Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Ski jump fireworks stalled by alpaca litigation


 

SALISBURY - A Salisbury woman is in the process of filing an injunction to prevent a fireworks display scheduled at Satre Hill, next door to her farm, on Feb. 8.

Serena Granbery, owner of Morebrook Farm, has filed a lawsuit claiming that the fireworks display put on by the Salisbury Winter Sports Association (SWSA) there last year caused the miscarriage of a valuable alpaca fetus and ruined that year's crop of alpaca fiber.

"We did have an awful time last year," Granbery said. "All the animals were terrified and we lost one baby. My entire year's worth of fiber was destroyed. They were so stressed that it ruined their ability to produce healthy fiber."

Alpacas, which are shy, intelligent and fairly easy to raise, produce a strong, warm luxury fiber that is similar to cashmere. Granbery sends her crop to a national co-operative and receives fiber goods, such as mittens, shawls and yarn, in return. She said she was not able to participate in the exchange this year because the fiber produced by her animals was such poor quality.

The value of the miscarried fetus is more difficult to calculate.

"The baby that was lost was far enough along that you could see she was a rose-gray female, which is very valuable," Granbery said. Healthy, breeding adult female alpacas can sell for $25,000 or more. "It's still up in the air what the actual price tag is."

Granbery's lawsuit names SWSA and David Lewis of Berkshire Fireworks, the company that handled the display. She said she approached SWSA before the ski jumps last year and asked them not to proceed with their plans for the opening night of the annual ski jumps. Her veterinarian warned the SWSA directors of the dangers of exposing an alpaca herd to a fireworks display.


Plans to proceed this year


This week, SWSA president Ken Barker said he hoped to have the fireworks show at this year's ski jumps, but he has not yet obtained the necessary permits because he is waiting to see if the lawsuit is resolved in time.

Advertisements for the 2008 ski jumps list the fireworks show as an event Friday night, along with a new event where jumpers try to land on an illuminated target in night-time jumps.

"We were hoping that the suit would be dropped or the litigation would be complete," Barker said. "We'll continue with Friday evening target jumping under the lights."

Barker said all legal requirements were met for last year's display. The Connecticut state fire marshal licensed the Satre Hill site, which was found to be the required distance from neighbors' property lines.

Barker also said the fireworks were well received by people in town and there was a demand for a show this year.

"We sympathize with the fact that one of her alpacas miscarried, for sure, but that happens in the animal world," Barker said. He also mentioned that the fetus was not lost until two weeks after the fireworks display.

Granbery said it took two weeks for the fetus to die and be expelled. She said the entire herd sounded alarms around the clock for at least two weeks after the fireworks and that the mare that miscarried sounded alarms into June.

Looking for a better way


One solution would be to move either the fireworks display or the animals to a different location, but neither party is willing to relocate.

"Transporting is stressful," Granbery said. "In the alpaca business, you never transport a pregnant female in the first or last trimester."

Granbery said she currently has nine pregnant mares; five are in their last trimester.

Also, the logistics of moving a herd of 38 animals are daunting. Granbery said there are companies that specialize in such tasks, but they usually need to be booked months in advance. She does not know where she would take the animals if she did relocate them. But if the fireworks do go on, she feels she would have no alternative.

"I would have to move the whole herd," she said. "I couldn't afford to lose another year's fiber crop. At least the males wouldn't be upset."

Barker said moving the fireworks would also be a difficult task.

"We'd have to license another area, which becomes a long process with the fire marshall," he said.

Granbery said she wishes SWSA would consider replacing the fireworks with another, quieter event.

"I would love SWSA to consider, instead of something noisy, maybe a light show," she said. "That could be beautiful against the white hill and would solve everything."

Latest News

‘So Little to Do,’ so much to discover at James Barron Art

‘So Little to Do,’ so much to discover at James Barron Art

Curator Deborah Goodman Davis reads the Emily Dickinson poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do.” Spencer Finch’s “Following Three Bees (Zinnias)” buzzes in the background.

Photo by Natalia Zukerman

“The Grass Has So Little to Do,” on view at James Barron Art in Kent, takes its title from Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do,” written in 1862:

“The Grass so little has to do—
A Sphere of simple Green—
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain—”

Keep ReadingShow less
art

Marina Kotchoubey is not a woodworker

Marina Kotchoubey is not a woodworker

Marina Kotchoubey at the Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers showroom in West Cornwall.

Photo by D.H. Callahan

After 40-something years navigating the world of custom fine furniture, Ian Ingersoll was getting ready to retire. Starting off with a little dovetail stool that he sold at a shop in West Cornwall in the 1970s, he’d grown his skill and his business into something he — and the whole town — could be proud of. Shutting down that business was not an option.

Ingersoll built Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers, which produced mainly classical Shaker furniture, on passion: the passion he had to make a living through creative challenges and the passion of his employees, who all seem deeply in love with their craft.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

A legacy of giving at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

A legacy of giving at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

One hundred and twenty years ago, Carl and Ellen Stoeckel commissioned New York architect E.K. Rossiter to design The Music Shed in Norfolk, Connecticut. After nearly a decade of entertaining their friends and neighbors with the finest music of the day, they built a permanent home for their beloved Litchfield County Choral Union.

The commission and full funding of the construction was not unheard of in an era when great fortunes led to public enrichment. Railroad tycoon John D. Rockefeller was instrumental in funding institutes of higher education. Steel baron Andrew Carnegie was building libraries all over the country, and famously said that a man who dies rich is a disgrace, challenging his peers to give their fortunes back to the people.

Keep ReadingShow less
music
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Two unique exhibitions at Geary Gallery

Two unique exhibitions at Geary Gallery

Henry Klimowicz with his sculpture, “Partial Pillar 1”

Photo by D.H. Callahan

On Saturday, Aug. 1, Geary Gallery opened its doors in Salisbury for two unique shows in its first- and second-floor gallery spaces. Art lovers flooded both floors over the course of the afternoon, giving the events a vibrant feeling that enhanced the importance of the art.

On the first floor is a show by Chicago-born, Colorado-based photographer Summers Moore, titled “Lobitos: Pueblo Fantasma,” or “Lobitos: Ghost Town.” The work centers around her daughter’s current hometown in Peru. Moore herself found a home away from home in Colorado in the mid-1980s and encouraged her children to seek out new places outside of their comfort zones.

Keep ReadingShow less
art

Writer’s retreat in the woods

Writer’s retreat in the woods

Participants in a 2024 Great Mountain Forest Woodland Academy workshop at Yale Camp.

Photo by Mike Zarfos

Great Mountain Forest (GMF) will host its first Nature Writing Retreat at the historic Yale Camp in Falls Village from Aug. 7-9, 2026. Writers of all levels are invited to draw inspiration from one of New England’s most notable forest landscapes. GMF envisions the retreat becoming an annual event celebrating writing, conservation and the relationship between people and forests.

This immersive three-day retreat reflects on the legacy of Hal Borland, the American writer and New York Times nature columnist whose work was deeply connected to this landscape. The retreat explores how wilderness shapes language, strengthens close observation and fosters environmental consciousness.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

From Cornwall to Rome, Adam Van Doren at Berkshire Botanical Garden

From Cornwall to Rome, Adam Van Doren at Berkshire Botanical Garden

Artist Adam Van Doren and curator Donna Hassler talk to a group of visitors at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. A Stephen Proctor vessel sits to their left.

Photo by Natalia Zukerman

This summer, the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge has hosted “Grounded in Nature: Paintings by Adam Van Doren,” an exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between architecture and the natural world.

On view for only a few more weeks in the Leonhardt Galleries, the exhibition features more than 35 watercolor and oil paintings by the New York-based artist, architect, author and Yale professor, curated by art historian Donna Hassler, director emerita of Chesterwood. The works span three distinct places that have shaped Van Doren’s artistic practice: New York City, Cornwall, Connecticut, and his travels throughout Europe.

Keep ReadingShow less
art
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.