Steve Wood and Louisa Spencer operate two businesses on their land in west-central New Hampshire: Poverty Lane Orchards, where they grow dozens of antique and unusual apple varieties, and Farnum Hill Ciders, where they make complex ciders from the aforementioned apples. Both are worth exploring for their nuance and quality. 98 Poverty Lane, Lebanon, NH. […]
Photo/Art by Brenda Darroch At this hilltop orchard in southwestern New Hampshire, you’ll find more than 50 apple varieties in neat rows, drawing your eye toward sweeping views of the Connecticut River Valley. Manager Homer Dunn adds more old breeds each year; the roster now includes ‘Belle de Boskoop’, ‘Reine des Reinettes’, and ‘Hudson’s Golden […]
It just may be the most scenic drive in New England, which is why you want to wake up early to explore it, because on crystal-clear October afternoons, this 34.5-mile stretch of Route 112 between Lincoln and Conway, New Hampshire, can feature a caravan of SUVs and Airstreams. But the popularity of this paved mountain […]
We harvested more potatoes today, on a warm, clear October afternoon, geese threading south high above. With the first killing frost a few days ago, we now light a fire at night, but steadfastly refuse to turn on the heat during the day. Here in central Vermont, the temperature went down to 58 in the […]
David Pitkin, whose ancestors were early settlers of Connecticut, has been fascinated with the afterlife and the unconscious mind since 1968, when he heard a ghost walking through a barn in New York’s northern Oneida County. Over the years, he has collected more than 800 tales of hauntings and apparitions, which he has published in […]
I visited The 1875 Inn & Olive Branch Tavern [now The Tilton Inn & Onions Pub] in Tilton, New Hampshire, because, according to local legend, it was haunted by the ghost of “Laura,” a 12-year-old girl who had allegedly been killed when a rooming house at the same location had burned more than 100 years […]
7000 B.C. The first maples appear on the New England landscape. New Jersey tourists soon follow. September 1818 Mass.’ Topsfield Fair, now one of the oldest existing agricultural fairs in the country, opens. September 7-8, 1846 Henry David Thoreau, with friends, makes his first ascent of Maine’s Mount Katahdin. His finding: “Nature was here something […]
Foraging–the fine art of scouring the countryside in search of edibles–predates the ubiquitous farm-to-table movement by at least two million years. Even today, it’s not a bad skill to master, and certainly in New England it’s hard to imagine anything more inherently Yankee: free-ranging off the land (or free anything, for that matter) plus tasty […]
An earlier title for Up: A Mother and Daughter’s Peakbagging Adventure was Alex and the 4,000-Foot Classroom, a reasonable choice because it’s about a little girl named Alex who climbs all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot mountains before losing her first baby tooth. But that sounds like a children’s book, and this is a book […]
New Hampshire’s Monadnock region, where Yankee‘s offices are located, has an impressive diversity of restaurants, especially considering that it remains a relatively undiscovered vacation destination. Restaurants like Pearl Oyster Bar, Waterhouse, Harlow’s Pub, and the Harrisville General Store make the region a very good place to eat. And come summer, I can’t wait to get […]
Perhaps you haven’t noticed yet, but there are signs of fall beginning to show up all around us. The sun is setting a little earlier, and rising a little later. The birdsongs of spring and summer have quieted now as the birds molt before migrating. The last of the wildflowers: the goldenrod, the JoePye weed, […]
