Sweet Winter Fare Meal and Event

  • Post published:02/03/2012
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What sweeter way to begin the Winter Fare activities that with a honey brunch at Green Fields Market. Sweet Honey and the Brunch! Sunday, February 5 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Green Fields Market, Main St., Greenfield Green Fields Market will feature local honey in a variety of dishes for this special brunch.   While you enjoy brunch, Shelburne’s Piti Theatre Company will be buzzing with information about their new production about bees (and the challenges they’re facing) To Bee…

Christmas Extended – For the Birds

  • Post published:01/10/2012
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Christmas celebrations end for us on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. The wise men have finally arrived, the last gifts have been given and the party is over. But maybe not quite. When I take the Christmas tree down, I put it outside and decorate it for the birds. The ornaments are simple, but tasty, peanut butter smeared into pine cones and then rolled in bird seed.  A tie can be ribbon, yarn or twine, no…

Urban Greenways

  • Post published:12/21/2011
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  High Line in New York City 5-3-10 Annik LaFarge, author of On the High Line: A Walk Through America's Most Unique Urban Park, which will be available in April, is also writing a blog http://livinthehighline.com/ In the blog he writes about many other elevated/railroad gardens including The Bridge of Flowers. I visited the High Line in 2010 and it is a fabulous space, but it has to be said that the Shelburne Falls Bridge of Flowers predates the High…

Gifts for the Gardener

  • Post published:12/18/2011
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  In the ‘olden days’ garden catalogs did not arrive until after the new year, the first sign that spring will eventually return. Now my mailbox is already full of garden catalogs describing all kinds of plants, books and tools, every company hoping for some of those holiday dollars that are so important to business in these difficult days. The catalogs are really tempting because many gardeners are like me, greedy for a new plant, or a new…

The Harvard Forest

  • Post published:12/03/2011
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The Harvard Forest is located in Petersham. That is the first thing I learned about the Harvard Forest, which actually belongs to and is cared for by Harvard University. It is not located in the town of Harvard. I first heard of the Harvard Forest and the Fisher Museum when I met John O’Keefe a year ago after he had retired from his position at the Harvard Forest. Recently I called O’Keefe because I wanted to know why…

Winterberry – Ilex verticillata

  • Post published:11/10/2011
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It was Martha Stewart who first introduced me to winterberry, a native deciduous holly. Since it was Martha who pointed it out in an arrangement I thought it must be exotic, and not something I could grow.  I was wrong. I did buy and plant five winterberry plants this spring, four female 'Winter Red,' and one male 'Southern Gentleman', but this photo is of a clump of winterberry growing by the side of the road. Those roadside shrubs…

Scaling Up Local Food

  • Post published:11/09/2011
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The Solar Dancer greeted all those who gathered at Greenfield Community College last Saturday to hear about and discuss our current local food production and food security and the ways that it might be stepped up. It was an exciting day because we live in a fortunate area that has lots of good farmland, with old (in the sense of established) and new farmers. These farmers operate farmstands and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and participate in area Farmers…

We Love to Eat – Blog Action Day 2011

  • Post published:10/16/2011
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I live in a ruraltown of 750 souls in the western corner of Massachusetts that sits on the Vermont border. On the Fourth of July in 1981 I happened to meet two other friends at the spinning wheel in the town museum. We were celebrating the holiday, but got to complaining that we never went out to dinner, we  couldn't afford to, and besides there were no good restaurants closer than 40 miles. Actually there were no restaurants…

Ashfield Firewood – Holz hausen

  • Post published:10/12/2011
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Holz hausen, a German system of building a fast drying wood pile. Click here to see an artful woodpile in  Hawley. Click here to see more Wordlessness on Wednesday. OK. Almost wordless.

The American Grove

  • Post published:09/29/2011
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Our house is surrounded by fields, and the fields are surrounded by woodlands.  Trees are an important part of the New England Landscape and I just learned that Massachusetts is about to join Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and 34 other states in an online organization called The American Grove. Their website is full of useful information about planting trees, even coming at how to choose a tree in an unusual way. We have planted trees for our each of…