Upper Valley Connections

Issue No. 25 · October 2, 2026

A day late this week, but here we are -- it's Dartmouth Homecoming weekend, the VT Sheep and Wool Festival opens in Tunbridge, and Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy bring Celtic fiddle to Lebanon Opera House. We're also taking a closer look at Enfield Shaker Museum, where the Berklee Jazz Cats return to a former chapel turned concert hall next Saturday.

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This week's highlights include Dartmouth Homecoming football, the VT Sheep and Wool Festival opening in Tunbridge, Billings Farm's Harvest Celebration, and Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy at Lebanon Opera House.

Farmers’ Markets

Royalton Farmers Market wrapped up for the season last Sunday. Mt Tom ends October 10, Canaan ends October 4, Honey Field Farm's final market is October 26, and Market on the Green ends October 14. Norwich runs outdoors through the end of October, then continues as an indoor market for the winter.

Chosen Vale

The Enfield Shakers called the valley between Shaker Mountain and Mascoma Lake "Chosen Vale" when they settled it in 1793 -- the ninth of eighteen Shaker communities established in this country. Enfield Shaker Museum, a nonprofit founded in 1986, still preserves fourteen of the original buildings on the site, along with two Shaker cemeteries and the surrounding landscape.

One of those buildings has had an unusual second life. A former chapel on the property -- once La Salette's chapel, from the site's years as a Catholic retreat -- has been converted into the Chosen Vale Performance Center, and it's where the museum now hosts its concert series. Next Saturday, October 10, that building hosts the return of the Berklee Jazz Cats, a trio of Berklee College of Music alumni who've performed together there before. One of the three, saxophonist Dino Govoni, teaches at Berklee and performs regularly with the Boston Pops. Showtime is 7-9pm. Tickets are $25 for museum members, $30 for non-members.

Earlier that same Saturday, the museum also holds its Annual Fall Pie Sale, 11am to 2pm, $20 a pie. The museum's weekly Shaker Herb Garden Tour, included with admission, runs that weekend as well.

The museum's regular season runs from late April into December's Festival of Trees.

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