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By MICKEY RATHBUN

When I wrote a death notice in this column a few months ago for my three Little King river birches I was feeling pretty miserable. These nice young trees were forming the architectural spine of an evolving garden behind the house that had been a...

By JACOB NELSON

In places where fresh food is expensive or hard to get to, mobile farmers markets are one way to break down barriers. For people without reliable transportation, mobile markets bring food to them instead. Plus, many in Massachusetts accept SNAP...

By MELISSA KAREN SANCES

When it was time for the hip hop tribute at this year’s Grammys, Black Thought took center stage to introduce his girl:“Fifty years ago, a street princess was born to be an icon. The art form took the entire world by storm. How’d she do it? Her...

By ERIC WELD

Stepping foot on the summit of Springer Mountain, Georgia, was a moment of mixed emotions.It was on May 16, at about 12:30 p.m., an unexpectedly gorgeous, blue-sky day in Georgia. The Springer summit signified the successful end of my Appalachian...

By MELISSA KAREN SANCES

“How you know it’s a real stoop is not so much what it looks like, but rather what happens on it. A stoop is a place to socialize. People hanging out, reading the paper, playing dominos or cards, talking and gossiping, smoking, eating a hero with the...

By MONYA RELLES

How often do you cross the Connecticut River? Do you drive across the majestic and sometimes trafficky bridges that span its banks? Do you ever walk the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Hadley, peering over the edge toward the shocking cold of the water...

By MELISSA KAREN SANCES

Dean Dinning believes in the power of music. The longtime bassist of Toad the Wet Sprocket was once a teen in a crowd of 90,000 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was 1987, and U2 was on its international Joshua Tree Tour. The show was over and...

By MICKEY RATHBUN

I’ve always thought that a truly successful garden is one that feels like it’s always been there, so natural that it seems inevitable. When you step into the artist Robin Freedenfeld’s garden, one of the six locations on the Forbes Library Annual...

By MERCEDES LINGLE

HADLEY — There are few graduations like the one that takes place at the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, where the student speakers kick off their talks in Mandarin.It’s fitting, of course, as they’ve been immersed in the language for...

By JACOB NELSON

‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if we employed more people making clothes and textiles right here in western Massachusetts?” asks Lisa Fortin, founder of Bloom Woolen Yarns in Ashfield. “Working on the land with animals, designing things in fiber mills —...

By MADDIE FABIAN

On a recent spring day, Smith Academy students trek through a nature trail behind their school in Hatfield to check a camera mounted to a tree, strategically positioned to capture images of wildlife that may happen by.The students pop out the camera’s...

By MADDIE FABIAN

Food is always going down the wrong pipe in my family. Maybe we eat too fast, maybe we have oddly shaped esophagi (is that even possible?), or maybe we simply need to chew more thoroughly. Regardless of the reason, it feels like someone is trying to...

By TOM LITWIN

In Henry Thoreau’s essay “Walking,” he tells us that to preserve his health and spirits he “spend(s) four hours a day… sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields.” He writes in his journal, “I wonder that I even get five miles on my...

By MICHAEL CAROLAN

Dwight resident Walter Jenks, 82, remembers the railroad station that once stood down the street from his home, halfway between the Amherst and Belchertown commons.“The locomotives would come and pick up the milk cans on the platform,” Jenks said of...

By ERIC WELD

It wasn’t how I planned it. Then again, what in life, or adventure, ever goes exactly the way it was originally planned?I never planned to return to finish hiking the Appalachian Trail because my intention was to complete the entirety of it in one go...

By MICKEY RATHBUN

Earlier this week my friend Lisa, a demon flower-designer, mentioned to me that she had agreed to provide the floral decorations for her cousin’s birthday party in New York. She lamented that there weren’t many flowers for sale at this time of year...

By KATIE KOERTEN

In these next few weeks, dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) will be blooming in earnest. There’s usually one week — the last week of April or the first week of May, depending on the year — in which dandelions (from the French dent-de-lion, or “lion’s...

By MADDIE FABIAN

BELCHERTOWN — Raised by two Holocaust refugees, both of whom lost grandparents, aunts, uncles and relatives to concentration camps, Deborah Roth-Howe grew up commemorating Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. But this year, recent antisemitic...

By SAM DRYSDALE and SOPHIE HAUCK

BOSTON — The University of Massachusetts has agreed to increase tuition, room and board next academic year, as leaders on Beacon Hill disagree over creating a “tuition lock” system and how much to invest in public higher education.The UMass board of...

By SOPHIE HAUCK

AMHERST — University of Massachusetts students erected a makeshift residential area next to the campus pond last Thursday evening to protest a shortage of on-campus housing, pitching tents and arranging blankets for the overnight encampment ahead.More...