Last year was one of the worst years for hay that I can remember. Aside from the need for sun to dry the hay before baling, these fields are wet anyway, so if it rains too much, the fields are too wet to bear the weight of a tractor. So the farmers wait for that […]
Yankee Classic from June 1992 “I hate to tell you,” Suzy Verrier said, pausing sympathetically, “but your roses are wimps.” “Come again?” I wasn’t sure I had heard her correctly. “Wimps,” she repeated. “They’re wimpy commercial roses that are packaged and sold like canned tuna.” Another pause. “They’re fine, I suppose, if you like canned […]
Find great wine in Connecticut with the summer passport program, sponsored by Connecticut Department of Agriculture. The goal is to visit at least 14 of the 30 vineyards participating from Connecticut’s wine trail. You get your blue passport stamped at each one, and then hand it in at the last vineyard you visit. The program […]
Best FarmStay INN AT VALLEY FARMS, Walpole The 18th-century house on this glorious 105-acre organic farm is elegantly comfortable. Angus cattle graze on the hillside and free-range chickens “contribute” to the candlelit breakfasts. Rooms: from $175, including full breakfast. 633 Wentworth Road. 877-327-2855, 603-756-2855; innatvalleyfarms.com Best Reason to Rise & Shine WILDERNESS INN, North Woodstock […]
“Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl,” Thoreau wrote. “It is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.” Even sealed in a car, you’ll hear that howling as you approach the town of Errol in far northern New Hampshire, the gateway to Lake Umbagog. The region is even a long drive north […]
Twenty years ago I paddled down the St. John River in northern Maine on an eight-day wilderness canoe trip. I remember much about the rhythm of that ice-out trip: how the eight of us put in below Baker Lake into a shallow, smooth current. The water quickened and grew more powerful with each gathering day, […]
In the ring at Clark’s Trading Post, a six-foot seven-inch, 440-pound black bear named Pemi stands up like a man and tosses a basketball through a hoop. Pemi’s mate, Echo, a 340-pound female, has just finished her act, riding around the ring on a Segway, raising the flag, and dancing. With them is a pixie-like […]
There are, of course, a lot more than two signs of spring in New England about now. But these are my favorites… After the various early signals of spring in New England — the Boston Flower Show, spotting a robin among snow patches on the lawn, and gathering pussy willows for the dining room table […]
March is usually snowstorms and mud, mud and snowstorms but this March has been warmth, thaw, and mud. I have not kept track but it seems we have had warm weather for the past three or so weeks, with a few high wind storms thrown in to keep us honest. In the beginning of this […]
I went off on a bit of a chase for spring on Friday, without really knowing that was what I was doing. I was to write about a woman who lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, outside of Portland, about three hours from here. I left early to be able to arrive at 11. The hills […]
“Please, tell us about the Gloucester, Massachusetts, guy who rowed across the Atlantic Ocean without any hands or feet.” That’s a typical request I receive in the mail (or e-mail) from time to time. But most people don’t have it quite straight. Yes, a Gloucester fisherman by the name of Howard Blackburn did row across […]
READ MORE: More Cape Cod articles MORE PHOTOS: Cape Cod Photos by Alison Shaw It’s a light that glows from within, like driving into an Edward Hopper painting. Bright, buttery, demanding, it glances off the water and sinks into the sand and sea-weathered shingles. Paint me, notice me, it whispers–I’m spring for your eyes and […]
