Trims to art, music eyed for Deerfield Elementary

DEERFIELD - The Deerfield Elementary School budget proposed for next year shows a 2.5 percent increase overall, but trims art and music spending slightly.

The Deerfield School Committee this week voted to reduce a music teaching position and an art teaching job from four days a week to 3½ days each.

CISA nets $75,000 to encourage buy local efforts

DEERFIELD - The Deerfield-based Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture has been awarded $75,000 from the state as part of $200,000 worth of grants statewide to promote regional "buy local efforts."

Franklin Country trims plans for health district

GREENFIELD - A regional public health district envisioned for seven Franklin County towns has failed to win the grant that would have made it a reality, but organizers are pursuing a short-term grant for a scaled-down version of the health district.

Deerfield man denies hunting while intoxicated

GREENFIELD - A Deerfield man faces charges of firing a weapon while drunk after police responded to an early morning report of shots being fired on Pine Nook Road in October.

Atlas Farm in Deerfield joins Valley trend to extend growing seasons

DEERFIELD - Corn that may have been knee-high in Northfield by the Fourth of July was at work Thursday, the first day of winter, on a River Road farm, as Gideon Porth looked over rows and rows of salad greens. Atlas Farm, which Porth started in 2004 and now totals about 55 acres, is among an increasing number of agricultural operations around the Pioneer Valley that have stretched their growing seasons to extend their operations. Boosted by greenhouses - some of which are heated with relatively efficient devices like Atlas' corn-fed boilers - and by the swelling appetite for year-round locally grown food, farms like Atlas are feeding a slowly increasing number of winter markets and Community Service Agriculture operations that continue throughout the year.

• Click here for Atlas Farm

CISA emergency fund helps four area farms recovering from storm damage

GRANBY - In the eight years Dave Kaskeski has farmed 40 acres in Granby, he'd never experienced anything like this fall, which began with Tropical Storm Irene slamming the region in August and was followed by continued rains that devastated many of his crops.

Threat delays opening of Granby school

GRANBY - Classes were delayed for an hour Friday morning at East Meadow School while police investigated what they described as a "nonspecific, noncredible" threat found written on a wall inside the building.