Join us in helping restore the streamside buffer by planting native pollinators at Bidwell Park! Be a part of this rewarding experience and help create a healthier habitat for our community
Fridays, August 5, 12 and 19th
9 - 10 am
Lake Garfield Beach, Monterey, MA
Suggested Donation
$10 adult
$5 child
Children 10+ are welcome with a adult
Bring your mat and any other props you like to use.
Fridays, August 5, 12 and 19th
9 - 10 am
Lake Garfield Beach, Monterey, MA
Suggested Donation
$10 adult
$5 child
Children 10+ are welcome with a adult
Bring your mat and any other props you like to use.
Boat Rides • Games • Food
Music by Prisoners of Groove—Lake Garfield’s house band
They will be playing at “the grotto” on the lake between the town beach and Ladd’s Beach.
Lakefest is part of a town celebration for the 175 year anniversary of Monterey
Fridays, August 5, 12 and 19th
9 - 10 am
Lake Garfield Beach, Monterey, MA
Suggested Donation
$10 adult
$5 child
Children 10+ are welcome with a adult
Bring your mat and any other props you like to use.
On Friday, July 29, join the Bidwell House Museum for Bidwell in Bloom, our summer fundraising party.
We have a wonderful night planned for you, including cocktails and hors d-oeuvres by Kate Baldwin and summer music to dance to with DJ Drew.
You can also bid on items in the silent auction, walk through the Museum’s beautiful flower gardens and share good cheer with long-time friends and new acquaintances.
Our honorees this year are Rob and Cindy Hoogs. Join us as we thank them for their many years of generosity, dedication, and amazing contributions to the Bidwell House Museum.
All proceeds from this event go towards maintaining the beautiful house and collection, supporting and growing the education programs, and stewarding our 192 acres of open space.
Ticket Prices are:
$100 – includes entrance to the party for one person, all food and drink
$200 – includes the above along with a set of bookmarks with images of the Bidwell gardens
$300 – includes the above and attendee will be listed as a garden sponsor on the Museum’s website and winter newsletter.
Thank you for supporting the Bidwell House Museum!
Mark your calendars—the “Monterey’s Attic” historical exhibit will have its grand opening reception on Friday, July 1, from 7 to 8 p.m. The exhibit will be on display during July in the Monterey Library’s multipurpose room during regular library hours, and will close on July 24. Check Library Hours Here.
This special exhibit celebrates Monterey’s 175th anniversary of its incorporation as a separate town in 1847, and is being presented by the Monterey Historical Society and the Bidwell House Museum.
A highlight of the exhibit will be the 1997 quilt made by the Piecemakers, and the unveiling of their newest—and final—quilt. The exhibit will feature many artifacts, photographs, and maps from the collections of the Monterey Historical Society, the Bidwell House Museum, and the Berkshire County Historical Society at Arrowhead. We’ve also received some fascinating memorabilia from townsfolk, including old photographs, artwork from the Berkshire Summer School of the Arts, posters for the 1980s Monterey (MA) Jazz Festival, a fish story and Monterey mystery, some civil war relics, the candy display case from the Monterey General Store during the 1930s-60s, and lots more!
Celebrate the History of Monterey in this free Community event!
After a 3-year hiatus, the Bidwell House Museum is so excited to bring back the Bidwell Country Fair! We invite you to bring the whole family to the Museum on Saturday June 25th from 12-4 pm for this fun and free community event. In 2022 the town of Monterey is celebrating its 175th anniversary and we are proud to have the Bidwell Country Fair be a part of those festivities!
While onsite that day you can enjoy:
-Music by Oakes and Smith and Moonshine Holler
-The Butler’s Rangers Reenactors
-Reverend Bidwell and his third wife Ruth, as played by Matthew and Elizabeth Mees
-Wool spinning with the Berkshire Hills and Dales Spinning Guild
-A stonecarving demonstration with Adam Paul Heller
-Timberframing and timber sawing demonstrations
-A blacksmithing demonstration with Chris Templin
-A display of 175 years of Monterey History from the Monterey Historical Society
-Food for sale by Flour Bin Catering and SoCo Ice Cream
There will also be kids crafts, a scavenger hunt and free lemonade and watermelon.
You can also explore the gardens, take a hike on the trails or take one of our outdoor, self-guided tours. It is sure to be a day of fun for the whole family!
Click HERE to see the full schedule of events.
Please join us on Monday, May 30, in the center of town for Monterey’s Memorial Day Parade. The parade will begin marching at 1 p.m., at the intersection of Main Road and Sandisfield Road. It will stop in the center of Town for a short ceremony, and continue up to the fire station. After the parade, volunteers from Hume will serve hot dogs, sodas, and ice cream provided by the town. We’ll gather for an aerial photograph of the townspeople to be taken behind the fire station.
Courteny Morehouse, of Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, will present on an ongoing town project to mitigate pollutants in Lake Garfield on Monday, November 15, at 7 p.m., over the community center’s Zoom account. She will present what phosphorous can do to a lake ecosystem, how phosphorous is getting into Lake Garfield, and recent grant-funded projects to help address the pollutants along Hupi Road. In addition, Courteny will talk about what actions can be taken to reduce phosphorous and other pollutants on your own property.
To register for the event email cmorehouse@berkshireplanning.org, or call (413)-442-1521 x26. Please include your name and an email address in the message and you will receive a Zoom link for the event.
This meeting will be held at the Firehouse Pavilion and is open to the public.
At the Monterey Fire Department
*The following information is subject to change at any time. Please stay tuned to this page for any updates*
Greetings from the Monterey Fire Company!
It has been an interesting year no doubt. Due to an overwhelming demand, we have decided to hold the Steak Roast this year but, there will be major differences due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here you will find a description of what to expect regarding all things Steak Roast. First things first, we at the Monterey Fire Company want to thank everyone for your confidence and support year after year. We would not be here if it were not for you. Please check our website and Facebook page the day of for last minute changes and directions: www.montereyfire.org .
Menu:
The menu is changed slightly to accommodate take-out dining. We will be serving steak as usual. All steaks will be served rare to medium rare. Have your grill ready to finish them off when you arrive home if you want your steak cooked further. Instead of swordfish, we will be serving shrimp kabobs. The shrimp dinner will consist a shrimp skewer and a vegetable skewer (peppers, onions and cherry tomatoes). As in the past, we will be serving baked potatoes, corn on the cob and a garden salad. Hamburger and hot-dog options as well as a children’s meal option will available. Dessert will be cookies and brownies. We will NOT be serving ice cream.
Tickets:
All tickets are $35.00 each and are available in advance only, and only from our website. Online Tickets will become available soon! On the website, you will be allowed to choose an arrival time. This will be similar to a restaurant seating or reservation time and we ask you to please be on time.
What to bring:
We suggest that you bring a cooler for your desserts and drinks and a second cooler or a box and blanket to keep your food warm.
Arrival:
All arrivals will go into a ‘staging area’ whose location will be posted on our website as we get closer to the Steak Roast day. Do not come to the fire station before going into the designated staging area. We will have members sorting traffic in a staging area and directing traffic at the appropriate times into the serving lanes. We will need all of our space at the fire station for this and as such, there will be no on-site parking. Please stay in your car. During the day of the Steak Roast, we will be conducting updates of serving times via our website and Facebook.
Serving:
There will be no on-site dining and all dinners will be take-out and served to you curb-side on Fox Hill Road (next to the fire station). As there will be no bar, drinks will also be served take-out in closed containers and must be consumed at home. You will be served by a masked/gloved firefighter and we will ask you to please stay in your vehicle and please, WEAR YOUR MASK. IMPORTANT: group orders will be served into a single vehicle as a group. If you make a group order make sure you have enough room in your vehicle for the entire group order.
Cook it yourself option:
If you prefer, you may pickup uncooked dinners between noon and 3 pm on the day of and cook them at home at your convenience. We ask you to adhere to all of the precautions described above.
In conclusion:
This is completely new to us and we are doing some careful planning so that we have a smooth running Steak Roast, and with your help, we believe it will be. We like doing it and are grateful for your support and enthusiasm. We look forward to seeing you.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions. We can be reached via our Facebook page or by email at montereyfireco@gmail.com.
Visit four local gardens this Saturday between 1:00 and 4:00 PM. Your $10 donation goes directly to our local food bank. Checks can be made out to the People's Pantry or you may pay with cash.
In addition to four lovely different landscapes, there will be an irresistible plant sale of annuals and perennials at great prices.
The garden locations are:
20 Point Road
24 Point Road
19 Point Road
37 Sylvan Road
Social distancing respected.
Please bring a mask.
Please join us.
Did you notice all the dead fish floating in Lake Garfield?
Come to the annual Friends of Lake Garfield meeting at the Firehouse Pavilion and find out all about it.
This year’s Makers Market will be on Saturday, November 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Monterey Community Center. The Market is a truly home-grown event. Monterey is home to many extraordinary artists and this is an opportunity to purchase hand-crafted items made right here. Stop by, sip a cup of hot cider, and enjoy delicious comestibles from Gould Farm.
Lake Garfield will start the drawdown and will fill the lake starting…
If you have a kayak, canoe, or other water vessel across from the town beach, you better go get it by October 15, end of day.
Considered one of the Berkshire’s most iconic autumn events, the Garden’s Harvest Festival is held on Columbus Day weekend and encompasses the entire 20-acre Garden campus, which is brimming with children’s activities, pony and hay rides, games, live entertainment, over 100 regional artisan vendors, a farm market, tag and plant sales, and education offerings scheduled throughout the weekend. New this year: Archery in the Procter Garden sponsored by Canyon Ranch.
Proceeds from this event benefit the Garden’s horticulture and education programs. Admission is $7 for adults; children under age 12 are admitted free of charge. Parking in BBG lots is free. Admission is cash only and there are two ATMs on site. Save time in line: advance admission sales are available through October 9 through the Garden's Visitor Center, open daily 9 - 5.
See More about the Festival HERE
The Knox Gallery opens the fall season with Perennial , featuring the work of five local painters who meet regularly to take advantage of the beautiful and varied subject matter that our outdoor Berkshire landscape offers. This dedicated and hardy group consists of four Montereyans: Joe Baker, Maureen Banner, Christine Brunaski Goldfinger, and Ron Goldfinger, and Sheffield resident Richard Kimball.
The tradition of painting outdoors— en plein air —represents leaving behind both the physical and academic confines of working in the studio to embrace and observe the natural light and the visual stimulus that surround us, at different times of day and in different seasons. Banner notes, “Painting en plein air is a great way to be outdoors, observing and expressing color and form, and is portable.”
Please join us for the opening reception of Perennial on Saturday, October 5, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., to enjoy the images of nature that these artists have captured and will share with us.
The exhibit will run until January 4, 2020.
LAPA-West Symposium
The Lakes and Ponds Association will be having a symposium on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Zion Lutheran Church, 74 First St. in Pittsfield. There will be a significant focus on cyanobacteria (blue green algae) which is a potential threat to all our lakes and can pose a serious health threat to all lake users, especially children and pets. It made the local news last fall when a bloom in Stockbridge Bowl forced the relocation of the 2018 Josh Billings RunAground paddling leg.
All lake association members, Conservation Commission members, other municipal officials and anyone else with an interest in protecting and improving our lakes are invited.
According to the event, the objectives of the cyanobacteria presentations are to provide background needed for lake managers on:
— The basics of what it is and what are the risks.
— How to test for it?
— How to prevent and/or treat a bloom?
— What precautions must be taken to avoid risks to lake users without over-reacting and needlessly restricting access to our lake resources.
— What federal, state and local agencies are involved, what regulations are in place and how can local lake managers get help.
Other symposium topics, many of which are follow-ups to previous symposium presentations, are:
— Drawdown effectiveness and risks.
— Increased State funding for our lakes and ponds.
— Improved coordination among the EOEEA regulatory agencies.
— Guidance from the DFW on maintaining and improving healthy fisheries.
Registration with a light breakfast starts at 8:15. Tours of the USEPA CMC mobile laboratory will be conducted after adjournment at 1. This facility is used to provide on-site trainings on the Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative program to lake associations, state water quality managers and staff, drinking water suppliers, NGOs, school systems, private research entities and the like. Trainings and/or demonstrations of the program can be provided on request. The mobile lab provides a platform where individuals can participate in collecting and analyzing samples adjacent to the waterbody and become familiar with the equipment, steps and protocols used for understanding and managing harmful cyanobacteria and blooms. The mobile lab has been used to teach hundreds of individuals throughout New England how to appropriately collect and identify samples for cyanobacteria analysis.
Exhibitors:
* Solitude Lake Management
* MA DEP 319 and 604b programs
* MA DCR Lakes and Ponds Program
* ESS Group Environmental Consultants
* Action Sports and Travel (specializing in scuba hand pulling of invasive weeds)
Running for Recovey—Gould Farm 5K starts at 9:30 am at Gould Road, Monterey. See more at https://gouldfarm.org
Something new for this year’s Berkshire Pottery Tour, during the weekend of September 28 and 29, is that four of the six stops will include guest potters.
Ellen Grenadier will be hosting her guest potter, Connie Talbot from Cummington, MA. Connie makes flameware pots, pots you can cook with on the gas and electric stovetop or grill. She creates tagines, casseroles, frying pans, pizza stones, and more, all able to go directly onto a hot flame, into a hot oven, or into a freezer. You have to see it to believe it. There will be a demonstration at midday Sunday, with sample bites. For more information about Connie’s work, go to highhollowpottery.blogspot.com.
The annual self-guided tour takes you through the beautiful valleys of the southern Berkshires in early fall, reaching from Richmond to New Marlborough. Admission to all events is free and families are welcome. More information and a map of the tour route can be accessed at berkshirepotterytour.com, or picked up at Grenadier Pottery studio, 12 Tyringham Road, in Monterey, or by calling her at 413-528-9973. John Polak Connie Talbot’s flameware casserole
Each potter will host an open house and sale of their work and their guests’ work in their studio. The pottery tour is an excellent format for exposing the potters’ work to a larger market, allowing patrons to meet the maker of the goods they purchase and see where and how it is all made.
Look for the distinctive orange and white Pottery Tour Road signs at key turns on the weekend of the event.
