When doing your fall garden cleanup, leave some of your seed heads and dried plant material for wildlife to use for winter food and shelter. Many butterflies and pollinators overwinter in the garden. Think of your winter landscape. Leave ornamental grasses, astilbe, butterfly bushes, sedum, and other plants standing for winter interest. It’s best not […]
Okay, all you trivia enthusiasts: What’s Hadley, Massachusetts, known for throughout the United States and Europe and even by the queen of England? Yes—asparagus. For some 50 years (1930 through the 1970s), Hadley was called “the Asparagus Capital of the World,” shipping what locals referred to as “Hadley grass” to the British royal family every […]
The owner of a 38-acre farm in Northumberland, New Hampshire, is looking for the next dreamer to buy his property—which comes complete with a hydroelectric plant, cider mill, pond, and orchard. Lost Nation? You’ve never heard of it? Well, it’s a real place, consisting of the northern New Hampshire towns of Lancaster and Northumberland. Some […]
Yes, everyone who lives on Swan’s Island, Maine, knows everyone else. As to waterfront properties currently available out there, well, we found several–one for, no kidding, $65,000! We were a half-hour early for the 9:00 a.m. ferry to Swan’s Island out of Bass Harbor (which is some 15 miles southwest of Bar Harbor). So we […]
Actually, the original part of the “Israel Arnold House”–that’s how it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places–was built up on a hillside now bordering Lincoln Woods State Park about 45 years before Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) was even born. Although the builders were a family by the name of Olney, they gave the property […]
With all the windows closed, we couldn’t hear the waterfall that recent rainy day when we visited with owner Ruth Steffman, a wonderfully alert 85 years of age, and one of her two sons, Jim, who lives with his wife and five children nearby. However, that surprisingly huge waterfall was very much a part of […]
From this year-round waterfront property in Tenants Harbor, Maine, you can see Andrew Wyeth’s summer house across the water. And the land once belonged to author Kenneth Roberts. How many couples do you know who have 10 children? No twins or adopted children–just seven boys and three girls. Oh, and let’s add that the father […]
Our first question to Mark and Betty Garrison, owners of Rocky Point Blueberry Farm in Warwick, Rhode Island, was: “What inspired you to turn this beautiful residential property into a farm?” We were having coffee in the living room of the three-bedroom (plus “in-law apartment”) house designed by Mark and built in 1984, while admiring […]
Dating back to 1790, Bay School farm overlooks Lake Winnisquam and miles and miles of mountains to the east and north. Everyone has his or her own idea of what heaven looks like. For us, however, a certain 13-plus acres, surrounded by neighboring farms, on a ridge overlooking eight-mile-long Lake Winnisquam as well as the […]
Let’s begin with the kitchen. No, it’s not the biggest we’ve been in, not even close. But how many kitchens have massive oriel windows that extend up two stories on three sides? When you stand there, you’re surrounded by granite counters with old-fashioned tiles depicting English nursery rhymes, placed randomly along the sides. There are […]
Not many homes have served as both a men’s club and a church. But a certain four-bedroom, 4,200-square-foot home in the popular White Oaks section of Williamstown, Massachusetts, has. Not at the same time, of course. Still, from the time it was built in 1930 until 1960, it was the White Oaks Men’s Club, otherwise […]
You don’t believe anyone could get behind a beehive oven? Well, you have to realize that General Lafayette (you know, that French guy who helped us win the Revolution) was a skinny man. Most histories don’t tell us that. And, well, in all truth, the story that he hid from the British after the Battle […]
