This Month’s Featured Articles…
Modern farming: Talking environmental changes, adapting to challenges, and connection to the land with four farms in the region
Above photo courtesy of Maitri Farm It’s no secret that farming is becoming harder and harder. It’s never been an easy job, but between climate change, the unprecedented environmental changes that come along with it, and constant changes in funding and grant availability, farming seems to be increasingly difficult in recent years. According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 2022, nearly 22.1 million full- and part-time jobs related to the agricultural and food sectors – 10.4 percent of total US employment. But direct on-farm [...]
The Miracle on Barn Hill: Retired elementary school teacher Donna Fazzino discusses self-publishing her first children’s book
Photo above: Donna with Lindsey when she was in third grade, 2010-2011. Since she was young, Donna Fazzino always had a knack for reading and writing. Drawing upon her passion for the language arts, she pursued a career as a teacher in Connecticut’s Region #1 School District, teaching elementary grade levels and talented and gifted programs at Sharon Center School and Salisbury Central School. “I loved reading aloud to my students, as well as teaching the craft of writing,” Donna explains. “There were such wonderful [...]
The magic of Camphill Village: Getting to know the vibrant, dynamic community in Copake, NY, and all that it has to offer
Photo above: David Wallace harvests herbs in Camphill’s healing plant garden, where the garden crew tends to biodynamic flowers and herbs during growing season, and transforms them into teas and culinary herb mixes, as well as natural remedies. All photos courtesy of Camphill Village. As the oldest and largest Camphill community in the United States, Camphill Village Copake has a rich and extensive history that spans over six decades in the region. However, long-time member of the Camphill community Richard Neal explains that as a [...]
Life Lessons
An’ here I sit so patiently Waiting to find out what price You have to pay to get out of Going through all these things twice – Bob Dylan One might suspect that after decade upon decade spent meandering this fair Earth of ours, even a besotted toadstool might’ve acquired a nugget or two of what passes as wisdom, but then, that’s a hard thing to verify, at least for yours truly, who has never once encountered a tipsy ‘shroom. Some of these I’ve come [...]
Protecting our nights: Envoys of beauty
It’s eighteen degrees out at 9:12pm on December 23, and I’m at a trailhead, fumbling with the buttons of my headlamp. Ten minutes ago, I was in Falls Village, watching the Housatonic boy’s basketball home opener against Thomaston. We lost by fifteen. We had a respectable first half, though, much like the Steelers did two nights ago, when I opted to stay indoors and watch football instead of heading out into the longest of nights – the winter solstice – when the sky was a [...]
