, on July 14. Then I endeavored to walk home.I followed the Appalachian Trail for two months and approximately 650 miles. I carried around 45 pounds of stuff, ate about a pound...
By MELISSA KAREN SANCES
As the sun sets over the Hidden Temple in Florence, 14 adults in their comfiest pajamas sprawl on a generous bed of quilts. Outside on a crisp October Saturday, the foliage is just starting to turn, its pops of color complementing the painted columns...
By AMALIA WOMPA
Vidhi Salla, a radio host, author and journalist whose focus is on Indian cultural arts, is pioneering the introduction of Bollywood to New England theaters.Salla grew up in Mumbai and studied literature before moving to southern Vermont in 2018 to...
By MELISSA KAREN SANCES
“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” — Friedrich NietzscheI have never liked ghost stories. But when I heard about Half-Hanged Mary of Hadley, I was spellbound. Not that long ago, right around here, a woman, thought...
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