When going out to the barn this morning, I heard the rush of moving wings overhead and looked up to see a great blue heron winging toward Silver Lake, his long bony legs trailing like a rudder. The flight was along the northwest route taken by the loons all summer as they cross from Dublin […]
March is usually snowstorms and mud, mud and snowstorms but this March has been warmth, thaw, and mud. I have not kept track but it seems we have had warm weather for the past three or so weeks, with a few high wind storms thrown in to keep us honest. In the beginning of this […]
I am working on a new book, which will hopefully be published this spring. In Love with New England is a collection of some of the stories I’ve written in the past, about unusual and interesting people, essential Yankees, if you will. This has sent me hurtling back in time and I have been lost […]
NOTE: Doris “Granny D” Haddock died in Dublin, New Hampshire, March 9, 2010, at the age of 100. This article is from Yankee Magazine November 2000. The rising sun brings veils of mist out of the damp soil, and the rain-swollen stream tumbles jubilantly behind Doris Haddock‘s Dublin, New Hampshire, home. Into this new morning, […]
I went off on a bit of a chase for spring on Friday, without really knowing that was what I was doing. I was to write about a woman who lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, outside of Portland, about three hours from here. I left early to be able to arrive at 11. The hills […]
People are always saying newspapers are full of bad news. I don’t find that to be the case, in fact, I find some of the best good news in our local papers. Maybe I just breeze by all the bizarre murders, ghoulish kidnappings and international wars, straight to the little notices that cheer me no […]
In the town of Madison, New Hampshire, if you’re getting married, you’d better hope you’re related to (or friends with) Ruth Shackford, a sprightly 81-year-old farmer’s wife, whose cakes are so desired they can be raffled off at the annual church fundraiser for sometimes as much as $100. Ruth has been baking cakes “ever since […]
On Saturday night I went to a potluck at my friend Deb’s house. She loves Mardi Gras and almost never misses it but this year, for various reasons, she couldn’t get down to New Orleans. So she threw a party instead. Everyone was greeted at the door and bedecked with the famous beads of the […]
At this time of year, when the ice is disappearing from the ponds and some fields are greening up, patches of snow or ice stay along the edges of shaded roads and in the north corners of fields. They’re a shock of white in a spring landscape. Sometimes, if it’s a warm day, I think […]
Harriet has been acting up lately. I wish I knew what triggers these rough patches. She turned one year old two weeks ago and I felt that she had finally become a dog, a well-mannered dog, an adult I could trust. She had been so good for so long, I was telling everyone we had […]
Farmer Jay has been clearing logs from around the edges of the big field to the southeast of my house. He’s gone back into the cordwood business, he tells me, after a brief hiatus. He did not say why but I assume the favorable price of cordwood might have something to do with it. Cordwood […]
At the very end of my book, Saturday Beans and Sunday Suppers: Kitchen Stories from Mary’s Farm, I make reference to a chicken pie that I like to make on cold winter evenings, such as it will be tonight. Ever since, I have been chastened by readers who lamented I did not include the recipe. […]
