With good reason, we felt a bit apprehensive as we approached the side-door entrance on the covered porch, after walking up from the circular driveway, with its dramatic flagpole in the middle. Already we were impressed by the almost full acre of well-cared-for lawns and perennial gardens; the crabapple trees and Norway maples; and the […]
new hampshire
New Hampshire
Ellacoya State Park | Gilford, NH
With my wife, Sally, three sons and, lately, their wives and children, I’ve spent summer weekends on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, for 38 years. So, until a surprise discovery just last summer, I assumed I knew all the fun things to do around New England’s third-largest lake–including having breakfast at The Strawberry Patch in Wolfeboro […]
New Hampshire
Zealand Pond, NH: Prettiest Easy Hike
Zealand Pond is at a height of land, which is not where a pond is usually found. Hikers find the trail to it by turning off U.S. Route 302 at Zealand Campground, about two miles east of the town of Twin Mountain, and driving another two miles south into Bethlehem to park at the end […]
Great art requires talent and tenacity, but also time and space: time to learn and perfect, and to pass on knowledge; space to bloom and grow, think and rethink. At the turn of the 20th century, a talented and well-trained silversmith named Arthur J. Stone opened a workshop in South Gardner, Massachusetts. Nestled among rolling […]
Read an excerpt from Donald Hall’s book. “At fourteen I decided to spend my life writing poetry, which is what I have done.” Those are the first words of Donald Hall‘s charming and harrowing memoir, Unpacking the Boxes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; $24). It’s two books, really. One is about the shy boy from Hamden, Connecticut, […]
Living
Painting Lake Champlain
This May, an extraordinary traveling art exhibit will begin its six-month celebration of Lake Champlain, the lake that Samuel de Champlain first explored 400 years ago. The exhibit–39 pieces of art, most of them paintings–was created by contemporary artists living and working in Vermont. I had the good fortune of seeing the collection come together […]
This wedding story is for anyone getting married. It begins decades ago with two teenage high school student-athletes.
If you’ve never had your portrait painted, you should. It is one of life’s enduring pleasures. I sat for a student at the old Portland School of Art back in the 1970s and, looking at the portrait today, I can still recall – and feel – how relaxing and soothing it was to have the […]
New Hampshire
Winnipesaukee, NH, Weekend
Winnipesaukee is a brute of a lake. It embraces 274 islands in its 72 square miles of surface water, and it takes you 182 miles and several hours to drive the mostly country lanes that encircle it. There are many layers — from the sublime to the mildly ridiculous — along Lake “Winni” and its […]
New Hampshire
Weekend in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is the artsy black sheep of New Hampshire. A tiny seaside enclave dotted with galleries and cafes, it doesn’t really fit the rugged alpine character of the rest of the Granite State. Both hip and historic, it’s an ideal getaway spot for anyone in search of a low-key weekend to indulge his or her […]
Welcome to the April 2009 edition of “Jud’s New England Journal,” the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire. The Five Men I Know in Every New England Town Last month I described the six women everyone knows. What about the men everyone knows? […]
Magazine
Tales of Mud Season
Last Friday evening was a fine one with a hint of warmth and the sun sinking into a good pink sky. I was on my way to a party at a friend’s house on one of our more remote dirt roads, also known at this time of year as mud roads. She lives way off […]