SHARON —Motorists traveling along Route 41 in and out of Sharon have been noticing, and avoiding, an unusually large number of pheasants on the roadsides. Sharon Pheasant Farm proprietor Robert Wilbur said approximately 6,000 birds escaped from the farm, which has two locations near the center of town on Route 41, during last week’s snowstorm. “The wet snow and winds damaged the pens where the pheasants are kept,” he said. “The wet snow just tore through everything. We were out there Saturday during the storm trying to knock the snow off the pens and fences but by 5 p.m. we knew we were in deep trouble.”Wilbur said the pheasant farm was faced with two challenges: recovering the escaped pheasants and rebuilding the damaged pens. The primary farm on Route 41 lost six of the 10 pens. In the immediate aftermath of the storm when there was still substantial snowcover on the ground, Wilbur was able to collect about 1,500 of the birds, but now he says, “They’re roaming all over the place. There’s lots of food for them to forage from cornfields and berries in the bushes and lots of cover for them to hide in. They’re having a party.“They’re not like cattle, where you can herd them. You can’t get close to them. They just fly away,” he said.Altogether, the farm raises approximately 20,000 birds a year to supply to gun clubs for recreational hunting. The bird hunting season opens the third Saturday in October and runs into January. Wilbur had sold and delivered approximately a third of his stock before the storm. By Monday, Oct. 31, Wilbur had mostly given up trying to recapture the escapees and was focused on rebuilding the pens, though he was still fielding calls about pheasant sightings. Although many of the pheasants seemed to want to stay near home, they are easily spooked by humans walking toward them. Wilbur noted that even though they live in captivity the birds are wild and can fly. “They are hardy, sturdy birds that can take care of themselves,” he said. “They do not have to be fed, they find their own food. I am not worried about them surviving. ”However, it is clear from numerous sightings of roadkill, that they are falling prey both to automobile traffic and their natural predators: coyotes, foxes and hawks.Wilbur is taking his loss stoically. It’s not the sort of thing he said that you can insure. There is no insurance on the birds, but, “While I’m hurting from this storm we have to put things in perspective. I still have my family and my home, those are the things that matter.”
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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