Hilltown Families 
If you look closely at our local landscape here in western MA, there is almost always a hidden story that tells the historical tale of life long ago. One such story...
Mavis Staples, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient, is coming to the Calvin Theater in Northampton, MA, on...
Sarah's final "Mash Notes to Paradise" tips the hat to Hilltown Famiies. ❥ Thank you Sarah for being a part of our wonderful team of contributing writers, sharing 30 Mash Notes...
Kids ages 13yo and older interested in culinary arts and local food are invited to bake their favorite fruit pie using local ingredients to submit to the Tuesday Market annual Pie...
If new mothers find themselve have more than enough breastmilk for their babies, making a breastmilk donation may be a way for them to help protect the health of premature infants......
Parents' Night Out! We're giving away a pair of tickets for a night out at the Calvin Theater in Northampton to see Micahel Franti & Spearhead on Tuesday, Sept 17th at...
Note 26, Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club I got an inkling that running in some organized fashion could be fun for kids when my third grader decided it would be cool to...
Northampton Silk Threads: The China Connection Historic Northampton Museum & Education Center May 1st-31st, 2013 The remnants of the Pioneer Valley’s silk trade are still around – one can find the...
Note 25, The Hootenanny I am not one of those “organized activity” parents. I am also not one to push my kids toward music lessons. Well, that’s because 1) I’m not...
Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band Calvin Theater in Northampton, MA Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 8pm Hilltown Families and Iron Horse Entertainment Group have partnered up to offer a...
The Mountain Goat and Main Street I am not the only person to be sad about Northampton’s Mountain Goat closing. Like so many parents in the Valley, I can’t count the...
Carolina Chocolate Drops plus David Wax Museum Calvin Theater in Northampton, MA Saturday, April 13th, 2013 at 8pm Hilltown Families and Iron Horse Entertainment Group have partnered up to offer a...
Note 23, History For an upcoming issue of Preview Massachusetts Magazine, I was in Northampton interviewing a chef and a restaurant owner this week. It’s a space he relatively recently took...
Gaelic Storm at the Calvin Theater Northampton, MA Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at 8pm Hilltown Families and Iron Horse Entertainment Group have partnered up to offer a chance to win free...
Note 22, Snow Days I am writing this just before the snow is about to do what it does. A few flakes have begun to drift down crookedly, almost as if...
Mash Note No. 21: On Great Halls and Great Spaces The day after Christmas, my daughter Saskia and I took the grandparents to the Eric Carle Museum. For the most part,...
Note 20, Valley Gives Day I love this about the little Valley I call home: people care about the larger world and they care about this community. I think volunteerism is...
Jake Shimabukuro at the Calvin Theater Northampton, MA Saturday, Dec. 1st at 8pm Hilltown Families and Iron Horse Entertainment Group have partnered up to offer a chance to win free tickets to...
To Buy Local is to Buy Well and Eat Well, Too By the time this goes to press, the weekend of open studios in Florence’s gigantic Arts and Industries building will...
Note 18, Community Recently, a friend of my third boy had a medical emergency. This is a lifelong buddy, who lives a hop, skip, one street crossed and a jump away...
Note 17, All Those Classes Everywhere Sometimes, when you hear friends from big cities discuss the options for classes available—chess clubs for preschoolers or some such, ballet barre workouts for adults,...
Note 16, Flowers It hit me yesterday at the Tuesday Market how much the flowers around here mean to me. I’m not a big bouquet person (although, as you read on,...
Northampton Draws: Encouraging Community Creativity This past Thursday, July 28th, in the old Dynamite Space at Thornes Marketplace and at the Northampton Center for the Arts, a free interactive drawing festival...
Note 15, Pick-Your-Own Spots I wrote a little post for Momfilter, (fun site—I especially adore the pretty pictures!) about the joys of pick-your-own. For people who live in a city, I...
Note 14, There Aren’t Many Signs The other night at a potluck for the preschool class, a few people discussed the overwhelming number of billboards in Houston, Texas. One said, “There...
Note 13, Civil Rights in Lesbianville The other day I was at our co-op and listening in at the checkout on a conversation between friends about exercise classes. The two women...
Note 12, There’s No Place Like Home The twelfth Mash Note to Paradise! Really? Over this past year in these notes I’ve loved our bike paths and our college town-y-ness, our...
Note 11, Openness About Gender, Family & Love Although Northampton Pride is a ways away, there’s an admirable flexibility about how we think of families and love and gender and identity...
Win a Family 4-Pack of Free Tickets… Family Concert with Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 @ 10:30am at The First Churches of Northampton For the third year...