It’s been calm here this week, unusually mild for November. Temperatures have been in the 50s, skies are a light blue, the sunlight pale and weak on the bare trees, bare ground. This exposure is fleeting. It will be covered soon. But there has been a peaceful feeling all around, a sharp contrast to the […]
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Deer Strike
This past Sunday I was slated to do a program in Kennebunkport with my friend, the author Carolyn Chute. Carolyn doesn’t drive so I was going to go pick her up which meant I was basically going to drive three sides of a triangle, from my home to Parsonsfield, Maine, down to Kennebunkport, and then […]
The Metropolitan Opera in the Pines
I went to the opera on Saturday afternoon. The Met. Verdi’s Aida. Around noon, I put on a pair of slacks and a sweater, gave the dogs a cookie and left the house. I turned left out of my driveway, headed down a paved road which soon turned to dirt. I was on my way. […]
Ordinarily when a property comes up for sale, maybe the owners are sad about it, but everyone else simply takes it in stride. Not so when Al and Irene Jenks put out an e-mail saying that they intended to sell their 308-acre property in New Ipswich, New Hampshire (about 25 miles west of Nashua). There […]
In Newport, Rhode Island, a month-long tradition of giving and goodwill makes a memorable holiday getaway.
Mary’s Farm | The Ice Storm
A first-hand account of the December 2008 ice storm that left 400,000 New Hampshire households without power.
The Moosehead Lake Region of Maine features fall colors, moose, and mountains. Here are some tips to help you enjoy your fall foliage trip to inland Maine — Greenville and Moosehead Lake Region. 1. Don’t rely totally on a GPS for the best route, or quickest. GPS’s are great for the city, but […]
Fall Foliage in New England
According to a non-expert (me), this one of the most remarkable foliage displays in recent memory. The reds have been popping in my neck of the woods. According to the experts, the abundance of rain earlier in the summer provided wonderful growing conditions for trees and leaves which has a positive impact on fall foliage […]
Gathering in the Fall
Every year at this time, I drive down into the Connecticut River Valley, down through Northfield and Sunderland and Hadley, to buy my winter supply of onions and potatoes, plus winter squash and apples, and a few other things that will keep in my root cellar. This way, I don’t have to think about buying […]
Yankee Classic: Ghost Town
Yankee Classic from Mysterious New England, 1971 Here is a tragedy so heinous, a mystery so unfathomable, an abduction so strange, as to cause all who hear the tale to look askance, and shake their heads. Have you ever tramped the trails leading from the White Mountains down onto the eastern bank of the Connecticut […]
Producer/Director Ken Burns describes his work as “emotional archaeology.” For nearly 30 years, Burns has unearthed compelling, surprising, complex stories surrounding seemingly well-documented subjects. His newest film, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, a six-part, 12-hour series, is scheduled to air on PBS stations beginning Sunday, September 27. We spoke with Burns in his office […]
The Leaf Seeker: Jeff Folger
It’s the church steeple that causes Jeff Folger, a.k.a. Jeff “Foliage,” Yankee‘s compulsive foliage blogger, to spin his red Silverado pickup truck around the town green of Brooklyn, Connecticut. The steeple is an unusual one, with a rectangular base giving way to a mansard-roof cupola covered in copper sheathing. And more to our purpose, it […]