Salisbury and the surrounding communities of northwestern Connecticut offer a wide range of unparalleled opportunities. Please enjoy Elyse’s Country Journal, published weekly on Wednesday. Elyse’s hope is that it will help open up a new perspective of our area.

• SWSA’s 88th Annual Jumpfest Winter Festival takes place February 7 to 9 in Salisbury. This exciting, fun-filled event begins with a Winter Warmer fundraiser on February 1. From then on and through the U.S. Eastern Ski Jumping Championships up at Satre Hill behind the village on Sunday, February 9th, Salisbury is booming with events for everybody. Dress warm for the chili cook off, human dogsled races, and judge the ice carving entries, dress sporty for the Snow Ball on Saturday night. Visit our art galleries, do some bargain hunting at the local stores, buy the Lakeville Journal and find an insert with all events scheduled, and please support SWSA (Salisbury Winter Sports Association) in every possible way. This event is the pride of our little Village and we want to see everybody crowding the streets and back roads. For all schedules of events, please go to www.jumpfest.org and/or buy the local paper.

• Master cellist and award-winning composer Stephen Katz comes to Salisbury on February 7, giving a concert at 7 PM in the Congregational Church on Main Street. Katz performs original and traditional cello pieces that reveal his quest to develop the approach to the cello he calls “Flying Pizzicato.” The concert is free.

• The Arts at Hotchkiss present Howard Fishman — composer, guitarist, singer, bandleader, storyteller — and his Quartet on Saturday, February 8, at 8 PM. The concert is free and donations will benefit The Little Guild of St. Francis animal shelter in West Cornwall.

• Gallery Arts Guild at 52 Main Street in Millerton will be running a show of 40 artists, over 100 pieces, smaller than 12×12 inches, all for $214, from Opening Reception on Saturday, February 8, 5 to 8 PM, through April 12.

• Richard Boyle, a retired art history professor, will present “Salisbury Faces” — paintings from the Salisbury Association’s collection — on Saturday, February 15, at 4 PM in the Wardell Room at the Scoville Memorial Library. The lecture will be on a selected group of portraits ranging from the works of highly regarded artists Erastus Salisbury Field (1801-1900), Ammi Phillips (1817-1877), and Ellen Emmet Rand (1875-1941). The paintings span a time period from the early 19th to the early 20th centuries and will be considered in the context of the tradition of American portrait painting. The presentation is sponsored by the Salisbury Association Historical Society and the Scoville Memorial Library.