Choose Granite Countertops in Halifax, MA for Elegance and Durability

Jessica DiBona didn’t anticipate living a farmer’s life while growing up in Holbrook. With a career as a reading specialist and an electrician husband who works in the city, you wouldn’t expect her to live on 36 acres with chickens, guinea hens, and a pumpkin patch. When DiBona moved to Halifax seven years ago, however, that’s the life she was destined for.

“It’s kind of a rural, small town,’’ DiBona said. “There are a lot of farms, everybody has chickens, everybody grows their own pumpkins, but I don’t feel like it’s that small where it’s one of those towns where everybody knows your business. Most of the houses have some acreage; you have some space.’’

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In towns like Halifax, the community members lean on one another. DiBona mentioned how parents have banded together to raise money to rebuild a playground. In addition to the strong sense of community, Halifax is known for its natural appeal, with Silver Lake and East and West Monponsett ponds figuring prominently into the town’s layout.

DiBona’s father-in-law, a lifelong resident and retired firefighter who goes by “Farmer Bob,’’ runs Good Neighbor Farm, which, in addition to hosting the family’s home, sells hay and grows a wide variety of vegetables. She fondly recalls a class project a few years ago in which her third-grader had to grow a cabbage and produced one of the largest in the class.

Halifax belongs to the Silver Lake Regional School District; the middle and high schools are in Kingston. DiBona, the mother of a sixth-grader now, is preparing for the change to middle school next year and the greater distance from her farm to the school.

While she laments the distance she has to travel to get to a major highway, DiBona wouldn’t trade the Halifax life for anything.

“Halifax is just a good, safe family community,’’ DiBona said. “Good schools, everybody’s looking out for everybody else’s kids, everybody’s supportive of the Fire Department, police, and teachers, and it really hasn’t changed since I first moved [here] seven years ago.’’

BY THE NUMBERS

15

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The number of acres of corn that make up the maze at Nessralla Farm. The maze is open from mid-September until the end of October. Nessralla is also home to “Mudfest,’’ a rally in which souped-up vehicles drive through deep pools of mud.

July 4

The date, in 1734, in which Halifax was incorporated

2

The number of sides of Monponsett Pond separated by a strip of land that supports Route 58. The two smaller ponds are referred to as East and West Monponsett Pond and are both prime fishing and boating spots.

$15.95

The price of the adult Sunday brunch at Monponsett Inn. There has been an inn of some sort on the current site since 1886, but overnight stays are no longer offered. The venue’s picturesque waterfront location makes it a popular choice for weddings and special events.

PROS & CONS

PRO

Wide-open spaces

There definitely isn’t a shortage of land in Halifax. The majority of homes sit on at least an acre, and many properties are on double-digit lots. If you want to play a game of football, keep chickens, practice your snowmobiling skills, or do all of that at the same time, you can here.

CON

High property taxes

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Because there are so few businesses in Halifax, the town relies heavily on residential property taxes for funding, leading to a high rate of $17.65 per $1,000 of valuation in fiscal 2018 — but this is a 4.8 percent decrease from the previous year. Compare with neighbors Hanson ($15.98 in 2017), Pembroke ($15.10 in 2017), and Bridgewater ($15.61 for 2017).

Jon Mael is a freelance writer based in Sharon. He can be reached at jmael2014@gmail.com. Subscribe to our free newsletter at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp.

This story is a part of our "Something Good" series, which is designed to remind you of all the goodness in the world: the moments that can make you smile, feel warm inside and applaud humanity.

On Thursday, the province of Nova Scotia kept up a yearly tradition by sending the city of Boston its official Christmas tree.

Nova Scotia has done this every year since 1971 -- but why?

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It all has to do with appreciation, for what people in Boston did for Nova Scotia 106 years ago.

Here’s that story.

An explosion rocks a community

On the morning of Dec. 6, 1917, a French cargo ship filled with high explosives and acid collided with a Norwegian ship in Halifax Harbour, located near Nova Scotia’s capital city of Halifax.

The explosives on the French ship detonated, causing a blast that destroyed property within a radius of 1 1/2 miles. Homes, stores and a sugar refinery were all annihilated in the explosion, killing about 2,000 and injuring 9,000 others.

Rallying to help

After hearing about the explosion the next day in the newspaper, Boston Mayor James Michael Curley and Massachusetts Gov. Samuel McCall immediately took action.

The two organized a committee to help raise funds and provide aid, with $100,000 being raised after people saw ads for relief in The Boston Globe, according to Boston.com.

Roughly 12 hours after the explosion, a train for Halifax left Boston carrying medical personnel, beds and other supplies to help treat the physically injured survivors and the demoralized Halifax community.

Traveling through a heavy snow storm, the train arrived Dec. 8. A second train then arrived Dec. 9, and the people of Halifax received some much-needed help.

In all, Massachusetts helped raise more than $750,000 in relief aid for the Halifax community -- one that was incredibly grateful.

A tree that symbolizes more than just Christmas

In 1918, Nova Scotia sent Boston a Christmas tree as a way to say “thank you.”

In 1971, it became an annual tradition.

“Nova Scotia will never forget the support, kindness and quick response the people of Boston provided after the explosion,” states a message on a Nova Scotia government website page titled, “Tree for Boston.”

The 45-foot spruce tree was officially lit on Thursday.

The process of selecting a tree from a forest in open land, cutting it down and transporting it to Boston cost Nova Scotia taxpayers almost $200,000 U.S. dollars in 2015, according to CBC.

But ultimately, it’s a small bill to foot each year to repay the kindness bestowed upon them more than a century ago.

This story was first published in 2020. It has since been updated.

Graham Media Group 2020

Nova Scotia sends a tree for the Common each year to say thanks.

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When an explosion off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, devastated much of the city on December 6, 1917, doctors and nurses in Boston were quick to act.

The explosion, due to a collision of two ships in Halifax harbor, killed more than 1,800 people and injured 9,000. Because one of the ships was carrying millions of pounds of explosives, the blast obliterated entire neighborhoods and spurred a 20-foot-high tidal wave. The explosion’s seismic force even shattered windows 50 miles away.

When the news reached Boston, a group of medical professionals hopped on a train headed north. According to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, the Massachusetts government sent nurses, 13 doctors and surgeons, as well as medical supplies on the train to Halifax. Greeted with snowy conditions and charred remains of homes and businesses, the team sought to relieve exhausted Canadian doctors. They worked at Halifax’s overflowing hospitals and at dozens of pop-up hospitals set up at places like the city’s YMCA and the Halifax Ladies’ College.

The CBC writes that eye injuries were common, “because so many people had been standing at windows, watching the fire…when the shock of the blast sent windowpanes flying in at them.”

The doctors’ emergency medical treatment resembled battlefield triage. They were tasked with life-and-death surgeries, amputations, and eye removals.

A Boston Globe article published the day following the explosion reported that Boston Mayor Joseph Curley and Massachusetts Gov. Samuel McCall founded a Halifax Relief Committee to help with rehabilitating the city for years to come. Overall, the state of Massachusetts donated more than $750,000.

The year after the explosion, Nova Scotia sent Boston a thank you in the form of a Christmas tree. In 1971, the tradition of tree-sending was revived, and it’s still going strong. Citizens from Nova Scotia donate a tall spruce tree each year, then it’s sent on a two-day drive down to the Boston Common.

“It means a lot to all the Nova Scotia people what Boston did for us in our time of need when the explosion happened,” the tree’s truck driver, Dave MacFarlane, told Boston earlier this season.

This year’s tree lighting ceremony on the Common is set to start at 6 p.m. on December 3.

BOSTON (CBS) – A man from Halifax has become the first person to receive a penis transplant in the United States, Massachusetts General Hospital announced Monday.

Thomas Manning, 64, underwent the 15-hour transplant operation, called a genitourinary vascularized composite allograft (GUVCA) transplant, earlier this month.

"Our courageous patient, Thomas Manning, continues to do well, and we are optimistic about this outcome and future," said Dr. Curtis Cetrulo, who helped lead the surgical team along with Dr. Dicken Ko, at a press conference Monday morning.

Cetrulo said that due to penile cancer most of Manning's organ had been removed during a procedure in 2012 known as a penile penectomy.

"He's doing well so far," Cetrulo said. "I just spoke to him this morning, he's up and about and out of bed."

The replacement came from a deceased donor through the New England Organ Bank.

"The surgical part, we feel, has been successful," said Cetrulo. "But this is an allograph, it's from an unrelated individual, and that requires immunosuppression for life, basically, until we can conquer that problem with immunologic tolerance research."

The hospital said the three purposes of the procedure were to "reconstruct external genitalia to a more natural appearance, re-establish urinary function, and potentially achieve sexual function."

"We want form and function," says Dr. Dicken Ko. "Not only is it important to have an organ there but we want function."

Doctors will continue to monitor Manning closely for rejection, always a risk, but if successful, this could give new hope to other patients with penile cancer or to victims of trauma like soldiers wounded in battle.

Dr. Cetrulo said he was hopeful the experimental procedure would eventually be offered to others.

"We're hopeful that with these successes going forward we'll be able to open this up to other patient populations such as wounded warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer these incredibly devastating injuries that can leave them so despondent that they consider taking their own lives, and often do," said Cetrulo.

Cetrulo said Manning talks to others who suffered genital loss, and wants to use his voice to help dispel stigmas associated with cancers and injuries that affect the genitals.

"His outlook is he wants to share this technology with others who need it," said Cetrulo, who noted the psychological effects of genital loss could be overwhelming.

"There are many patients that Dr. Cetrulo and I have taken care of together who have lost their external genitalia from trauma and cancers," Dr. Ko said during the press conference. "These courageous survivors have often left with a very abnormal urinary system, a loss of sexual function, and ultimately, a loss of self-identity."

Manning is expected to remain at MGH for another three to four days. His doctors are cautiously optimistic that normal urination and sexual function will be possible in the weeks and months ahead.

"When you take something away so personal, what makes a man feel like a man, it's a very difficult thing for people deal with," says Dr. Adam Feldman, a urologist at MGH, "But to give him back some sense of that, I think it's a wonderful thing."

In a statement read by his physician at the press conference Monday, Manning thanked the team at Mass. General, saying they "quite literally saved my life."

"Today I begin a new chapter filled with personal hope and hope for others who have suffered genital injuries, particularly for our service members who put their lives on the line and suffer serious damage as a result," Manning wrote in the statement. "In sharing this success with all of you, it's my hope we can usher in a bright future for this type of transplantation."

The hospital said the procedure was 3 1/2 years in the making, and that Ko and Cetrulo had begun working on it shortly after Cetrulo was involved in the first hand transplant operation in 2012. Cetrulo said a lot of what surgeons learned during that hand transplant was used in this procedure.

In a statement, the family of the donor, who remains anonymous, said they were "delighted to hear [Manning's] recovery is going well and are praying that his recovery continues."

This is the third transplant of its kind in the world. The first was in China in 2005 but the organ was removed two weeks later. In 2015 in South Africa a 21-year old patient made a full recovery and regained all function in the transplanted organ.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Doug Cope reports

WBZ-TV's Dr. Mallika Marshall contributed to this report.

BOSTON —

Smoke from a large, out-of-control wildfire northwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia will continue to impacts parts of Massachusetts and New England in the days ahead

The wildfire has consumed numerous homes and was still burning, with thousands of residences under a mandatory evacuation order.

An air quality alert was issued for the Boston area, meaning fine particulates concentrations within the region may approach or exceed unhealthy standards.

"These are uncontrolled fires, and the smoke originating from them is being carried by the winds in our direction," StormTeam 5 meteorologist Cindy Fitzgibbon said.

Travelers heading to Boston on a flight from Halifax received a birds-eye view of the wildfires across the Nova Scotia landscape.

"We saw quite a bit of smoke in the area and there was a fire pretty close to some of the neighborhoods there," one passenger said.

Passengers said the smoke was so intense they could smell it in the plane.

"We flew up through the air there and over the fires," the passenger said. "You could definitely smell it."

New Hampshire has declared a smoke advisory through Friday, warning anyone with heart and lung issues to stay indoors.

"For people that are at the highest risk, mostly those with chronic lung, chronic heart conditions, those with obstructive lung disease, smokers, lung. You really want to try to stay indoors if possible," Dr. Todd Ellerin, with South Shore Health, said.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Heads up in Fall River. Air quality has dropped into the “unhealthy for sensitive people” category because of smoke from Nova Scotia wildfires. #wcvb pic.twitter.com/ExFAFD8tSH

— David Bienick (@BienickWCVB) May 30, 2023

Larry Walker, one of the thousands of residents of multiple suburban communities under mandatory evacuations, told the CBC that he couldn't see the road because of the smoke and flames.

"Both sides of the road were burning and you couldn't even see the asphalt for the smoke and the flames," Walker told CBC.

"I kind of thought I should grab my phone but didn't, cursed at myself and said, 'Get out of here idiot, you're going to die if you don't.'"

Hundreds of residents of a community southwest of Halifax have also have had to flee as a separate wildfire burns out control.