Within a few minutes after turning off Connecticut’s Route 9, which follows along the Connecticut River south of Hartford, we knew we’d taken the wrong exit. With the sun rising directly in our eyes, we couldn’t read the signs properly. Our destination was a horse farm in East Haddam. We’d been corresponding with the owners, […]
trees
New England
Hiking and Biking: 6 destinations
Connecticut Ten Mile Hill, Kent. In the Litchfield Hills, the Appalachian Trail weaves through deep forests. Start at Bull’s Bridge Falls. From here, the trail rises above the water before descending to Ten Mile Gorge, where the Housatonic and Ten Mile rivers merge. From here, switchbacks climb steadily to the crest of Ten Mile Hill, […]
Vermont
Lake Champlain Islands
Twenty-eight miles long, barely four miles across at their widest point, the three bridge-linked Lake Champlain islands and one peninsula of Grand Isle County offer spectacular water’s-edge views of the Green Mountains and Adirondacks. Summer sojourners looking to enjoy Lake Champlain often head for Milton, Vermont’s Sandbar State Park, with its broad beach, safe shallow […]
New England honey ranges from light in color and softly fragrant to dark, rich, and intense. Maple syrup isn’t New England’s only deliciously sticky homegrown product — this region is one of the country’s leading producers of honey, too. Local New England honey is worth buying for more than its heavenly taste. Supporting small-scale beekeepers […]
Yankee
Simple Beauty of Lois Dodd
In terms of a sustained vision of everyday beauty, painter Lois Dodd would be hard to beat. Since the 1950s, Dodd has pursued a simple, direct, pleasurable approach to painting the stuff of ordinary life — the landscapes around her, the environments she inhabits, her gardens and yards, her homes and her friends — all […]
Massachusetts
Concord, MA: Hawthorne Inn
If you’ve ever wondered what it’d take to convert your home to a great getaway, consider the experience of Gregory Burch and Marilyn Mudry. For some 30 years, they’ve made the Hawthorne Inn in Concord, Massachusetts, home to their family of five and more than 100,000 travelers. That’s a lot of houseguests when you’re raising […]
Magazine
The Digs | Mary’s Farm
On clear days, artists sometimes come up here to try to capture this view, a panorama of fields, hills, and mountain. I welcome the sight of an easel set up on the hillside, as I often wake up to a scene of so much beauty that I wish I knew how to paint. Recently, one […]
New England
Ski Instructors Take Lessons Too
There are many perceptions and misperceptions about ski instructors. One of my favorite jokes about the subject is: “How many ski instructors does it take to change a light bulb?” The answer: “Ten. One to screw in the light bulb and nine to say, ‘Nice turns.’” That is funny for a few reasons, but the […]
Living
Boston’s Hidden Gardens
There was a time in Boston’s Back Bay and Beacon Hill when the tiny brick-walled spaces behind homes were unadorned places that held drying laundry, extra coal, and outhouses. The spaces remain, but when the doors swing open today, you will likely find a plethora of annuals, perennials, flowering trees, and evergreens that provide homeowners […]
Photography is the hottest medium in the art world at the moment and has been now for almost a decade. The accessibility of photo technology in a digital age is making it possible for a veritable army of artists to generate imagery for all intents and purposes. A Photo Salon As I’ve been writing monthly […]
New England
Why I Love Mad River Glen
I skied Mad River Glen last Saturday. It was magical. The first time I skied Mad River, I was in third grade. I have scattered memories from that trip. Getting up at 4 a.m. was not my idea of a great start to a weekend, but I realized by the end of the day that […]
Roxanne Quimby’s goal is to preserve the landscape of Maine’s North Woods forever, but controversy has been sparked by those who want to retain use of that land. In the early summer of 1975, 24-year-old Roxanne Quimby arrived in northern Maine, having driven across the country with her boyfriend, looking for a place to homestead. […]