This question isn’t as silly as it might sound at first. Unlike the orange and yellow pigments that are present in a leaf all summer (but are revealed only when green chlorophyll starts to break down and fade), the red pigments, anthocyanins, aren’t produced until autumn. It takes a significant amount of energy to produce […]
A massive set of iron gates guards the western flank of the College Green at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The Van Wickle Gates, ornately decorated with the university seal and gilded lions, anchored by stone and brick pillars, remain closed for virtually the entire year. Each fall, though, by tradition, the center gates […]
When we first corresponded with the owner, we weren’t sure whether to visit this property. The owner is well-known artist and sculptor Kendra Ferguson, whose work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard’s Fogg Museum, and others. When she told […]
I live in a small house with many windows. From mid-October to Thanksgiving, the front and sides bathe in a fierce yellow light, thanks to the leaves of the Norway maple that grows in the eastern tree zone. Its leaves hold the light of the sun; even at dusk and on overcast days, there’s a […]
Are there trees and shrubs that flower in the fall that I can use in my landscape? — R.M., Lincoln, MA A good number of herbaceous perennials (soft-stem plants that die to the ground in winter) bloom during the fall in New England — including Aconitum, Aster, Chrysanthemum, Sedum, and Filipendula, among others — but […]
I recently attended the wake of a colleague’s husband. It was made bittersweet by the fact that his wife and family had carefully displayed old photos and scrapbooks, their wedding album, and small mementos gathered over the course of his lifetime. This makeshift memorial illustrated that even in death, this man would not be far […]
In the frozen grips of a fierce storm on Mt. Katahdin, each man’s choice was his own. On Thursday evening, January 31, 1974, a fierce winter storm cut a swath of destruction across northern New England. It tore roofs off of mobile homes and tossed them into nearby trees, and sent tree limbs crashing into […]
The only thing people have been talking about these past few weeks is the weather. Not only has it been stormy but it’s been cold. In the past week, I’ve visited two neighbors who had hearth fires snapping in their living rooms. We all pulled up beside these fires as if it were October. I […]
I’ve been on the road for about a week, with more miles ahead of me. I sometimes tell people I don’t write for a living, I drive. I once calculated that I had driven a million miles in the course of my work for Yankee and that was some time ago. If I have to […]
For many years and many reasons, travelers have been drawn to Bethlehem, New Hampshire. This quiet vale at the edge of the White Mountain National Forest once boasted dozens of resort hotels. Its pure mountain air gave rise to the National Hay Fever Relief Association. Signs proclaim it the poetry capital of the state. These […]
In 1962 Waine Morse decided to build a make-believe store beside his vegetable garden in Greenfield, MA, to house his burgeoning collection of Americana. He couldn’t stop. Excerpt from “’The Man Who Build a Town in His Backyard,” Yankee Magazine, December 1989. It didn’t start out to be like this, a whole village, a toy […]
From Yankee Magazine April 1982 It was twilight, still and overcast, in Starks, Maine, on November 28, 1981, two days after Thanksgiving. Elsewhere in New England, store merchants were enjoying one of the year’s busiest shopping days. But you wouldn’t have known that in Starks. The town, with a population of 440, is strung along […]
