The Lakeville Journal - April 17, 2014

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Getting the upper hand on mighty phragmites

Phragmites australis australis in North Canaan.

John Coston

Finally rain. For weeks, the only place there had been moisture was in the marsh and even there, areas that usually catch my boots in the mud were dry. I could not see the footprints of the bear (or is it deer?) that have been digging up and eating the underground skunk cabbage flowers. Not that I could do anything to stop it. A layer of snow that actually sticks around for a while seems like wishful thinking these days.

Masses of skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, appeared one spring, like magic, after we hired a team to remove the barberry from about an acre of the marsh adjacent to the driveway. Of course, it had been there all along, waiting patiently underground or hiding in the barberry’s thorny shrub-cages, but we had not seen it. That was about eight years ago; after the barberry’s removal there have been successive infestations of invasives but also, as with the skunk cabbage, some welcome new sightings of native plants.

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'Cornwall reads Cornwall' returns

Roxana Robinson reads Cornwall, Nov. 30.

Natalia Zukerman

Bob Meyers, President and Publisher of the Cornwall Chronicle, kicked off the 5th annual Cornwall Reads Cornwall event at the UCC in Cornwall on Nov. 30 with a warm welcome and a gentle reminder to silence cell phones. Over the next hour, the audience was transported back in time as local writers, editors, luminaries, and students brought the Chronicle’s archives to life.

“This reading has become an annual event,” said Meyers, “as well as a welcome distraction from Thanksgiving leftovers.” He then noted that the event “was the original brainchild of Roxana Robinson.” Meyers added, “She also arranged to have this take place on the day of her birth,” at which point the audience wished the celebrated local author a happy birthday.

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Norfolk Library screens Bette Davis film

Robert Dance, right, and his old friend Parker Stevenson, actor from "Hardy Boys" and "Baywatch."

Provided

Robert Dance, the author of “Fabulous Faces of Classic Hollywood” (2024), introduced the classic Bette Davis film “Now, Voyager” (1942) at the Norfolk Library on Friday, November 22.

Now Voyager plays the dowdy youngest daughter of a wealthy Boston family meant to stay behind the walls of her family’s Boston mansion caring for an elderly mother.

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