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By MICKEY RATHBUN

I received the announcement of the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association (WMMGA)’s spring symposiums earlier this month, when the wind was whipping the falling snow into spiraling towers of white. In early February, it’s hard for the imagination to break through the winter doldrums. Will we ever feel the touch of soft spring breezes or enjoy the sight of green shoots pushing through the cold dark soil? The WMMGA symposiums help us to jostle our gardening passions out of hibernation and into activity, even if only mental.

By BILL DANIELSON

If there has been any theme to this winter it has been the cold. For the first time in years the temperatures have dropped below freezing and generally remained there for weeks on end. Back when I was a kid, my father used to make a skating rink in the back of our house where we would spend endless hours playing hockey. My father even put spotlights in the bedroom windows so that we could play outside at night. On particularly cold nights, my mother would insist that the faces of her children were slathered with copious amounts of Johnson’s baby cream so that we didn’t freeze solid. Those were the days.

By MOLLY PARR

Some of the best things to come out of my kitchen lately have actually been second takes: leftovers taking on a new life in a totally different dish. To wit, the roasted winter roots salad with quinoa and arugula was good, but my 9-year-old would argue that it was the quinoa patties with broccoli and cheddar served the next night that were even better. And our Valentine’s Day Shabbat dinner of lemon risotto, roasted salmon, whipped ricotta topped with roasted beets and blood oranges was fancy-restaurant good. But Saturday night’s winter fish chowder, made with the leftover salmon, was the most memorable dish of the weekend.

By BILL DANIELSON

The kitchen windows face due east. The narrow writing desk is as wide as the double windows and looks out at my deck. Ten feet away is the deck railing and a collection of different feeders. The Birch Perch is there and another five feet away there is a giant lilac bush that fills the yard with perfume in May. But this is wintertime and the only thing the yard is full of now is the hustle and bustle of hungry birds as they bicker with one another over food.

By JACOB NELSON

Plenty of young kids tap a few maple trees, inspired by the sweet promise of maple syrup. Few become enamored with it to the point of kickstarting a family business. Cooper Deane, who helps run Bear Hill Sugar Farm, is one of them.

By EVELINE MACDOUGALL

Lily Bix-Daw, 25, heads to Dallas this week for intricate surgery to address idiopathic condylar resorption, a degenerative and debilitating condition affecting the jaw and many adjacent body parts. ICR would test anyone’s endurance and sanity, yet despite steep challenges, the Easthampton resident is on schedule to receive her BA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst this spring, having pursued her degree while enduring staggering pain, disfigurement, and financial hardship.

By LORETTA YARLOW

In 2013, the widely acclaimed artist Carrie Mae Weems — a charismatic artist, activist and educator, known for installations, videos and photographs that invite the viewer to reflect on issues of race, gender and class — was among 10 artists commissioned to participate in “Du Bois in Our Time,” an exhibition I curated when I was director of the University Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

By AMY NEWSHORE

Being that relationships play such a huge part in the quality of our lives, I am expanding beyond my relationship coaching practice and monthly newspaper column to host a local television show. It will be called “Let’s Talk Relationships,” the same name as this column. I want to provide you, my readers, as well as others in our local community, an additional resource where you can benefit from the discussions we will be having about important, relatable relationship topics.

By RICHARD MCCARTHY

In 2023, working with Mathew Berube, head of Information Services at the Jones Library in Amherst, several of my old columns were fed into ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot. AI produced a lengthy analysis of my writing. Then I wrote a new column, which we did not show AI, and Mathew asked AI to write on the same subject as the new column, in my writing style.

By BILL DANIELSON

Last Friday morning I woke up with a splitting headache and bloody sinuses. Every muscle in my body ached and I was utterly exhausted even after a full night of sleep. I walked out to check on the wood stove, then sat down and contemplated my next move. The threat of inclement weather and my general physical state combined to convince me that going to work was not an option. So I filled out the paperwork for a sick day and then went back to bed.

By JIM BRIDGMAN

On Friday last, the House of Representatives gave leave for a bill to the petitioners for a college charter for Amherst Institution – yeas 114, nays 96. In the five western counties, Worcester, Hampshire, Franklin, Hampden and Berkshire, there were 29 yeas and 51 nays. 

By JACOB NELSON

At Smith College, the power of local ingredients and diverse cuisine is on display.

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Charles Cutler of Hawley first became fascinated by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa in the early 1960s when Cutler was in Lisbon on a Fulbright Scholarship. Pessoa turned into one of his favorite writers to teach as a professor at Smith College for more than 40 years.

By JIM BRIDGMAN

In a massive shakeup at the University of Massachusetts School of Education, Dean Dwight Allen has resigned, and Associate Dean Atron Gentry has been fired, the Gazette learned today. The resignation and dismissal come in the wake of several weeks of reports that funds at the School of Education may have been spent on purposes other than those for which they were intended.

By BILL DANIELSON

It was a Sunday and a big storm was on the way. The morning was fairly calm, but clouds had moved in and there wasn’t much time before the snow started to fall. In a perfect world I could have simply kicked off my shoes and settled in for a quiet winter morning, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Instead, we live in a world that requires firewood to be moved from time to time, and, like it or not, it was time.

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 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 BILL DANIELSON

Anyone who has ever dabbled in the art of photography will understand that you find yourself at the mercy of your environment. Of course, I am speaking of outdoor photography in this case. Studio photography is an entirely different organism because in that particular endeavor the art lies in manufacturing an environment. If you are outdoors, however, you have to find ways to make due with what you’ve got on any particular day.

By SYDNEY TOPF

Rosa Hernandez-O’Neil was surrounded by early educators growing up. Her mother ran a child care center in their home and her sisters all worked in the field. So, at 16 years old, Hernandez-O’Neil decided she wanted to join the family business as a teacher’s assistant.

By JIM BRIDGMAN

On Tuesday of last week, the question respecting Amherst Institution was brought up in the House of Representatives and referred to Tuesday of the present week. The committee of investigation suggest in their report that a college should be immediately incorporated at Amherst, and provision made for uniting Williams College with it, should the trustees of that college deem such union desirable.