Is winter the right time to prune my apple trees and blueberry bushes? — R.R., Jackson, NJ Most deciduous trees benefit from pruning while they’re dormant, so winter is a fine time to prune your fruit trees and shrubs, including apple, pear, cherry, blueberry, and currant. Some gardeners save the long, thin “water shoot” prunings […]
winter
New England
Jericho Village, VT: ‘Snowflake’ Bentley
Vermonters know snow. Most can trace their relationship with the substance along the shooting pains in their lower backs. That’s why Wilson A. “Snowflake” Bentley’s obsession was so unexpected. While his neighbors were cheering the coming of spring, he’d mourn each melting flake as “just that much beauty…gone, without leaving any record behind.” Home-schooled and […]
Who among us hasn’t made a New Year’s resolution to lose that holiday flab? Well, here’s Yankee‘s secret workout weapon: the Concept2 Model D Indoor Rower. Rowing is the ultimate fitness routine: It works all the major muscle groups, it’s low-impact, and it combines strength training with cardiovascular conditioning. And the bottom line? It’s a […]
History
New England Numbers: Snow
$139.99 price of a swinging “plow-proof” mailbox made by MainelyMetals of Pittston, Maine 35 mph or greater wind speed, with snow visibility less than a quarter-mile for at least three hours: official National Weather Service definition of blizzard 83 pounds per square foot: snow-bearing capacity requirement for roofs in coastal Maine (New Jersey roof requirement: […]
New Hampshire
Overnight at Mt. Washington Observatory
VIDEO: Mt. Washington in Winter You don’t stay strangers when you pack together on a blue-sky morning in the cold cabin of a snow tractor rumbling up the eight-mile-long Mount Washington Auto Road at six miles per hour. Get Our FREE Yankee Best New England Vacations Guide! Email(Required) Subscribe In places, the tractor has to […]
New England
Winter is Here
I am suffering from a tad bit of ski blogger writer’s block because I am conflicted by my feelings. I am so excited by the start of winter 2008 – 2009. The ground is covered with snow and the mountains are in great shape (yahoo!!). However, some of my co-workers at Yankee are without power […]
Living
Hockey Fever
I like almost everything about pond hockey: the potluck quality of the players (young and old, male and female), the 12-on-12 games that last all afternoon, the universally acknowledged rules (goals marked by winter boots a hockey-stick length apart) and rituals (teams sorted by sticks gathered and tossed into two random piles, to be collected […]
Do winter right by getting out in the great outdoors. There are adventures you can’t get any other time of the year! Here are a few suggestions that only take place in New England’s longest season.
Food
Chili Recipes
Everyone has a recipe for chili, it seems. And everyone’s is different, whether with the meat, or lack thereof, or spices. Here’s a selection from the Yankee recipe database that will get you through the long winter days. RECIPES
How To
How to Build an Igloo
Have you ever wondered how to build an igloo? Dr. Norbert Yankielun shares the importance of “the appropriate snow for the appropriate shelter,” tips on technique, a small village of surprisingly elegant igloos, block shelters, slab shelters, and snow caves rises in gleaming white around us. It’s a perfect winter day in the Upper Valley–clear, […]
Jon Imber spends part of the year in the city and part of the year in a small coastal village, and his art reflects this movement. Imber moves between abstraction and representation about as easily and seamlessly as any painter I know. Jon Imber burst on the Boston art scene in the late 1970s after […]
Food
New England Butter
In New England, butter is a special year-round gift whose taste and texture vary magically with the cycle of the seasons. Around the beginning of April, as the early spring greenery is sprouting, dairy cows are moved from their bedding and troughs in the spiderwebbed dustiness of the barn to the soft light and delicate […]