Contributing editor Jim Collins wrote about fields of dreams in The Last Best League (Da Capo Press, 2004), a narrative account of one season in the fabled Cape Cod Baseball League. “Of course, no ballpark in New England–or anywhere else–can touch Fenway Park,” he says. “But you already know that.” For photos and histories of […]
Border collies–athletic, agile, extremely intelligent dogs–have been the herding dog of choice for sheep owners for more than a century. Descended from a breed that originated along the border country between Scotland and England–called simply “The Border” in that part of the world–and trained to respond to voice and whistle commands, a single Border collie […]
The most direct walk up to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s hut on Mount Madison rises from the north, along the Valley Way, an ancient, eroded pack trail that lifts 3,550 feet in less than four miles. The gain is relentless, but the grade is moderate, well sheltered, and efficient, and therefore preferred by the hut […]
High pressure had drifted over central Vermont, and with it temperatures had climbed steadily from the teens overnight up past freezing and into the 40s. David “Tig” Tillinghast, had driven out that mid-April morning and checked the sugar bush in Strafford–212 acres of leased land, 1,050 taps–and found the sap running like crazy. The season […]
In April 2006, at the start of the planting season, John Augustin had a tractor accident. It was the kind of hazard that goes with the occupation, the fear that farmers around big machinery live with every day and acknowledge without saying. It happened in an instant, in the time it takes a rotor-tiller attachment […]
The winter of 2011 came slowly to north-central Maine. Low snowfall and mild temperatures had run through most of December, giving the deer a reprieve. But in January the season turned cold and unrelenting. For six weeks, there was no thaw, and now the snow on the eastern side of Moosehead Lake lay three feet […]
William John Woods, a maker of exquisite toys and rattles, knows about fine lines. He works with the grain of exotic woods and fashions his pieces by hand, with the eye of an artist. He knows that his toys must be pleasing to parents, but they won’t succeed unless they please kids. He also knows […]
If you’re a young, talented musician and aspire to join a symphony orchestra one day, there’s one place where you want to summer. On a humid afternoon in late June, I’m walking across Tanglewood’s manicured grounds with a young violinist named Tema Watstein. She has long, dark hair and wears sandals and blue jeans, a […]
On June 12, 2010, Daniel Nava broke into the major leagues by hitting the first pitch he saw at Fenway Park over the right-field fence and into the Red Sox bullpen for a grand-slam home run–only the second time anyone had done that in the history of the game. Undersized and not recruited out of […]
From the upstairs room where I’m writing this, I can look out across a 30-acre pond to the broad shoulder that slopes southward off the summit of Mount Cardigan. The summit itself–a bare, gray, granite dome–towers above west-central New Hampshire but is blocked from my view by smaller Hoyt Hill, which butts between us in […]
On any given Saturday night, just about anywhere in New England, volunteers put on a supper in a church hall or basement. It’s a fundraising ritual almost as old as the country, started by women’s auxiliary groups during the years after the Revolution, as towns and states gradually abandoned the practice of using levies to […]
The village of Westminster, Vermont, gives the gift of wonder and light to everyone who finds one special Main Street on Christmas Eve.
