Yankee Magazine September/October 2024

Go leaf peeping in one of New England’s last undiscovered foliage spots

SMALL TOWNS , BIG COLOR

ream Catcher.

Freedom 375

Sparking the imagination

Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, MA

CONTENTS

features

62 /// Small Towns, Big Color

This little pocket of rural New Hampshire just might be the best and least-crowded foliage destination in New England. By Mel Allen

76 /// Keys to the Past

In a modest workshop in the Boston suburbs, Tom Furrier preserves history one typewriter at a time. By Ian Aldrich

82 /// The Bears Next Door

Wild animals need to be left alone—but in the small, densely populated state of Connecticut, that’s an increasingly tall order. By Christine Woodside

86 /// Days of Our New Lives

A family trip leads back to the crossroads of past and future. By Jennifer De Leon

90 /// View Finders

One of the nation’s oldest camera clubs has seen everything about photography change—except for its hold over us.

A wild black bear peers out from the woods in Granby, Connecticut. “The Bears Next Door,” p. 82

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

Explore the mighty Mississippi River aboard the newest fleet in the country. With itineraries ranging from 8 to 23 days, enjoy an intimate cruising experience with fewer than 200 guests. Indulge in delectable cuisine and delve into America’s rich heritage, from bustling cities to serene landscapes, on this unforgettable journey.

28 /// ‘Standing in the Old Ways’

At this tranquil, minimalist home carved into a Vermont forest, less is truly more. By Annie Graves

34 /// Made in New England

Maine seamstress Katrina Kelley’s handcrafted linens balance everyday utility with uncommon artistry. By

Courtney Hollands

40 /// Baked-In Ease

Simple, delectable recipes from cookbook author Jessie Sheehan make home baking a breeze.

44 /// In Season

Step aside, apples: Another flavorful fall fruit is ready for its star turn. By Amy Traverso

50 /// Weekend Away

Youthful energy mixes with a legacy of poets and scholars in Amherst, Massachusetts, one of New England’s most eclectic and invigorating towns. By

Katharine Whittemore

60 /// Playing the Markets

Among the best fall drives are the ones that lead to a colorful, bountiful New England farmers’ market.

Compiled by Bill Scheller

BEHIND THE SCENES

18

FIRST PERSON

Nature’s lamplight calls us to see things in a new way. By Edie Clark

20

FIRST LIGHT

For nearly a century and a half, B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill has kept one of autumn’s sweetest traditions alive. By Amy Traverso

24

UP CLOSE

How a salve created for dairy farmers became a skin-care sensation. By Alyssa Giacobbe

128

LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

When change happens, what stays constant is the love of the land. By Ben Hewitt

Fall foliage lights up Dublin Lake, a gem of New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region. Photo by Jay Roy USA

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

Share Your Love For Acadia. Start a Family Tradition.

Immerse yourself in the heart of Acadia. Our locations offer the perfect launchpad for your adventures in Acadia National Park.

EDITORIAL

Editor Mel Allen

Managing Editor Jenn Johnson

Senior Features Editor Ian Aldrich

Senior Food Editor Amy Traverso

Senior Digital/Home Editor Aimee Tucker

Travel Editor Kim Knox Beckius

Associate Editor Joe Bills

Associate Digital Editor Katherine Keenan

Contributing Editors Sara Anne Donnelly, Annie Graves, Ben Hewitt, Rowan Jacobsen, Nina MacLaughlin, Bill Scheller, Julia Shipley, Kate Whouley

ART

Art Director Katharine Van Itallie

Senior Photo Editor Heather Marcus

Contributing Photographers Adam DeTour, Megan Haley, Corey Hendrickson, Michael Piazza, Greta Rybus

PRODUCTION

Director David Ziarnowski

Manager Brian Johnson

Senior Artists Jennifer Freeman, Rachel Kipka

DIGITAL

Vice President Paul Belliveau Jr.

Senior Designer Amy O’Brien

Ecommerce Director Alan Henning

Digital Manager Holly Sanderson

Marketing Specialist Jessica Garcia

Email Marketing Manager Eric Bailey

YANKEE PUBLISHING INC.

ESTABLISHED 1935 | AN EMPLOYEE-OWNED COMPANY

President Jamie Trowbridge

Vice Presidents Paul Belliveau Jr., Ernesto Burden, Judson D. Hale Jr., Brook Holmberg, Jennie Meister, Sherin Pierce

Editor Emeritus Judson D. Hale Sr.

CORPORATE STAFF

Vice President, Finance & Administration Jennie Meister

Human Resources Manager Beth Parenteau

Information Manager Gail Bleakley

Assistant Controller Nancy Pfuntner

Accounting Associate Meg Hart-Smith

Accounting Coordinator Meli Ellsworth-Osanya

Executive Assistant Christine Tourgee

Maintenance Supervisor Mike Caron

Facilities Attendant Ken Durand

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Andrew Clurman, Renee Jordan, Joel Toner, Jamie Trowbridge, Cindy Turcot

FOUNDERS

Robb and Beatrix Sagendorph

Publisher Brook Holmberg

ADVERTISING

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Canada Account Manager Cynthia Fleming

Senior Production Coordinator Janet Selle

For advertising rates and information, email sales@yankeepub.com or go to newengland.com/adinfo.

MARKETING

ADVERTISING

Director Kate Hathaway Weeks

Senior Manager Valerie Lithgow

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Roslan & Associates Public Relations LLC

NEWSSTAND

Vice President Sherin Pierce

NEWSSTAND CONSULTING

Linda Ruth, PSCS Consulting

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LIVING

What to Plant Before the Frost  Fall is the perfect time to prepare for next year’s growing season. Check out our top picks for fall planting in New England! newengland.com/fallplanting

FOOD

Harvest Pumpkin Chili 

Brimming with flavor, this hearty stew makes for a perfect fall warm-up. newengland.com/pumpkinchili

TRAVEL

Everything You Should Know Before Driving the Kanc This Fall 

New Hampshire’s famous foliage route is always worth experiencing—but our savvy tips will make your drive even better. newengland.com/kanctips

Best Foliage Brews and Views

Our guide to New England breweries that offer gorgeous views of autumn color alongside top-notch beers. newengland.com/brewsandviews

Want more Yankee? Follow us on social media @yankeemagazine and scan the code below to read bonus content!

A view along the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, photographed by Yankee’s resident foliage expert, Jim Salge. Follow his 2024 foliage coverage at newengland.com/foliage.

BUILDING A LEGACY

To understand the allure of colonial New England, you can begin by taking a look at the work of Country Carpenters, whose handcra ed home and barn kits are inspired by the timeless architectural s les at the heart of this region’s identi . Founded in 1974, the family-owned Connecticut company o ers everything from saltboxes to bigger designs—traditional structures that clients o en put to innovative use. Here, Chief Operating O cer Josiah Loye shares more of the Country Carpenters story.

Country Carpenters is celebrating its 50th year. How did it begin, and how has it grown? Our founder, Roger Barre Sr., had a strong love for post-and-beam barns. With his son, Roger Jr., he started disassembling old tobacco barns and reusing the timbers to build post and beam homes. Inevitably, the owners would want a small garage or barn, too, so the business evolved to the point where we put our focus on those

outbuildings. In 2006, we went back to the roots of our business and started o ering reproduction 18th-century-s le homes. This year, to distinguish the two sides of the business, we created Post and Beam Barns to join Early New England Homes, two distinct companies under the Country Carpenters umbrella.

What do you see as the special appeal of historic New England architecture? It’s really part of the heritage of America as a whole. Many of the first Europeans to come here were boatbuilders, and they took their skills and transferred them to actually building the barns we have here today. They launched a new art form—an American art form. Today, we have a lot of New England clients, of course, but we also ship around the country and other parts of the world. We’ve sent kits to Canada, Ireland, England, and all the way to Australia.

How are clients using Country Carpenters’ barn spaces these days? We

have a lot of car collectors among our clients. People have built breweries out of our barns, or used them as wedding venues. We had one client put a tennis court in his barn; others put in a climbing wall for their kids. Then there’s the whole barn home, which has really taken o the last few years. “Barn-dominiums”—they’re a real thing.

Why is handcra ing such an important part of the Country Carpenters process? Representing New England s le goes beyond design. When you buy a building from us, you’re ge ing a unique piece of art. When they see our buildings, people can really sense that. You’re not just ge ing some mass-produced product—you’re ge ing something that’s beautiful and well made, and will stand the test of time.

To read more of our interview and to see a varie ofCountryCarpenters’o erings,go to:newengland.com/country-carpenters

SAVE THE DATE! Country Carpenters hosts its annual Hebron Colonial Days celebration on Sept. 21 at its headquarters in Hebron, Connecticut. Visitors can see the working life of 1750s New England, including blacksmithing and textile work demonstrations, while also ge ing an up-close look at some of the company’s signature buildings. countrycarpenters.com/colonial-day

Benefits

would not be writing this column were it not for two people: John Pierce and Judson Hale. In 1977, I had been writing freelance features for the Maine Sunday Telegram for two years. My first story paid $40; I eventually rose to a lofty $150 for a 3,000word story (travel expenses on me).

Still, that hardscrabble time gave me the robust portfolio of work that I would bring to my first meeting with John Pierce. I was 31, and to my surprise John, the new Yankee managing editor, was even younger. As he looked at my clippings, we talked easily, and I left with an assignment that would not only pay $400 but also include expenses. And I felt I had made a friend—something I never forget when I meet hopeful writers today.

Soon after, John asked me to come to Dublin, New Hampshire, to meet Yankee ’s editor, Jud Hale. I gave Jud a typed list of 28 story ideas and he accepted 25, something he told me had never happened before. I was offered a retainer contract, meaning $600 for each story would arrive each month, prepaid. For a freelancer, this was like finding a door that opened onto a new life.

A year later my dad, who had retired to Florida, discovered that the back pain he thought was related to golf was actually lung cancer that had spread to his bones. When his doctor told me the prognosis—three to six months—I put all my reporter’s skills to work.

Soon we were at an alternative cancer clinic on the island of Jamaica. Then an alternative heat-therapy clinic. And finally we were with a doctor who came to the house to inject paindeadening serum deep into my father’s back.

I flew down from Maine every few weeks to help Dad. When a story deadline loomed while I was in Florida, I dictated the article to a Western Union operator, who relayed it to John in New Hampshire. Even as Yankee ’s retainer

checks kept me afloat, I fell what seemed hopelessly behind on my end of the deal. One day John phoned to tell me that Jud agreed to retroactively boost all my previous story fees to $800. I was caught up. I never forgot that.

Shortly before my father died, John and Jud asked me to join Yankee as a senior editor. I would start October 1, 1979. I flew south and sat beside my father’s bed. Having been a young man during the Great Depression, he had long fretted that my freelancing was a precarious way to live.

“I’m going to Yankee full-time,” I told him. He looked at me with painkiller-glazed eyes. “Benefits?”

“Yes,” I said. He smiled, one of the last I can remember. “Good,” he said, then closed his eyes and slept.

I thought about all this as I sat on the deck of a boathouse on the edge of Dublin Lake last week. It was a windswept afternoon, with small sailboats scudding over the waves. The boathouse belonged to the family of my colleague Ian Aldrich, who was hosting a gettogether for my upcoming birthday. On the dock with us were seven other Yankee staffers who help create the magazine you are reading now.

Dublin Lake rests in a curve of the road less than a mile from our office, with Mount Monadnock rising to the south. And it is here, the Monadnock Region, that we showcase in our cover story, “Small Towns, Big Color” [p. 62]. People come from far away to soak up what we find here every day.

Sometimes on my early-morning walks, I say hello to my dad. I usually tell him about the two grandsons he never knew and what I’ve been up to lately. Today I said, Pop, remember when you asked about benefits? And I told him about a gathering at a boathouse, with my friends, by the lake.

Mel Allen editor@yankeepub.com

Meet South County’s New Residents!

South County Tourism Council is proud to present two new troll sculptures by renowned recycle artist Thomas Dambo. Head to Ninigret Park to meet Erik Rock and Greta Granite. Admission is free. Find out more at SouthCountyRI.com.

BEN HEWITT

In the 10 years that this native Vermonter has been writing his “Life in the Kingdom” column, much has changed for him and his family—something he pauses to consider in this issue [p. 128]. But his inspiration remains the same: the small stories and minor events of rural life. “It always feels as if they contain so much more than it seems at first glance,” he says. “I think a lot of my work revolves around attempting to unearth the bigger stories hiding inside the smaller ones.”

CHRISTINE WOODSIDE

An indelible moment in reporting “The Bears Next Door” [p. 82] came when Woodside was allowed to watch up close as wildlife biologists performed a checkup on a sedated wild bear. “After waking up she would, I hoped, never remember any of us … but I would never forget her,” says Woodside, a Connecticut writer and longtime editor of the AMC’s biannual journal, Appalachia Her most recent book is Going Over the Mountain: One Woman’s Journey from Follower to Solo Hiker and Back

TONY LUONG

A freelance photographer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Wired, among others, Luong lives in Arlington, Massachusetts—just a few miles from Tom Furrier’s typewriter shop, as it turned out [“Keys to the Past,” p. 76]. Another pleasant discovery? “Learning that Tom and I shared an affinity for thoughtful and functional design, so getting to learn about which typewriters were manufactured when, and which models became popular, was very fulfilling.”

KATHARINE WHITTEMORE

In writing about the literary town of Amherst, Massachusetts [“Weekend Away,” p. 50], Whittemore was reminded of just how accessible its writers can be—as when Norton Juster gamely agreed to meet with a book club of grade school boys, including her son Will. “It was a big hit,” recalls Whittemore, senior editor of Amherst magazine. “And a decade-plus later, Will had a job at the assisted-living facility where Juster spent his last years. They happily continued the conversation.”

CHADWICK ESTEY

Growing up in the small town of New Haven, Vermont, Estey discovered his love of photography in capturing beautiful landscapes throughout the Green Mountain State. So it was a “full-circle moment” to photograph the rural Vermont home of Matt and Britt Witt [“‘Standing in the Old Ways,’” p. 28], founders of Red House bags and his close friends. This is the first Yankee assignment for Estey, whose client list also includes Food & Wine, Vermont Tourism, and Downeast Cider.

MEGAN HALEY

A photographer whose work has graced such publications as The Wall Street Journal and Garden & Gun, Haley turned her lens on Amherst, Massachusetts, for this issue’s “Weekend Away” [p. 50]. “One thing I love about my job is that occasionally it calls for my family to tag along, which was the case when we explored the Eric Carle Museum and a few other spots. Editorial photography can feel much like going on a field trip, so it’s extra special to experience that with them.”

IN MEMORIAM

The Storyteller’s Gift

Six years ago Yankee readers learned that a series of small strokes had forced Edie Clark to end her long-running “Mary’s Farm” column, and the response was as though a beloved family member had been taken from them. The letters and cards came flooding in, most of them carrying the same message: Your column was always the first thing I looked for.

Since then, letters for Edie have continued to flow to us at Yankee , and also to the nursing care facility where she lived until she passed away on July 17, 2024, at the age of 75. In her final years, Edie was unable to write, and even reading was difficult, but she kept that special essence that shone through in her writing: a love for friends who filled her life with happiness, and for the natural world she glimpsed from an outdoor patio where hummingbirds hovered.

I know Edie’s passing will deeply affect all who knew her, just as I know that her timeless columns and stories will endure into the future.

—Mel Allen

SHARE YOUR MEMORIES

We at Yankee will publish a tribute to our friend and colleague Edie Clark in the November/December issue. Readers are invited to share their remembrances of her, too, by writing to editor@yankeepub.com. We will publish a selection of what we receive—Edie would love that.

LAWRENCE SEAWAY

On this amazing 15-night cruise, explore picturesque waterfront towns and admire the stunning natural landscapes that stretch out before you. In the comfort of your private balcony, bask in the beauty of the Thousand Islands region, adorned with stately mansions, fairytale castles, and historic lighthouses.

Explore Well ™

FRESH FLAVOR FROM MAINE

As the seasons transition from summer to fall, Maine ingredients and produce items to enjoy, and Maine is one of my favorite places to gather culinary inspiration! When the weather starts to cool, I’m always eager to break out my trusty Dutch oven and get to work on a big pot of soup. This Maine Cheddar, Potato & Corn Soup recipe starts with a variety of potatoes from a local farmstand for hearty autumnal flavors, and fresh sweet corn adds bright notes and color to the dish. The soup also features a sharp Maine cheddar cheese for a creamy richness, while the fragrant onions and leeks are caramelized and deglazed with a splash of Maine-cra ed beer. Save the rest of the beer to sip as you serve this comfort-food dish celebrating the seasonal flavors of Maine. —Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler is the creator of the award-winning food and lifestyle website Domestikatedlife.com and the author of the entertaining cookbook New England Invite: Fresh Feasts to Savor the Seasons. You can follow her @domestikateblog.

Hungry for More?

Looking to get inspired and try some delicious local Maine cheeses? The Maine Cheese Guild hosts this year’s Maine Cheese Festival on September 8 in Pi sfield, and Maine Open Creamery Day on October 13. For more culinary inspiration and seasonal flavors of Maine, check out VisitMaine.com.

SIGN UP HERE! Scan this QR code to subscribe to Bountiful: Maine’s Seasonal Food Journal, a culinary email from the Maine Office of Tourism.

Moonstruck

A call to see things anew by nature’s lamplight.

On a cold, clear October night, clouds race across the sky as if on a summer’s day. The clouds are full, billowing, with the full moon reflecting off them, creating a light almost as brilliant as that of the moon’s. The sky itself is a midnight blue, and the stars are as sharp as steel points. I have rarely seen such a dramatic sky.

On nights of a full moon, we are often inside our snug homes, asleep, or stashed in the connected rooms of the city, unable (even if the desire exists) to see past the blazing lights of the metropolis. But here, in the stillness of an autumn night, there are no distractions or interferences, and the event of a full moon can exhibit a pull similar to a tide or an appetite.

The moon rises, a big pink disc or creamy yellow, blood red—the color always slightly different as it inches up from behind the pines that edge the field. I go to the window as if called. The moon at the horizon is huge, an orb bearing down on us. As it moves higher in the sky, the color drains, fading to a bright white.

Early Native Americans devised their calendar around the phases of the moon. To them the moon was one of the most important aspects of their lives, around which everything that mattered to them revolved. They planted and harvested according to its phases, calculated their

days and nights according to its wisdom. Each month was the length of the moon’s cycle. Each month the name of the moon identified what mattered most that month. There were many variations. March was the Full Sap Moon, referring to the sap rising in the trees at that time of year. December was sometimes the Full Long Nights Moon, referring to the short days of that month. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac , the October moon I see is the Full Hunter’s Moon.

I am reminded of all of this that night as the moon creates a scene of singular beauty and awe. Soft moonlight spills onto the floor and creates still, silent shadows across the room. From my window, the outline of my house spreads across the lawn below in dark moon shadow. The light is bright enough for a walk without a flashlight, and so I go out. Standing there, I realize that many people around the world are blind to this moon, the light of their television sets providing a strange parallel. Among other reasons, Native Americans revered the moon for the light that it gave them. Now we have so many sources of illumination, who needs the moon?

Whether or not we watch it or even see it, the moon still affects us deeply, the architect of our seasons, our tides, our storms. The Blue Moon, of course, is the occurrence of more than one full moon in a single month. But maybe we could borrow this and call all the moons from now on the Blue Moon—a sad moon, trying as it does to get our attention and remind us of what really matters.

This essay was originally published under the title “Blue Moon” in the October 2005 issue of Yankee.

Note: The author of this essay, beloved Yankee columnist Edie Clark, passed away the week that this issue went to press. You can find a remembrance by editor Mel Allen on p. 14, and look for a special tribute to Edie in the November/December issue of Yankee

f irstLIGHT

A contraption so rare it’s been designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, the 19th-century steam-powered press at B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill puts the squeeze on as much as 100 tons of apples a week.

Going With the Flow

For nearly a century and a half, B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill has kept one of autumn’s sweetest traditions alive.

BY AMY TRAVERSO

PHOTOS BY ALLEGRA ANDERSON

ucked into the village of Old Mystic, Connecticut, B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill looks like a vintage model railroad station inflated to life-size proportions. You half expect to see a locomotive pull up and unload a crowd in top hats and hoopskirts. A white Victorian with wine-colored trim, scalloped shingles, and a cupola, the mill even has a whistle that looks and sounds exactly like that of a steam train. Its high-decibel shriek signals to staff and visitors that the old-fashioned work of pressing apples into cider is about to begin—and everyone comes running.

Inside, the air is almost sticky with the aroma of apples, but underneath it there’s wood, leather, and oil, a blend unique to this place. “We are the last steam-powered cider mill in the United States,” says Josh Miner, a fifthgeneration member of the family that has owned Clyde’s since it was founded by Benjamin Franklin Clyde in 1881. Josh is shouting to be heard over the rhythmic clanking of the mill’s press, whose technology hails from the Garfield administration: pulleys and ropes, leather belts, wooden frames, cast iron gears. There’s no plastic in sight, save for the polypropylene pressing cloths and the bins they’re stored in.

On pressing days during the mill’s operating season, which runs from September through November, you can follow the whole process from the moment the truck pulls up filled with apples from the Hudson Valley. It tips its bed to send fruit on a conveyer belt to the basement, where the apple washer scrubs the fruit clean (a well-placed window offers a view). After washing, the apples climb two stories to the grinder, which sits right above the press. With the pull

of a wood lever, the grinder roars to life, churning the fruit into juicy pulp, which is then pressed between fabriclined wooden racks until the juice flows thick and sweet into the wooden gutters and down to a well.

The press is a thing of beauty, a mid-1890s Boomer & Boschert from Syracuse, New York. Josh’s great-great-

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: The tasting room at B.F. Clyde’s; sorting a fresh load of apples for the mill, which uses varieties ranging from Red Delicious and Empire to Ginger Gold; a detail of the 15-horsepower steam engine, built circa 1890 by Ames Iron Works; the fifth generation of family owners, Amy Harrison with her brothers, (FROM LEFT) Josh and John Miner.

great-grandfather bought the press and built the Victorian surround from a kit. “Some would have put the machinery in a barn,” Josh says, “but this is special.” Over the years, as more and more cider mills went out of business, his grandfather would travel around and buy any parts on offer. This library of spares allows B.F. Clyde’s to make repairs without needing to order custom parts.

The mill is still a family operation, with the current staff including the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations of B.F. Clyde’s descendants. “We still speak most of the time,” jokes John Miner, Josh’s brother. And the mill’s long history is visible in details like the old stoneware cider jugs hanging from the ceiling, and a post marked with the heights of grandchildren and greatgrandchildren dating back to 1978. But the family has also embraced change, adding flash pasteurization, a tasting room, and an underground pipe that

transports the freshly pressed juice to the mill’s store, where two doughnut robots and a cider slushie machine are continually in operation. (As you walk around the property, beware of influencers who may stop short in front of you to snap a photo of a doughnut perched on their slushie cup—a pairing so delicious-looking even Yankee ’s photographer couldn’t resist.)

The mill is also a magnet for the school-age set. “Every so often, I go around and see families, and it just grabs you by the heart,” says Amy Harrison, John and Josh’s sister. “We give them that place to make memories— the ones who come on opening day every year, and the ones who have been coming for 60 years.” She got her nursing license years ago and has worked in the field on and off, “but even when I was a nurse, I always wanted to be here,” she says. “This is where my heart is.” clydescidermill.com

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Another B.F. Clyde’s specialty, the cider doughnut, sits atop a cider slushie (which can be made with the mill’s hard cider for extra kick).

Cattle Call

How a salve created for Vermont dairy farmers became a viral skin-care sensation.

When it was launched in rural Vermont more than a century ago, Bag Balm was made for cows, a remedy for udders chapped by blustery New England winters. These days, apparently, it’s also made for TikTok.

The jelly-like salve concocted with lanolin and petroleum jelly is famously adaptable: Over the years, Bag Balm has been used as everything from diaper-rash cure to rust protectant to a paw conditioner for dogs. But it also was cruising under the radar as something of a beauty secret, with hereand-there mentions from celebrity fans like Shania Twain and Oprah—until a TikTok “skinfluencer” named Alix Earle helped make it a viral sensation

in 2022. After Earle touted it to her followers (now 7 million and counting) as a favorite remedy for facial dryness caused by harsh acne medication, other fans chimed in, with some even recommending Bag Balm for “slugging,” a trend involving slathering the face with Vaseline to seal in moisture.

“I was like, this sounds gross,” admits Libby Parent, president of Vermont’s Original Bag Balm, based in Lyndonville. “Are we sure we want to be part of that?”

Turns out: Yes, they did. Online sales tripled within a month of Earle’s post, and it soon became clear that the 125-year-old brand had achieved a marketing coup—getting the attention of the coveted Gen Z shopper—without

even trying. “It just sort of happened,” Parent says.

The company now uses its social media channels (including, as of 2022, TikTok) to tell Bag Balm’s origin story to a whole new audience. And to celebrate Bag Balm’s 125th anniversary this fall, there will be gold and other color variations on its iconic green tin, which has remained largely unchanged for generations.

Yet there’s only so much that one can, or would want, to do with a product that’s been living up to its promise since 1899. “There’s a lot of trendy ingredients in skin care, and there’s been consumer burnout,” says Parent. “At the end of the day, we’ve just got a super-versatile product that works.” —Alyssa Giacobbe

Going Solo in Retirement?

If you’re widowed, divorced, or single-by choice, you owe it to yourself to discover how Edgewood can help you live a longer, healthier, happier life. Nearly half the residents here are just like you, and they’ll tell you: Edgewood is the best of all worlds.

You’ll find new friends around every corner while still enjoying all the privacy you want, when you want it. Learn something new or discover a hidden talent with a variety of classes and lifelong learning opportunities. And rest easy with a built-in support network, financial predictability, and priceless peace of mind.

“THE

Imagine a community built for freedom and choice. Where everything is within easy reach and friendships happen naturally. Imagine opening your life to new experiences, unexpected adventures, and myriad opportunities to focus on your well-being. Add in peace of mind with convenient services, amenities, and guaranteed priority access to innovative health care. Now imagine it’s all right outside your door, with a home that works for you, not the other way around.

Could The Baldwin be everything you’ve hoped for? Maybe it’s more. Choose one of the few brand-new apartment homes available before the waitlist becomes your only option. Call 603.699.0100 or go to TheBaldwinNH.org.

‘Standing in the Old Ways’

Less is more in this minimalist, tranquil home carved into a Vermont forest.

BY ANNIE GRAVES

BY CHADWICK ESTEY

PHOTOS

Thanks to their home’s secluded location, Britt and Matt Witt chose not to put curtains or blinds on the large windows and glass doors that are central to the building’s design. “I much prefer the view of nature as a constant,” Britt says. OPPOSITE: Britt in the kitchen, whose stone floor tiles bring a “lived-in” feel to the space.

he house stands alone, in the center of a clearing: a simple white structure with dark window eyes, open to the sunny glade.

Behind, a mossy rock face, several feet high, creates nature’s own version of a stone wall, and the woods fan out for miles. The steep roof rises like prayer hands. Birdsong drops all around.

“I had this vision for so long about how I wanted this house to look,” says Britt Witt. “All the white, very reminiscent of the white steepled churches all over Vermont. We thought about it for what felt like years.”

The last time I saw Britt and her husband, Matt, was seven years ago, when they were ensconced in an expansive brick studio in Burlington, Vermont, making ruggedly beautiful waxed canvas bags under the name

Red House. Since then, the former Arizonans have weathered Covid; cleared the land they bought in 2016 on this precipitous ridge in Weybridge, Vermont; built their elegant, spare home on 23 acres; and finally moved in full-time, in 2022. They’ve also (just) sold their namesake “Red House,” in Shelburne, where they raised their kids, half an hour north of here.

“This is the Vermont we longed for when we moved here,” says Matt. “We were always looking and pricing, but it was insanely expensive—totally out of our grasp. So we ended up in a little house in Shelburne Village, which worked out great, with the kids walking across the street to the school.”

When they expanded their search beyond Chittenden County, this was the first property they looked at: affordable, nothing but dense woods, with a treacherous driveway winding skyward, and a sharp, lunging turn

ABOVE RIGHT: The couple’s love of the outdoors inspired the addition of a shower in the side yard. “Starting out our days here all spring and summer long is a true gift,” Britt says.

OPPOSITE: A high ceiling was another must-have feature, says Britt—“just giving us tons of space to let our energy and imaginations rise in.” The large open space is kept impressively toasty in winter by a woodstove, even though the home also has radiant floor heating.

they dubbed Dead Man’s Curve near the top. They eventually bought three of the five lots, and “dreamt on it, for four years,” says Matt. “We would come up here and have little gatherings with friends and set tables in the middle of the woods.” Britt points past the double glass doors, leading from the kitchen. “We homed in on that mossy rock wall. It was like Lord of the Rings, like Shire country.”

ABOVE LEFT: Matt and Britt Witt in the living room with their Cavalier King Charles spaniels, Buckley and Penny.

With a tight budget, they began talking to builders, getting quotes. “We drew this building on a piece of computer paper,” says Britt. “There was no architect. We had this vision of what we wanted. Then Matt called me one day, and he’s like, ‘Britt, I don’t think it’s going to work.’ The quotes weren’t in our budget, or if they were, they didn’t include electrical. Or a roof.”

And then, they found their guy; met him in Middlebury, over bagels and coffee. “We were sitting there,” Britt remembers, “and I asked, ‘So is the roof included?’ Yes, it’s turnkey. ‘ Can we do marble counters?’ Yeah, no problem. ‘Cabinets?’ Turnkey. ‘Toilet?’ Yes, guys, it’s turnkey. And it’s like, yes, yes, yes.”

Their budget helped keep the design simple. Two or three interior walls. No closets. “It keeps you honest in what you possess,” Matt says. “Everything has to have a place or a function. If it doesn’t, it’s not necessary.”

For inspiration, they drove around, literally. “Britt wanted to create this great room to mirror all of the churches we were driving by. Three to four windows on each side, big double doors. And she’s like—let’s make our church out in the woods.”

So how exactly did they design a great room? They found houses that inspired them. They had to learn what a pitch was. “We just picked one and held our breath,” Britt laughs. “We had no idea what we were doing. But that’s never stopped us before.” The ceilings are nine feet high in the kitchen; 22 to the peak in the living room. They settled on six lights for the Marvin casement windows, but agonized over whether it should be 12. Or two. They studied other people’s windows, roof pitches. And hand-flagged the boundary of their future home in the woods, tracking the sun, figuring out where the front of the house would go.

They broke ground on June 1, 2019. The house was “done” by November. Hundreds of details were decided in those months. And that, they emphasize, is the crux of everything.

“We decided to be really intentional with the fixtures, with the finishes, with the trim and the molding, and the doors we picked out. To take this simple space and just give it an energy that almost doesn’t belong,” Matt recalls.

“It’s the details that make all the difference,” Britt says. But nothing was more important than the gooseneck sink fixture, its brass now aged, sitting proudly at the center of the kitchen island. It was the first thing the couple bought, before they even broke ground. The whole house is built around it.

Britt’s dad lives in England, and that’s where she first learned about DeVOL Kitchens, makers of gorgeous bespoke kitchens. The bathroom lights are

also from DeVOL, but it’s this specific DeVOL faucet that sets the entire tone for a simple, elegant workspace, with a decidedly Shaker feel.

The kitchen floor is just as intentional. “I wanted something that looked like you brought in stones from outside, and that’s your floor,” Britt says. “Old, old English. I found a piece of quartzite, and knew this was it. When you’re building new, you need to have character. That’s why we did unlacquered brass on the kitchen faucet. The marble countertop gets a patina, too, and with the floor sometimes pieces chip off.”

ABOVE: Handcrafted by Vermont artisans, the wood shelving throughout the house was repurposed from the couple’s former Red House studio in Burlington.

ABOVE LEFT: Bath taps by Waterworks and pendant lighting from DeVOL Kitchens are among the thoughtfully chosen fixtures for the minimalist bathroom.

LEFT: At the heart of the Witts’ home is this DeVOL brass kitchen faucet, which they say helped inform all their other design choices.

Matt sees a connection to their Red House waxed canvas bags. “They age, too. A handbag that’s five years old looks totally different from when it was new. All this stuff as well. That was a shiny faucet; now it has character on it.”

Other details? The bathtub taps on a sprawling tub are from Waterworks, inspired by the Marlton Hotel in New York City, where they once stayed. And someday there will be an indoor shower, but meantime Matt has installed and hardscaped an outdoor hot/cold shower. “Shower season” runs May to November.

“It’s exactly what we wanted when we first came here,” Matt says softly, looking around the glowing space. It’s easy to imagine the seasons moving past these windows in a kaleidoscope of colors and images. Deer and birds. Foliage and snow. Light and more light. They’ve planted fruit trees and blueberry bushes, built raised garden boxes. “We want to stand in the old ways,” says Matt. Then he grins. “We’re going backward. We’re not going into the future, into the meta. We’re standing in the old ways. Our end goal—we jokingly say—is that we want our whole life to become projects and chores, all the time.”

Last winter, Britt says, she gave up artificial light at night. “We had candles and oil lamps all winter.” Matt muses, finishing the thought: “It’s like we have 150-year-old people inside of us, trying to get out.”

Threading the Needle

Maine

seamstress

Katrina

Kelley’s

handcrafted linens balance everyday utility with uncommon artistry.

BY COURTNEY HOLLANDS

The fact that Katrina Kelley has a tattoo of a needle and thread snaking up the inside of her left forearm isn’t that surprising. She is, after all, the designer and sole seamstress behind the buzzy Newcastle, Maine–based Amphitrite Studio.

What is surprising is that she did the ink herself. “I got the tattoo machine as a gift for my 30th birthday,” says Kelley, 44, perched on a chair amid antiques and sewing equipment in her cozy home studio. “The focus on the art took away from the pain. It was a weird cancellation of properties, so it became just like drawing on myself.”

The more you get to know Kelley, however, this act of visceral self-expression starts to make sense. She has a relentless need to create, a need that drove her to launch Amphitrite Studio as an Etsy shop selling women’s linen clothing in 2012. Over time, Kelley shifted her focus to linen napkins, towels, tablecloths, and other

LEFT: Kelley uses two trusty machines to create her Amphitrite Studio textiles: for the inside seams, a Bernette serger, and for the finishing work, a Juki sewing machine ( PICTURED). “They are both workhorses and can easily put up with full sewing days,” she says. “I couldn’t make half as much as I do if I didn’t have them by my side!”

TOP: The Amphitrite Studio linen tea towel in dusty rose, one of Kelley’s favorite tones to work with.

home and kitchen textiles, a metamorphosis that became complete the December day in 2019 when restaurateur Erin French from the Lost Kitchen—yes, that Erin French—called to order aprons for her shop.

As luck had it, Kelley had been working on a café apron prototype. “I was like, Shut the front door,” she says, with a laugh. “They found me, called me, and wanted me to make something because they saw what I was trying to do … that was a big confidence-booster.”

Since then, the Amphitrite Studio aprons— long or short half aprons or full length with a cross-back in saturated earth and jewel tones— have become Kelley’s calling card. They’ve also helped put her on the map: The 2022 design book Remodelista in Maine included her studio in a who’s who of the state’s artisans. “The aprons are the biggest hit, but also the biggest pain to make,” Kelley says, explaining that they

require her to switch between multiple sewing machines, plus iron between each step. Still, she says all this with a twinkle in her eye, as if she always knew her meandering path would lead her here.

Kelley grew up in the Catskills, the youngest of four children. Her parents were hippies turned Jehovah’s Witnesses. Her mother, Kathlyn, retained an artistic streak and a homegrown ethos, making the family’s clothes, leading craft time, and teaching Kelley to sew at age 4. “My nursery was her sewing room,” she says. “I like to think that’s where I got my start.”

LEFT: “I love a chef who’s not afraid to wear white and truly use it! A wellused linen can remind you of all the memories and meals you’ve created,” says Kelley, whose apron designs took off after a nudge from top Maine chef Erin French.

RIGHT: Another Amphitrite Studio standout is this teal-striped tea towel made from sturdy 9-ounce “rough” linen. It was featured in the recently published design book Remodelista in Maine as one of 30 must-have Maine products for the home.

When Kelley was 14, she relocated with her mom to southern Maine, where the family had often spent summer vacations. She did homeschool and then trained to be a hairdresser, working as a colorist and also as a florist in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, before moving to a cabin in Damariscotta, Maine, in 2005. There, Kelley landed a job at a natural pet food store, which is where she met her nowhusband, Jeff, a customer, who encouraged Kelley to start her sewing business in 2012 and get her online associate degree in business.

The name Amphitrite—the goddess of the sea and the wife of Poseidon in Greek mythology—was a no-brainer from day one, she says. “I originally chose it for the strong feminine vibe with ties to the sea,” she says. “I’ve always been drawn to the sea. When I was a kid, I actually drowned and was out for over a minute at Old Orchard Beach…. Ever since then, I’ve had a healthy fear of the ocean that’s turned into a reverence for its strength.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Kelley counts nature among her inspirations. Her art is also shaped by loss—including the loss of her brother Kieth Napolitan, an accomplished Portsmouth chef who died from an overdose in

2014. “My grief threw me into making things that other chefs could use,” Kelley says. “It was this natural progression of, this is where my heart already is. I’m going to keep making more kitchen-inspired things.”

Kelley spends her days measuring, cutting, sewing, ironing, and packaging her wares for shipping. She creates fresh patterns when inspiration strikes, like the vintage-leaning apron with thinner ties she’s currently working on. Looking to repurpose the fabric scraps and elastic left over from making masks during the pandemic, she designed one of the newest additions to her line: linen dish covers that are not only stylish, but also a sustainable alternative to single-use plastic wrap.

And in warmer months, Kelley opens her showroom—a solar-powered camper parked in her Newcastle driveway—to visitors. That’s also where she styles and shoots photos for her website, newsletter, and social media.

Amphitrite Studio is truly a one-woman show, and Kelley says she wouldn’t want it any other way. “I’m sure you can tell by looking around that I’m not a simple person,” she says. “This is what I live and breathe. I have no idea how to be anything but creative.” amphitritestudio.com

SEW COOL

Feather your nest with these New England–made textiles.

AMERICAN WOOLEN COMPANY: In 2014, American Woolen bought Warren Mills, the last U.S. mill capable of producing both woolen and worsted fabrics. Today, it not only sells these textiles to domestic designers, but also sews them into preppy throws. Stafford Springs, CT; americanwoolen.com

ANICHINI : Local craftspeople stitch fabrics from Portugal, Italy, Turkey, and other farflung places into shower curtains, meditation pillows, and kitchen linens for this Green Mountain State company’s “Made in America” collection. Tunbridge, VT; anichini.com

BATES MILL STORE/ MAINE HERITAGE WEAVERS: When the 151-year-old Bates Manufacturing Company shuttered in 2001, its former president, his daughter, and a few employees formed Maine Heritage Weavers to continue making the venerable manufacturer’s shabby-chic matelassé cotton bedspreads and coverlets. Monmouth, ME; batesmillstore.com

BRISTOL LOOMS: Set a sunny table with Maya Cordeiro’s coordinating brightly colored placemats, table runners, and napkins. Beyond the dining room, her handwoven baby blankets are especially sweet. Bristol, RI; bristollooms.com

MATOUK: One of the last vestiges of Fall River’s textile-making past, the Matouk factory turns out crisp sheets and plush towels favored by celebs, high-end interior designers, and luxury hotels the world over. Fall River, MA; matouk.com

Kelley outside her Newcastle home with her 1968 Fan travel trailer, which she gutted “all the way down to the tin”and refurbished as an office space, photo studio, and occasional boutique.

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THIS PAGE: Jenny’s Egg Puffs with Prosciutto Bottoms, recipe p. 42

OPPOSITE: Jessie Sheehan, whose newest cookbook— Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes is being released this fall.

Baked-In Ease

Home baking is no sweat with these simple, delectable recipes from Connecticut cookbook author Jessie Sheehan

PHOTOS BY NICO SCHINCO

’ve baked professionally for 20 years, but over the past decade

I’ve made it my mission to make home baking easier and more accessible. My specialty is what I call the “snackable bake,” an easy-peasy sweet or savory treat that can be assembled in 20 minutes or less with nothing more than a whisk, a bowl, and a spatula. Recipes for snackable bakes call for just a handful of pantry-friendly ingredients, and the simple instructions always fit on a single page. I’ve published more than 200 such recipes in my most recent books, Snackable Bakes and my latest, Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes , from which these recipes are excerpted.

While these recipes may be effortless to throw together, they’re just as delicious and celebration-worthy as their time-consuming brethren, the “project” bakes—those fussy dishes that require at least one trip to the grocery store, take hours to assemble, and often have several components. Project bakes are impressive and tasty, but for busy, hungry folks, “snackable” really is the name of the game. So, whether it’s Jenny’s Egg Puffs with Prosciutto Bottoms or Herby Yogurt Biscuits for breakfast, Black Bottom Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling for an after-school snack, Better-ThanApple-Pie Bars for a fun twist on a dinner-party dessert, or Spiced Pumpkin Snacking Cake with Fluffiest Chocolate Buttercream for a unique addition to the Thanksgiving spread, these recipes will (quickly!) satisfy all your baking needs no matter the day, time, or occasion.

Jessie Sheehan, who divides her time between rural northwest Connecticut and New York City, is a best-selling cookbook author, recipe developer, and host of the popular baking podcast “She’s My Cherry Pie.” She contributes recipes and writing to the likes of The New York Times, Bon Appétit, and Yankee

JENNY’S EGG PUFFS WITH PROSCIUTTO BOTTOMS

I’ve known Jenny since I was a little kid, as our parents are old friends, and she makes a mean cheesy egg situation that I am obsessed with. I love that it calls for Muenster cheese and cottage cheese and cream cheese. And I also love that I thought to make it muffin-sized and to line each cavity with a slice of prosciutto. If you’re not a meat eater, you can bake the puffs in cupcake liners for a truly portable snack experience, or bake them directly in the greased tin for an extra-crispy bottom. Go to town with green chilies, chives, herbs, bacon bits, etc.

Cooking spray, for the muffin tin

12 slices prosciutto

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

½ cup whole milk

¼ cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup (33 grams) all-purpose flour

2 cups (200 grams) shredded Muenster, Monterey Jack, or low-moisture mozzarella

1 cup cottage cheese, 2 percent fat or higher

2 ounces full-fat cream cheese, cubed

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 12-well muffin tin with cooking spray. Line each well with a slice of prosciutto, folding it to make it snugly fit the bottom and sides of each cavity.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, and melted butter in a large bowl. Sprinkle the baking powder, salt, and pepper over the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Whisk in the flour and then the shredded cheese, cottage cheese, and cream cheese. Evenly pour the batter into the prosciutto-lined wells of the prepared tin (each will be pretty full).

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating at the halfway point, until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove the tin from the oven and let cool briefly on a wire rack before running a knife around the edge of the muffin wells and removing the egg puffs. Let the puffs cool for at least 10 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature. Yields 12 puffs.

HERBY YOGURT BISCUITS

Looking for a simpler way to do biscuits, I tried making them with melted butter. They worked! The yogurt here adds wonderful tang and tenderness, resulting in a biscuit that splits easily (thanks to the website Serious Eats for the inspiration). A combo of woody herbs (such as thyme) and soft herbs (such as dill) works best here.

2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for sprinkling

1 cup (130 grams) cake flour

1½ tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon plus ¹⁄ 8 teaspoon kosher salt

¼ cup finely chopped mixed fresh herbs, such as thyme and dill, plus 9 dill sprigs for decorating the biscuit tops

1 cup full-fat yogurt (regular, not Greek)

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk together the all-purpose flour, cake flour, sugar, baking powder,

Herby Yogurt Biscuits

baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, and chopped herbs in a large bowl. In a 4-cup measuring cup or medium bowl, whisk together the yogurt and melted butter (don’t worry if the butter solidifies a little while you do this). Pour the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a flexible spatula until no loose flour remains.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and sprinkle just a bit of flour on top. Pat out the dough into a 6-inch square, about 1½ inches tall. Using a bench scraper or a chef’s knife, cut the dough into nine square

biscuits and evenly space them on the prepared baking sheet.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and the remaining ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt. Brush each biscuit with this egg wash and decorate its top with a dill sprig.

Bake until the tops and bottoms of the biscuits are nicely browned, 17 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before placing the biscuits on a serving plate. Enjoy with loads of softened salted butter. Yields 9 biscuits.

BETTER-THAN-APPLE-PIE BARS

Apple pie is great, but apple pie bars are, well, better. I like Honeycrisp and Pink Ladies in these bars, but I won’t lie: Granny Smiths are my go-to. The crumb topping and crust can be made old-school style with your hands (always the best tools in the kitchen), but if you use your food processer, you will save time. The crumb topping and crust soften a bit on day two, and that is hardly a bad thing.

FOR THE TOPPING AND CRUST

Cooking spray or softened unsalted butter, for the pan

2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for flouring your fingers

¾ cup granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

10 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR THE FILLING

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1½ tablespoons all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

4–5 medium apples (about 1½ pounds total), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced (about ¼ inch thick)

1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease an 8-inch square cake pan with cooking spray or softened butter. Line the pan with a long piece of parchment paper that extends up and over two opposite sides of the pan.

To make the crumb topping and crust by hand, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients using your fingers, until

(Continued on p. 102)

Pear It Up

Step aside, apples: This flavorful fall fruit is ready for its star turn.

BY AMY TRAVERSO

STYLED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY LIZ NEILY

Okay, pumpkin spice. Yeah, yeah, cider doughnut. This fall, let’s instead remember the versatile wonder that is the humble pear. I say “humble” because to say “things went pear-shaped” isn’t a compliment. To be described as “pearshaped” isn’t really one, either. But looks aside, this fruit has few equals when it’s ripe, exploding with flavor and dissolving into a nectar-like syrup on the tongue.

The following two recipes can make use of any variety of pear (since there are only about a dozen being grown in any volume in this country, you won’t be overwhelmed by options). And the pears you choose don’t even have to be ripe. The higher acidity of unripe fruit works better in many baked dishes, especially those with a sweet sauce, such as the sticky toffee puddings, or savory dishes like the sheet pan chicken. Plus, most supermarket pears are rock-solid and take days to ripen. Who wants to plan ahead for fruit? Enjoy it now, as is.

SHEET PAN CHICKEN WITH PEARS, ONION, WALNUTS, AND BLUE CHEESE

Walnuts, pears, and blue cheese: This classic combination is the perfect marriage of flavors. Here, I take the trio from the cheese tray to the sheet pan, using it as inspiration for an easy and delicious fall meal.

Amy Traverso is Yankee’s senior food editor and cohost of our TV show, Weekends with Yankee

Sheet Pan Chicken with Pears, Onion, Walnuts, and Blue Cheese

Now Airing on Public Television Stations Nationwide

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

1½ teaspoons fennel seeds, crushed (optional)

1 teaspoon plus ½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon plus ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 large pears, unpeeled, cored, and cut into ½-inch-thick slices

1 medium red onion, cut into ½-inch-thick wedges

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ cup walnut halves

8 cups arugula or baby spinach leaves, washed and dried Juice of ½ lemon

2 ounces crumbled Gorgonzola or other blue cheese

Preheat your oven to 450°F and set a rack to the middle position. In a medium bowl, sprinkle the chicken with the fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper. Toss to coat. Arrange on a large rimmed baking sheet. Add the pear slices, onion wedges, olive oil, and remaining salt and pepper to the bowl and toss to coat. Arrange the mixture around the chicken and transfer to the oven. Bake for 25 minutes. Scatter the walnuts around the baking sheet and cook for 5 more minutes. The chicken should be nicely browned and crisp. If not, bake a few

minutes more. Remove from oven. Arrange the arugula or spinach on a serving platter. Top with the pears, onions, and walnuts, and sprinkle lemon juice over all. Then top with the chicken thighs, sprinkle with blue cheese, and serve. Yields 4 servings.

PEAR STICKY TOFFEE PUDDINGS

The British use “pudding” to describe a variety of desserts, but by American standards, these little treats, which are baked in a muffin tin, are cakes. Sweet and moist (thanks to pureed dates), topped with pear slices and soaked in a rich toffee sauce, they’re the perfect finale to any meal.

2 medium unripe pears, peeled

³⁄4 cup chopped pitted dates (about 7 large dates)

½ teaspoon baking soda

¹⁄ 3 cup boiling water

¹⁄ 3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large egg

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (80 grams) all-purpose flour

³⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon baking powder

FOR THE SAUCE

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

¼ cup heavy cream ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 350°F and set a rack to the middle position. Take a standard 12-cup muffin tin and spray 8 wells with nonstick baking spray (you won’t be using the rest). If you don’t have baking spray, you can grease them with butter and then dust with flour.

Stand a pear upright on a cutting board. Slice down each side so that you have four ¼-inch-thick slices of pear. Repeat with the second pear. Lay each slice, rounded-side down, into the center of a muffin cup. Set aside.

Put the dates in a small bowl with the baking soda. Pour the boiling water on top and stir so that the dates are submerged, then let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes while you make the batter.

Using a stand or handheld mixer, beat the brown sugar and butter on medium-high speed until creamy, about 1 minute, scraping down the sides of the bowl regularly. Add the egg and beat until blended. Sprinkle in the flour, salt, and baking powder and mix on low speed until evenly combined.

Puree the date mixture in a blender or with an immersion blender, then add it to the batter and mix on low speed until evenly combined.

Using a tablespoon, drop the batter into each of the prepared muffin cups, dividing it evenly. It will settle around the pear slices. Bake until the cakes are fragrant and spring back lightly when poked, 18 to 20 minutes. Let the cakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack (hold the rack against the muffin tin, then flip).

Meanwhile, make the sauce: In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar, cream, and salt and whisk until smooth.

Serve the puddings when they’re still a bit warm, spooning a generous amount of the sauce over them. Yields 8 servings.

Pear Sticky Toffee Puddings

Amherst, MA

Alive with both youth and a legacy of poets  and scholars, this college town ranks among the most eclectic and invigorating in New England.

BY KATHARINE WHITTEMORE | PHOTOS BY MEGAN HALEY

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT, OPPOSITE: The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art; scratch-baked whoopie pies at Atkins Farms Country Market; an aerial view of the town common and the Amherst College campus; strolling through the rows at Mike’s Corn Maze; grilled filet mignon with a green peppercorn demi-glace at Sunderland’s Blue Heron Restaurant.

Amherst, Massachusetts, is a wonderfully wordy sort of place. Peppered with professors giving lectures and students furiously writing papers, this small city of about 38,000 (you pronounce it without the “h”: Am-urst) is home to three of the schools in the “Five College Area”: UMass Amherst, Amherst College, and Hampshire College. And if you mill around Amherst’s eclectic, brickand-maple-tree-lined downtown or cross the various campuses, you’ll likely overhear conversations stippled with words like particle physics and Kafka and gender studies—or, for that matter, TikTok.

Plenty of famous wordsmiths have lived in Amherst, too, most notably the em dash–admiring poet Emily Dickinson, but also Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth , and Noah Webster, of Webster’s Dictionary fame, who helped found Amherst College. (A faded verdigris statue of the lexicographer, pompously arrayed in Roman senatorial garb, sits on the North Campus. Students like to adorn it with beanies and event fliers; during the pandemic, Noah wore a mask.)

This is a town, then, of academics and authors—but also activists. They regularly gather at Amherst’s busiest intersection, holding signs next to one of the electrical boxes painted by local artists. I’m partial to the turquoise-and-red box showing Emily Dickinson, with a line from one of her letters: “Pardon my sanity in a world insane.” These days, protesters sometimes march on Amherst Common when they, too, deem the world insane, and the results can go beyond words: Amherst is the second U.S. city, for instance, to start a reparations fund for Black residents. Still, verbosity is the town’s hallmark: Its 240-representative town meetings grew so notorious for their endless opining that, in 2018, the governing structure was streamlined to a 13-member board.

So now you get the joke stamped on coffee mugs sold in town: “Amherst, MA: Where only the ‘h’ is silent.”

LEFT: At the Emily Dickinson Museum, a pinecone is a polite reminder for ardent poetry fans to not actually sit at the writing desk in her bedroom. OPPOSITE: Trees dressed in turning leaves shade a North Pleasant Street sidewalk.

My office looks right onto Amherst Common, and when I tire of banging out my own words, I like to stroll the Amherst Writers Walk, which spirits pedestrians to the lovely, mostly clapboard homes of 12 writers, including Robert Frost, who taught at Amherst College for a spell. The tour’s apogee is the Emily Dickinson Museum, and this fall is a prime time to take in its two properties: The Homestead, where the poet dwelled in possibility, was restored in

2021, and The Evergreens reopened just this year—it’s the impressive Italianate home of Emily’s brother, Austin, and his wife, Susan, who was Emily’s great love.

While Amherst is a fine place for rambling (both the walking and talking varieties), it’s a fine place for eating, too. One thing that sets it apart from other Pioneer Valley towns is the large number of international students who live here, which has translated into a longer-than-average roster of cuisines, including eclectic pan-Asian (try Fresh Side for its terrific tea rolls), Vietnamese (there’s fetching pho at Miss Saigon), and Tibetan (as in MoMo Tibetan Restaurant, with its tasty MoMo dumplings with chili sauce).

But wait—“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” I see the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art looking back at me. This light-filled modern venue, located right by Hampshire College, displays work by not only Carle but also fellow children’s book authors and illustrators, such as Mo Willems (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! ), who lives in nearby Northampton. It is part of Museums10, a collaboration started by the Five College Consortium to highlight area museums on campuses and off. Two are

IN & AROUND AMHERST, MA

EAT & DRINK

The Archives: Amherst’s best-kept secret is a modern speakeasy that opened in 2022 with a faux-studious vibe (among the cocktail options: the Study Abroad). The address is 30 Boltwood Walk, but it’s intentionally tricky to find—dare yourself to try. Facebook

Atkins Farms Country Market: Here’s where to satisfy that seasonal hankering for fresh cider doughnuts—not to mention pumpkin whoopie pies and caramel apples. Plus: Look for the monthly tastings of wines, beers, and ciders. atkinsfarms.com

Blue Heron Restaurant:

The longtime owners of Blue Heron, set in the 1867 Old Town Hall in Sunderland, were 2022 James Beard Award semifinalists for Best Restaurateurs. The culinary results of their expertise (such as the irresistible truffled mushroom risotto) speak for themselves. blueherondining.com

Fresh Side: This Asian fusion cuisine—Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, and more—is innovative and healthy. Try the signature tea rolls or Five Spicy Beef Noodle Soup. There’s sidewalk dining in good weather. freshsideamherstma.com

Protocol: Opened in 2023, Protocol puts a cosmopolitan spin on farm-to-table, with a gleaming bar and copious greenery. Seasonal fare and great bar-food staples fill a menu that the chef calls “high-end and low-brow.” protocol-amherst.com

STAY

Inn on Boltwood: Stay in the heart of it all at this 1926 Colonial Revival hotel, where each of the 49 rooms has a view of either Amherst College or the town center. Its eco-friendly initiatives have earned Silver LEED status, a rare honor for a historic inn. innonboltwood.com

FROM TOP: The Robert Frost Trail invites autumn wandering at the Amethyst Brook Conservation Area; an outdoor firepit warms a brisk afternoon at Amherst’s historic Inn on Boltwood.

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As you enter a room you move with ease. You’re silent, you turn, there is music to your fluidity.

Grace draws us closer. It is the move of the world class gymnast. It is the curve and curl, the twirl at your landing with a smile. The ring you wear is a touch of heaven. It is reaching up to the whisper of an angel.

As you chose to wear this ring your presence is the soul of the artist. Your ring is pure poetry.

To see more of our Clipper Ship Trade Wind Collection go to www.crossjewelers.com/collection/trade-wind or scan this QR Code with your smartphone camera to go directly to see The Clipper Ship Trade Wind Jewelry Collection.

at Amherst College, both free to the public: The Beneski Museum of Natural History has the skeleton of a Columbian mammoth, plus eerie casts of hundreds of dinosaur footprints from the banks of the Connecticut, while the Mead Art Museum displays 5,000 years of artworks and boasts an entire 1611 manor room (stained glass, walnut, lots of crests) brought here from England.

It’s surprising that a town this owlish (Amherst Books, by the way, is an excellent indie bookstore) can also work for night owls.

You’ll find live music, dance, comedy, story slams, and more at The Drake, a recently debuted performance venue named for a long-gone local hotel. Just around the corner is Amherst Cinema, one of the best independent movie theaters in New England. And the UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center hosts top live acts such as the Peking Acrobats, the Mingus Dynasty jazz band, and, coming this October, Dropkick Murphys.

Amid all its culture, Amherst also has a high nature GPA. There are lots of easy walking options and hiking destinations, including Hadley’s Skinner State Park, where the Summit House on Mount Holyoke features the most beautiful panoramic view of the area. In Amherst, the Hitchcock Center for the Environment offers looping paths through the woods and a great educational visitors center. Then there’s the Amherst College Wildlife Sanctuary, with trails through 500 acres filled with forest, wetlands, and nearly 100 student-monitored nesting boxes occupied by wrens, bluebirds, and more. On one trail, you’ll stumble across a mailbox, as oddly marvelous a sight as, well, a phantom tollbooth. The box is marked “Free Poetry.” Read the words inside, then leave some of your own. That’s the Amherst way.

PLAY

Amherst Cinema: Offering classics, indies, and National Theatre Live films, this movie house urges you to “See Something Different!”— which could mean bellylaughing at 1959’s Some Like It Hot or quietly weeping at Wim Wenders’s 2023 Perfect Days. Oh, and they serve wine and beer at the high-end snack bar, too. amherstcinema.org

The Drake: Partly funded by the town, this music venue opened in 2022 and quickly drew crowds with such acts as Dinosaur Jr., Regina Carter, and Roomful of Blues. thedrakeamherst.org

Emily Dickinson Museum: Apart from tours, the museum also hosts engaging events such as September’s “Tell It Slant ” poetry festival, which features a group reading of all 1,789 of Dickinson’s poems. Bonus: The creators of the TV series Dickinson recently gave the museum a number of the show’s costumes. emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art: Carle’s beautiful illustrations from The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other childhood classics share the spotlight with rotating exhibits (this fall, look for the work of Brazilian illustrator Roger Mello), as well as kid-friendly art projects and storytelling sessions. carlemuseum.org

Mike’s Maze: Wagon rides, pedal carts, potato cannons, a playground, a petting zoo, and a wildly inventive eight-acre corn maze are this Sunderland attraction’s ingredients for cooking up a perfect autumn play day. mikesmaze.com

Skinner State Park: Hike or drive to the top of Mount Holyoke, crowned by a former 19th-century hotel, and soak up the summit views of jewel-toned foliage and the Connecticut River Valley. mass.gov/locations/ skinner-state-park

FROM TOP: Pumpkins take their turn in the seasonal spotlight at Atkins Farms Country Market; employee Eliot Cardinaux, a local poet, behind the counter at Amherst Books.

“ SALT WATER MARSH ”

A Great Place for Bird Watching

This Forrest Pirovano painting is of a salt marsh on Cape Cod

While the sandy beaches of Cape Cod often get all the attention, a natural beauty lurks in the background that often gets overlooked. Cape Cod’s salt marshes provide miles of natural beauty while offering a safe habitat for several wildlife species and protecting the shores from erosion. Fish, turtles, and birds, including rare species like the eastern box turtle, least tern, and river herring come to the marshes for nesting and feeding. For people, these coastal areas provide not only picturesque views, but also a welcome buffer against stormy weather and a natural filter for pollutants. Next time you are exploring Cape Cod, take a minute to appreciate the beauty and importance of the local salt marshes.

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Forrest Pirovano is a Cape Cod artist. His paintings capture the picturesque landscape and seascapes of the Cape which have a universal appeal. His paintings often include the many antique wooden sailboats and picturesque lighthouses that are home to Cape Cod.

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Playing the Markets

Among the best drives you can take this fall are the ones that lead you to a colorful and bountiful New England farmers’ market.

COMPILED

BY

BILL SCHELLER

CONNECTICUT

COVENTRY FARMERS’ MARKET:

Tucked between Willimantic and Storrs, Connecticut’s largest farmers’ market takes place Sundays at the Hale Homestead, the 1755 birthplace of patriot Nathan Hale. Locally grown produce and homemade treats abound, and the schedule is packed with special events including a pumpkin harvest celebration, a holiday market, and Dog Day, which features pup-related events and treats—and even rescue dogs to adopt. Depending on when you visit, you might also learn about 18th-century hearth

cooking and the games Nathan Hale played here as a boy. coventryfarmersmarket.org

DANBURY FARMERS’ MARKET: Danbury might have earned renown as the “Hat City” in its manufacturing heyday, but farming still looms large in southwestern Connecticut. A cornucopia of local produce spills onto Danbury Green on Saturdays, with heritage growers such as South Glastonbury’s Killam & Bassette Farmstead and the ninth-generation Mitchell Farm being joined by newcomers offering microgreens, CBD salves, and fresh-ground coffee. Check the website for recipes using the latest harvests. danburyfarmersmarket.org

GREENWICH FARMERS’ MARKET: Yes, it’s a commuter parking lot, and yes, that’s I-95 across the way, but the countryside comes to Greenwich on Saturdays, bringing fresh produce, artisan breads, organic raw cold-pressed juices, microgreens and edible flowers, lamb and chicken, and—offered throughout the season as they ripen—stone fruit and berries from South Glastonbury’s Woodland Farm. The apple pie from Oronoque Farms Bakery has been voted best in Connecticut. greenwichfarmersmarketct.com

(Continued on p. 108)

Shopping the farmers’ market in Waitsfield, Vermont, comes with some bonus leaf peeping on the scenic Mad River Green.

SMALL TOWNS, BIG COLOR

This little pocket of rural New Hampshire just might be the best and least-crowded foliage destination in New England.

BY MEL ALLEN | PHOTOS BY OLIVER PARINI

New Hampshire’s Route 101 is the main east-west highway through the Monadnock Region, but it can still feel like a country road when it rolls through an unspoiled autumn vista like this one, at

Howe Reservoir in Dublin.

n my 45th autumn in the Monadnock Region since I first arrived here one October, I ask myself: Where would I take a friend who has never been to this beguiling place tucked into southwestern New Hampshire? And this is my answer. Here is where we’d go.

Let’s begin on high, looking for hawks. We drive up a twisting 1.3-mile road at Miller State Park to reach the 2,290-foot summit of Pack Monadnock, the little sibling of the mountain for which this region is named. The park lies four miles east of downtown Peterborough, and we will soon stop there—but now, on a brisk fall morning, we look outward and upward.

The wind swirls, the air cools, and color sweeps across the landscape below us, visible through summit clearings. A sign points to an outcropping where on clear days you can see all the way to Boston, 75 miles distant. Another sign leads you to a view of Mount Monadnock itself. “The mountain that stands alone” looms to the west, in the town of Jaffrey; for two centuries, the stark bald summit of this signature peak has enticed hundreds of thousands of visitors to climb to the top.

Another day, we might join them on one of Monadnock’s many trails, but this morning we’re headed for the “hawk watch” observation deck. The thermals above Pack Monadnock make this a key point in a raptor migration highway, attracting crowds of hawks as they wing their way southward each autumn. A few years ago, watchers counted more than 5,000 on a single day. Naturalists from the Harris Center for Conservation Education in nearby Hancock often will be on hand to identify and talk about the soaring hawks, falcons, and eagles that keep our eyes skyward.

And this is how many people first come to know the Monadnock Region: from mountain summits with sweeping views that take in forests and lakes and distant villages. But those of us who live here know it for the intimacy of small towns with waterways too numerous to name. We know it for slow drives in fresh air. And for the country lanes where we walk and bike, the trails we hike, the ponds and rivers we paddle. But we also know it for sitting, for taking our ease by town greens and stone walls and at cafés, watching the business of a

town unfold; and for driving endless curves, ever alert for the unexpected. We know it for the artists and musicians and chefs and artisan bakers who have settled here, giving travelers new reasons to visit out-of-the-way places that once were all but forgotten.

So come meander with me. We will start from Peterborough, my hometown, and loop southward and then north and west before returning. The next day we will set off from Keene, the region’s only city, with some 23,000 residents. On each drive we’ll stop often, and as day passes easily into twilight, we will wonder where the time went.

THE PETERBOROUGH DRIVE

A Day of Small-Town Delights

For me, Peterborough defines the Monadnock Region more than any other of its nearly 40 towns. Just before you reach the town from

the east, the road opens up to a view of Mount Monadnock that is both an invitation and a promise. Here is the peace and beauty that for more than a century has inspired thousands of writers, painters, filmmakers, and other art ists to create masterpieces in their cabins at MacDowell, one of the oldest artist residency programs in the country. You can feel that inspiration as you stroll among Peterborough’s shops, restaurants, and parks, accompanied by the music of two rivers coursing through town. To my mind, the most memorable kind of foli age display is a single tree erupting with color, and the tall maple in Depot Square will stop you cold. You will know the one I mean—right by the walking bridge next to Bowerbird & Friends, a gem of an antiques and decor shop. We could pass hours exploring in town, but instead a sweet drive takes us through villages that connect one to the next like a ribbon

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Looking down Windy Row, a classic country road that links Peterborough and Hancock; a scene from Peterborough’s Depot Square; Jaffrey Center’s Old Meeting House and the cemetery where author Willa Cather is buried.

through forest and farmland and old homes fronting country roads. We first come to the center of Temple, home to America’s oldest town band, and pause to visit the Old Burying Ground, where the early settlers lie in the most bucolic final resting place you could imagine. Next comes a slight detour to Ben’s Sugar Shack and the Maple Station Market, after which you’ll never think of maple syrup (and fresh maple doughnuts) the same way again.

The road climbs on the way to Hilltop Café in Wilton; at times it feels as if we are driving into the clouds hanging over the meadows. The risk of stopping at the café is that with a setting so lovely and peaceful, and food so satisfying, we’ll be reluctant to leave. But leave we must, so we follow the Souhegan River to the turn to visit Frye’s Measure Mill, a historic Wilton landmark where Shaker- and colonial-style wooden boxes have been made since 1858.

We pass through Lyndeborough and Greenfield before stopping in Francestown. If you can’t come here for foliage season, visit on Labor Day, when Francestown puts on a celebration unlike any I know, with parade floats

and a rummage sale that fills a dozen horse stalls just off the village center. This is also where to find the Francestown Village Store, a place to which I’m always drawn. After operating nonstop for more than 200 years, it closed a few years ago, and townspeople lamented they had lost their community’s “beating heart.” Then a Wall Street Journal story about the store caught the eye of a West Coast man who was taken by its sentiment. He bought the building, paid for its renovation, and donated it to the local historical society. A newly arrived resident took over running the store, which today opens at 6 a.m. and lets you load up on everything from sandwiches to wine and local crafts until 9 p.m.

Next we head to Hancock, a village that many of us locals consider the most pictureperfect of all, with a Main Street lined with historic homes and a tidy green, a café that attracts foodies from miles around, a shop selling artisanal goat cheese, and a pond on the edge of downtown. We pull in at the nearby Harris Center, whose conservation efforts have shaped the region for decades, and whose trails to mountain vistas will end our day’s journey,

We who live in this region know it as a place for taking our ease by town greens and stone walls and at cafés, watching the business of a town unfold.

just north of Peterborough, as it began: with wonder at nature’s autumn carnival.

THE KEENE DRIVE

A Sampler of Regional Superlatives

We begin in the college town of Keene by walking down New England’s widest Main Street, past enough eateries to keep us nourished for weeks, and pause at Hannah Grimes Marketplace to shop for New England–made crafts and goodies to send to our kids who have long since moved away. In autumn, another Main Street lure is the Keene Pumpkin Festival, a day celebrated with thousands of handcarved jack-o’-lanterns.

A dozen miles north lies Walpole, a town where it is easy to summon superlatives. Is Alyson’s Orchard the prettiest in the country? We say yes. Are the L.A. Burdick Chocolate Shop and Café and the adjoining Restaurant at Burdick’s worthy of driving an hour (or more) to enjoy? And is the town green, lined with historic homes and churches, the best place in the world to walk off the Burdick’s feast you just enjoyed? Yes, and yes.

Next, we’re off to East Alstead. We find Old Settlers Road, a long dirt byway that reminds us why we live in the Monadnock Region, because it leads to Orchard Hill Breadworks. Set on a knoll looking out across acres of rolling fields, this is the place to discover some of the finest, freshest loaves in the land. At a shaded picnic table, we enjoy lunch while watching cyclists cruising past on a lane that takes them all the way to Hancock.

Then we wind our way through Marlow and Stoddard and Nelson—each village offering lakes and ponds and launching spots to entice any paddler—before stopping for an afternoon treat in Harrisville. Considered to be the best-preserved 19th-century industrial community in the country, this is one of the Monadnock Region’s undisputed historic gems. For decades, visitors have strolled beside Harrisville’s lovely pond, taking photos of the original brick mill buildings that are now home to entrepreneurs and artisans including Harrisville Designs, which continues the village’s textile heritage as it spins wool into heirloom-quality yarn. On a hilltop

OPPOSITE: A working farm whose roots go back to the 1700s provides the backdrop for outdoor dining at Wilton’s Hilltop Café.

BELOW: The belfry of the 1859 Cheshire County Courthouse peeks above the storefronts that line Central Square in Keene, the Monadnock Region’s only city.

/

Shown rising behind the historic mill town of Harrisville, Mount Monadnock is a summit long cherished by artists and writers as well as hikers. In 1846 Ralph Waldo Emerson memorialized the mountain in his poem “Monadnoc”: Pillar which God aloft had set / So that men might it not forget

It should be their life’s ornament / And mix itself with each event

overlooking the village center is Harrisville General Store, which ranks among the best country stores anywhere with its fresh farmto-table fare.

From there, it’s five minutes to Dublin and Yankee headquarters, where we take the same walk that’s a lunchtime favorite for me and my staff, a half-hour ramble that leads to Dublin Lake and a view of Monadnock rising behind it. Finally, we drive south through Jaffrey to Jaffrey Center, where the author Willa Cather wrote and lived, before starting back to Keene by way of country roads. A few miles later, we pull over and stop, spellbound. You will know exactly where. A stretch of farmland flows toward the base of Mount Monadnock, which seems planted just for you, just for autumn. And at that moment you may feel kinship with the hawks that are compelled to return every fall, generation after generation, to one of the most beautiful places you will ever know.

n To see the driving maps for this story, visit newengland.com/monadnock-maps.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Chocolate mice at the L.A. Burdick shop in Walpole; the 1859 Sawyers Crossing Bridge, one of four vintage covered bridges in Swanzey; Gail Somers, owner of Yahso Jamaican Grille on Keene’s Main Street; biking down a pastoral dirt road near the Hancock-Peterborough border; naturalist and writer Susie Spikol with her hiking companion, Willow, at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock.

Kayaking along the threemile shoreline of Dublin Lake (also known as Dublin Pond) takes about an hour, but the autumn views may keep paddlers transfixed for far longer.

OUTSIDE INFLUENCES

When it’s time to leave the car behind ...

GRAB YOUR BIKE: The Monadnock Region is laced with miles of biking trails, many of which have been restored and maintained by the nonprofit Monadnock Region Rail Trail Collaborative. In Keene, you’ll find the Ashuelot Recreational Rail Trail, a 21-mile trek over trestle bridges and past farms that concludes in Hinsdale. The 42-mile Cheshire Recreational Rail Trail also runs through Keene, as well as Fitzwilliam and Troy, on its way into Massachusetts. For a shorter scenic jaunt, the nine-mile Fort Hill Recreational Rail Trail in Hinsdale is a river-focused ride along the Connecticut River. monadnockrailtrails.org

TAKE A HIKE: The region’s grandest hiking route is the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway: Running from Mount Monadnock nearly 50 miles north to Newbury, it winds across the Monadnock Highlands, through historic villages, and past rivers and ponds. If your hiking ambitions are limited to Mount Monadnock itself, different trails in Dublin and Marlborough will lead you to the top, but the best starting point for newcomers is Monadnock State Park in Jaffrey. Spread across 6,000 acres, it offers a visitors center, a campground, and more than 35 miles of trails— including the most direct route to the summit, the White Dot Trail.

More walks to remember can be found in the region’s other state parks, including Chesterfield Gorge Natural Area, a great bet for autumn waterfall hiking in Chesterfield; Pisgah State Park, New Hampshire’s largest state park, whose 13,300 acres stretch across Hinsdale, Winchester, and Chesterfield; and Miller State Park in Peterborough, where a summit fire tower offers sweeping views all the way to Boston. msgtc.org; nhstateparks.org

MAKE A SPLASH: You could build an entire autumn vacation around exploring the Monadnock Region’s pristine lakes and rivers. Dublin Lake ( pictured at left) invites paddlers to linger over straight-on views of Mount Monadnock, while Antrim’s remote Willard Pond is a wildlife viewer’s paradise surrounded by more than 1,000 acres of New Hampshire Audubon land. But the best singleday paddling experience just might be exploring the inlets and eddies on Powder Mill Pond, part of the Contoocook River in Hancock, Greenfield, and Bennington. Go far enough, and you’ll float under a beautiful covered bridge on the GreenfieldHancock town line. Don’t have a kayak or canoe of your own? Fitzwilliam’s Monadnock Paddle has daily and weekly rentals for pickup or delivery. monadnockpaddle.com —Ian Aldrich

LOCAL FAVORITES

Where to go and what to do in New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region.

FOOD & DRINK

Brewbakers: Cozy-boho coffee shop bustling with Keene State College students and locals; top-notch breakfast (and lunch) sandwiches along with house-roasted coffee. Keene; brewbakerskeene.com

Flag Leaf Bakery: Open Fridays and Saturdays only—but no one complains when they get their hands on fragrant whole-grain loaves and their sweet or savory pastries of choice (like caramel cruffins plumped with Earl Grey pastry cream). Antrim; flagleafbakery.com

restaurant, a gift shop, Englishstyle gardens, and the Little Red Riding Hood Museum. Mason; pickityplace.com

Post & Beam Brewing: Smallbatch craft beers in an array of styles (sip like a local with the “Our Town” New England IPA), plus the tasty presence of Blackfire Farm’s pizza truck every weekend through the fall. Peterborough; postandbeambrewery.com

Harlow’s Pub: Rib-sticking fare, New England beers on tap, and atmosphere to the nth degree, thanks to wallto-wall local artifacts and memorabilia. Peterborough; harlowspub.com

Harrisville General Store: Founded in 1838 and renowned today for freshmade sandwiches and salads with uniquely local flavor (it’s a lunchtime favorite of Yankee staff). Harrisville; historic harrisville.org/general-store

Hilltop Café: Casual, creative farm-to-table food to enjoy in an 18th-century farmhouse or out on its lawn, where the view spans woodlands, fields, and resident farm animals. Wilton; thehilltopcafe.com

Luca: A dining landmark on Keene’s Central Square for more than two decades, serving up flavors from Europe’s sunniest lands. Keene; lucakeene.com

Orchard Hill Breadworks: French, olive-rosemary, homestyle multigrain, cinnamonraisin, cornmeal pumpkin, and more, all naturally leavened and baked by artisans’ hands. East Alstead; orchardhillbreadworks.com

Parker’s Maple Barn: Specializing in pancakes and waffles ideal for soaking up house-made maple syrup. And their maple frappe? Simply impossible to say no to. Mason; parkersmaplebarn.com

Pickity Place: An entrancing backstory awaits at this historic cottage—along with a gourmet

The Restaurant at Burdick’s: Widely known foodie hot spot, thanks to its elegant dining room and French-inspired menu (filmmaker and local resident Ken Burns is a fan). Walpole; 47mainwalpole.com

Alyson’s Orchard, Walpole

Orchard Hill Breadworks, East Alstead

The Restaurant at Burdick’s, Walpole

Brewbakers, Keene

Chesterfield Inn, West Chesterfield

Yahso Jamaican Grille: This is the reason why Caribbean cuisine—jerk chicken, banana fritters, tender braised beef oxtail— deserves a place among college-town staples. Keene; yahsojamaicangrille.com

SHOPS & ATTRACTIONS

Alice Blue: No cookie-cutter fashion in sight at this women’s clothing shop that brings relaxed sophistication to country living. Peterborough; Facebook

Alyson’s Orchard: PYO paradise that offers 50-odd varieties of apples and heart-stopping views from its hilltop perch. Walpole; alysonsorchard.com

Bowerbird & Friends: Eclectic independent boutique that’s stylish inside (vintage furniture and decor) and out (plants and garden accessories). Peterborough; bowerbirdfriends.com

Colonial Theatre: Beautifully restored, smartly revitalized, and ready for its second century of anchoring the

region’s performing arts scene. Keene; thecolonial.org

Frye’s Measure Mill: Water has powered the Frye’s mill since 1858, turning the belt-driven machinery that artisans still use to create classic trays and round or oval boxes true to Shaker design. Wilton; fryesmill.com

Hannah Grimes Marketplace: Brimming with the work

of 250-plus local artists and makers, housewares, and home decor as well as New England–made foods. Keene; hannahgrimes marketplace.com

Harrisville Designs: Beautifully links Harrisville’s mill-town heritage to the present by continuing the tradition of spinning 100-percent-virgin-wool yarn. Harrisville; harrisville.com

The Maple Station Market: Sprawling farm market, deli, and maple showcase all rolled into one. The maple doughnuts (dusted in sugar and so fresh they’re still warm) are heaven. Temple; bensmaplesyrup.com

Mariposa Museum: A celebration of the richness of cross-cultural encounters, from Swedish folk singers to Indian shadow

puppetry. Peterborough; mariposamuseum.org

Toadstool Bookshop: One of New England’s best indie booksellers and an essential stop for local-interest reading. Peterborough & Keene; toadbooks.com

EVENTS

Ashuelot Concerts: World-class chamber music made even sweeter by intimate small-town venues. See website for dates and locations. ashuelotconcerts.org

Keene Pumpkin Festival: Come for the giant tower of jack-o’-lanterns, stay for the Halloween-y fun. 10/12; pumpkinfestival.org

Monadnock Art Open Studios Tour: A can’t-miss cultural event spanning half a dozen towns and 10 times as many painters, sculptors, and other artists. 10/12–10/14; monadnockart.org

Monadnock International Film Festival: Three days of eyeopening indie films—regional, national, and international—at venues in Keene and Jaffrey. 10/4–10/6; moniff.org

LODGING

Chesterfield Inn: Historic, elegant—and dog-friendly, too. The on-site restaurant is a local fine-dining landmark. West Chesterfield; chesterfieldinn.com

Cranberry Meadow Farm Inn: Luxurious eight-room B&B with miles of hiking trails practically on the doorstep. Peterborough; cranberrymeadowfarminn.com

The Inn at East Hill Farm: Family-friendly, farm-tastic stay that counts Mount Monadnock among its closest neighbors. Troy; east-hill-farm.com

The Inn at Valley Farms: One of the state’s most romantic stays, set on an 18th-century working farm. Walpole; innatvalleyfarms.com

Harrisville General Store, Harrisville

Harrisville Designs, Harrisville

Cambridge Typewriter owner Tom Furrier at his workbench, where he has sat every day for 44 years. “I get asked all the time how many typewriters I’ve repaired over my career,” he says. “Many years ago I figured out that I repair about 700 typewriters a year. So that would be about 30,000 in all. Can you imagine how big of a pile that would be?”

Tom Furrier wants to apologize for “the mess.” It’s a Friday morning in May, and Furrier is trying to explain the setup of his shop, Cambridge Typewriter, a tight, shotgun-style space in Arlington, Massachusetts. Metal shelves, tables, and even the floor are lined with typewriters of different vintages—some 300 in all. A narrow path between the stacks of machines leads to Furrier’s desk, which backs up to a cabinet of obscure parts and is itself a home to a rare Chinese typewriter holding 2,500 different characters.

A tall man with a thatch of brown hair that hangs over the tops of his ears and wearing a pair of square, darkrimmed glasses, Furrier takes a seat at his desk and surveys the scene. “It’s not always like this, but”—he shakes his head—“we’ve been busy, and trying to keep up with everything has been a challenge.”

But today will be a quiet one—few calls, even fewer drop-ins—which will allow Furrier to anchor himself in the back workroom, where he hopes to finish reconditioning a 1950s Corona Zephyr. It’s a cramped space that Furrier has put to creative use. A back shelf overflows with boxes of rollers and other typewriter parts, including the carcasses of a few junked machines. In the adjoining bathroom, a stack of IBM Selectrics resides next to the toilet.

To call Cambridge Typewriter just a shop misses the point. In a metropolitan area that was once filled with businesses devoted to typewriter sales and repair, Furrier’s is the lone survivor, and one of the few of its kind left in the Northeast. After first coming to Cambridge Typewriter in 1980, when it still resided in Cambridge, Furrier took over as owner a decade later. And in one sense, he is a fix-it and sales guy: restoring treasured machines for some clients, finding obscure ones for others. (Even reminders of Furrier’s once-robust service calls still occasionally occur, thanks to the handful of government and law offices that continue to rely on typewriters.)

But in another sense, Furrier is both a curator and the embodiment of an analog experience that thrives as a contrast to the touchscreen world outside Cambridge Typewriter’s walls. Furrier rarely uses a computer and only reluctantly began carrying a cellphone. A landline receives the shop calls, every one of which he logs with pen and paper. A record player, often playing jazz vinyl, provides a steady soundtrack, while the tools of Furrier’s trade are a collection of obscure mini flathead screwdrivers, scissors, and hooks.

“When people come here for the first time, they do kind of marvel at the place,” says Furrier. “What I do, how I operate, what this place looks like—it’s a throwback. But

then as soon as someone gets their fingers on a typewriter, there’s something that also feels comforting. Young people, especially, tell me all the time: There are no distractions. You can’t multitask. You have to zero in and concentrate. And you have to carefully pick and choose what you write.

“And then you’ve got the sensory feedback from the typewriter itself,” he continues. “The rhythm of the typewriter kind of meshes with the speed of your thoughts coming out of your brain. They work together, and that’s something you’re never going to get from a computer.”

Furrier’s expertise in—and shared enthusiasm for— these old machines has led to close ties with typewriterloving authors such as Tayari Jones and the late David McCullough, as well as a collaboration with Errol Morris for his 2017 miniseries, Wormwood. Furrier himself has been the subject of a short documentary. He marvels at the worlds he’s entered. “I would carry Mr. McCullough’s typewriter around like I was holding a baby,” he says. “He wrote all of his books on it, and I kept thinking, If I do something to it, that’s going to be really bad.”

But now Furrier is ready to step aside. He turns 70 next year, and recent health issues have sped up his retirement plans. This past spring, a sale that had been three years in the making fell through, leaving Furrier scrambling to find

:

THIS PAGE, RIGHT: In Furrier’s repair arsenal are specialty implements alongside various spring hooks, wrench sets, and his trusty Sears Craftsman screwdrivers.

THIS PAGE, LEFT: A sampling of vintage typewriters at Furrier’s shop, including a West German–made 1960 Olympia SM4 signed by Tom Hanks (shown top right). An avid typewriter collector, Hanks gifted it to Furrier with a note saying, in part, “you just may be giving this miracle of a machine a fuller, newer life of use.”

a new buyer. He’s asking just $35,000, a price that includes his tools and not just all the machines he has on-site, but also the several hundred others he has at home. If he can’t sell the shop by the end of the year, he may simply close it for good.

“I love what I do, but I also don’t want to croak at my bench,” he says. “I’ve got stuff I want to do. My wife and I want to travel. We want to spend time with each other. But to just close it up and not see it continue would be the worst possible outcome. That would haunt me.”

Shortly before noon, a woman named Donna steps into the shop clutching an Underwood Five, a bulky machine that was the dominant typewriter for the first few

OPPOSITE

Furrier at his desk in Cambridge Typewriter; behind him is the doorway to his workshop. “I like that it’s tucked away in the back but can still see the front door when people come in.”

decades of the 20th century. Furrier springs to his feet to clear out a space for it.

“I’m so glad I found you,” says Donna, who drove up from her home on the South Shore. “We spoke on the phone not that long ago.”

Furrier takes a seat in front of the machine and begins to look at it. “You wanted a tune-up, right?”

Donna nods. “This was my mother’s,” she explains. “She’s 98 now, and her parents gave her this when she was 16. They were living in Braintree and her father bought it in Boston. He carried it all the way home on the train. It’s so heavy—can you imagine?

“We’ve had it in my house, and my grandchildren thought it would be a fun thing to play with.” She shakes her head. “We’re not going to allow that anymore. I don’t want anything to happen to it. It’s so beautiful.”

Furrier runs his hands over the side panels. “This is all original,” he says admiringly. “It’s from before they went to a single panel.”

He looks up at Donna. “Give me about a month, and I’ll have this nice and shiny. Just like brand-new.”

About a half hour later, a longtime customer named Tom arrives to pick up a similar Underwood, built nearly a century ago, that Furrier has refurbished. “It’s going to have a home in our 1932 house in New Hampshire,” Tom says with pride. He rattles off the seven other machines he’s bought from Furrier over the years. “We’re using them, too—they’re not just showpieces,” he adds. “I have kids in high school and college and always tell them, ‘If you want to add an interesting touch to something, you can’t go wrong with a typed letter.’”

Furrier smiles. “That’s what I like to hear.”

The presence of a typewriter shop may seem like a minor luxury for a downtown. But something valuable is lost, says typewriter historian Richard Polt, when niche expertise is strictly relegated to chat rooms and YouTube. That’s especially true for anyone seeking refuge from the digital mayhem and the growing presence of artificial intelligence.

“You can still find typewriters online very easily, and you can find people online who you can send your typewriter to, and so on,” says Polt, a professor of philosophy at Xavier University in Cincinnati and author of the 2015 book The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century. “But having a physical spot like Cambridge Typewriter where somebody still practices this work, which just seems more and more magical every day—that’s irreplaceable.”

Others agree. Last year, Tom Hanks, whose collection of typewriters numbers north of 250, sent Furrier a signed machine as a thank-you for the commitment to his craft.

Furrier’s obsession with the mechanical began early. The oldest of seven kids, he grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts, under the guidance of parents who encouraged his love of tinkering and learning how machines worked.

“I l ov e th e c l unk e rs from th e 1920s and ’30s becaus e th e y’r e s l ow e r, th e y’r e awkward, th e y’re noisy, and th e y hav e that classic c l icky-c l ack sound.”

ABOVE: Brought in by a customer, a Continental portable “in tough shape” sits on Furrier’s workbench. “It needs a ton of work and will take me a while to do,” he notes. BELOW: The Continental’s mid-1930s German engineering comes into view as Furrier examines the carriage.

Lawn mowers and other small engines held particular fascination for him. “I loved fixing stuff and bringing them back to life,” he says.

Furrier also loved the outdoors, and he would go on to study forestry at the University of New Hampshire, even working in the woods briefly after graduating. But in 1980, a family friend named Ed Vanderwalle, who’d opened Cambridge Typewriter 12 years earlier, asked Furrier if he’d like to work as a repairman.

“He said, ‘Come in for a week to try it out and we’ll see what you’ve got.’” Furrier laughs. “I never left. At the end of that first day, I bonded with it. There was this voice in my head that said, This is what I’m going to be doing. This is going to be my career. I just connected with it. I got the whole vibe of it, the laser focus you need to do the work. It all sunk in.”

Nobody knew it then, of course, but the typewriter era was in its waning days. By the mid-1980s the personal computer had taken hold, and in 1986 Vanderwalle laid off his entire team, even his son, except for one: Tom Furrier. Four years later the owner sold the shop to his protégé for $25,000, and Furrier relocated Cambridge Typewriter to Arlington.

Over the next decade, business only got leaner. By 1999, Furrier could barely keep the lights on. “I’d resigned myself to the fact that this was it,” he says. “I’d even started taking watch-repair classes, thinking that was something I could do. But, I don’t know, this feeling came over me. That I needed to hold on. Don’t close. Something is going to change. I didn’t know what, but I needed to stay open.”

A few years later, Furrier still had his doors open, just barely, when he started noticing a new kind of customer: high school kids. They’d ask questions about his machines and want to test them out. Furrier was baffled.

“There were these girls from Lexington High School who kept coming in to ask about a very specific model of machine. I finally said to them, ‘Why do you want that typewriter?’ One of them just looked at me and said, ‘That’s the machine Sylvia Plath typed her poetry on, silly.’ And it all clicked for me in that moment. There was going to be this resurgence of interest. This was how it was going to work for me.”

In a typical year, Furrier sells around 150 typewriters and repairs about 700 more. Plenty of them are the electric Smith Coronas and IBM Selectrics that were always a staple of his work, but many others are the antique manuals that have caught the attention not just of Furrier’s new generation of customers—a third of his buyers are under the age of 40—but also of the shop owner himself.

“Until then, I didn’t have any typewriters at home,” says Furrier. “It never even occurred to me to type on these things—I fix them all day, why would I want to use them when I’m not at work? I wasn’t working on these old manuals. But then everything changed and I had to learn about them. I’d practice, taking them apart on my bench and put-

ting them back together again and again. They’re a different animal than the [electric machines] I was used to. They have a different vibe, and you kind of resonate with them. I quickly became a fan.”

Furrier’s own admiration for these machines has grown alongside his customers’, and a walk-through of his shop is a tour of some of his favorites: the West German–made Olympia SM3 from the 1950s, the Swiss Hermes models from the 1960s, and the American-built Corona Fours.

“I love the clunkers from the 1920s and ’30s because they’re slower, they’re awkward, they’re noisy, and they have that classic clicky-clack sound,” he says.

In most cases, the machines find him. Long gone is the time when Furrier had to scour flea markets and yard sales to bolster his inventory. Now, on any given day he’ll receive up to six calls from people who are downsizing or cleaning out a parent’s estate and who have an old typewriter that needs a new home. Some simply donate it to Furrier; others he’ll pay as much as $100 for their machine—and the opportunity to spend a good half day stripping and reconditioning it back into working order.

In doing so, Furrier is also helping bring the stories of these typewriters back to life. The portable Royal that a World War I soldier carried into European battlefields to file his reports. The Folding Corona used by the late golfer and writer Francis Ouimet. The Underwood favored by journalist Paul Mowrer, who won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence.

On a few occasions, visitors to the shop have shared with Furrier how typewriters have touched their life—or even saved it. “One guy had tears in his eyes when he was telling this to me because most of the unit he was in [during World War II] got wiped out,” says Furrier. “But he’d been yanked at the last minute because he knew how to type and they needed him in the clerk’s office.”

Those stories may be what Furrier misses the most when he walks out of his shop for the final time. Which is why whoever the next owner of Cambridge Typewriter is, they must carry an appreciation for what those stories mean. Furrier says it’s as important to running the business as having the skills and patience to work on the machines themselves.

“If you’re into typewriters even just a little bit, this is heaven,” he says. “The coolest people on earth use typewriters today. People who are doing really interesting things: artists and musicians and writers. They all have cool stories. You get to hear those stories, and that’s the best thing about this job. You could write a book about it all.”

Preferably on a typewriter.

To inquire about purchasing Cambridge Typewriter, call Tom Furrier at 781-643-7010 or email him at info@cambridgetypewriter.com.

The Bears Next Door

WILD ANIMALS NEED TO BE LEFT ALONE—BUT IN THE SMALL, DENSELY POPULATED STATE OF CONNECTICUT, THAT’S AN INCREASINGLY TALL ORDER.

By Christine Woodside

PHOTO BY COREY ARNOLD

“Backyard Friend” from photographer Corey Arnold’s “Cities Gone Wild” project, originally published in National Geographic .

Ashort walk from a suburban driveway in Canton, Connect icut, a black bear and her cub sleep in their den, a shallow depression in leaf duff underneath a small brush pile and a few downed trees. State biologists Jason Hawley and Melissa Ruszczyk and technicians Kaitlyn Place and Megan Gra ham quietly surround the den. They shoot a dart loaded with sedative into the slumbering mother bear. Right away, she bolts and scoots up a nearby hemlock tree, where she hangs on to semi-dead branches about 15 feet above the ground. She soon passes out while leaning on a sharp branch.

The crew stands below, peering up at her precarious posi tion; Hawley worries the branch could block her breathing. One of the state staffers drives a pickup truck into the woods

and parks beside the tree. Hawley jumps into the truck bed and shimmies up the tree. Hugging the trunk below the bear, he nudges her motionless body back and forth until finally she falls, grazing the truck and cracking its windshield.

Hawley has been through this kind of thing many times. “In my career I’ve had 140 to 150 bears fall out of trees,” he says. “Only one was injured.”

Soon, they have the bear sleeping peacefully on a tarp. She looks healthy: solid, shaped a little like a large 1950s refrigerator, and covered in sleek, dark brown fur. Her pink tongue hangs out a bit. Golden-tinged fur surrounds the pads of her giant paws. On her ear hangs an orange tag, “185.” This bear is sometimes called “Satan Bear” because she ranges near Satan’s Kingdom State Recreation Area on the Farmington River, west of Hartford, Connecticut.

The team members lean over her, doing their work. They take blood and saliva samples and change her GPS collar. The collar will help them track the bear’s movements in her home range and, within that range, her “core area”—the smaller region in which she spends at least half of her time.

The 2-month-old cub sits on the lap of state conservation officer Alexandra Blackwell, half inside her coat; it’s 43 degrees out. This cub is so young that she doesn’t mind a human hold-

ing her, but she will be naturally wary of people very soon, so the biologists have come now, before their presence might interfere. They hoist mama bear up in the tarp to weigh her, then slide her gently back into the shallow den and snuggle the cub beside her. After she wakes up, she will smell that humans have been here and will probably move her den uphill, dragging brush to create another semi-open shelter, rounding out an area in the ground to nurse and protect her cub.

The goal is that mother and cub will never remember this visit. It’s part of the team’s greater mission to keep Connecticut bears wild through study and guidance. What bears need the most, the biologists say, is to be left alone. But leaving bears alone can be difficult in Connecticut. The bears come to the people.

Black bears in Connecticut number around 1,200, most of them in the state’s rural and heavily forested northwest. But they are moving. With no natural predators and no hunting season here, they thrive, with little fear of humans while living ever closer to civilization. In the first four months of 2024, residents reported 1,888 bear sightings to the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). Conflicts with bears—whether over trash cans, bird feeders, farm animals, or the like—were reported in more than half of the state, especially west of the Connecticut River.

For the past several years, bears have been expanding east and south into Avon, Granby, West Hartford, Farmington, ONE CONNECTICUT BEAR ENCOUNTER MADE NATIONAL NEWS WHEN A BEAR GOT INTO A CRATE OF CUPCAKES OUTSIDE AN AVON BAKERY AND DID NOT BUDGE UNTIL IT HAD DEVOURED FIVE DOZEN.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: In Farmington, Connecticut, a homemade sign warns residents against disturbing a denning bear family in the area; Connecticut state wildlife biologist Jason Hawley holds a 2-month-old female black bear cub who was denning with her mother, Bear 185, on a property in Canton; Hawley, right, and fellow wildlife biologist Kyle Testerman examine Bear 185.

ALL PHOTOS ON THIS SPREAD BY SOPHIE PARK (Continued on p. 116)

Days of Our New Lives A FAMILY TRIP LEADS BACK TO THE CROSSROADS OF PAST AND FUTURE.

By Jennifer De Leon

n this sunny October day in Massachusetts, the blue sky stretches wide as my parents, husband, two young sons, and I head to Boston, a city that holds so much history in its pocket— our history.

When my mother was 18, her former elementary school principal loaned her the money for a one-way flight from Guatemala City to Los Angeles. There, she learned English by memorizing five words a day, worked as a livein nanny for four years, and met my father. He, too, had come from Guatemala, but his time in California was—he believed—temporary. His main goal was to make enough money to buy a motorcycle, then head back home.

As with any good story, there was a plot twist: Soon after they were engaged, my father got a job offer he could not turn down (driving trucks, the most money he had ever made); only it was in a place called Boston, Massachusetts. And so

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY DANA SMITH

our family map, like the far-reaching sky above us today, widened. It was in this part of the world that my parents married, became U.S. citizens, and raised three daughters.

As we make our way down the Massachusetts Turnpike, my 10-year-old son practically yells from the back seat (a little too loud, because he wears headphones), “Where are we going again?”

“Faneuil Hall,” I reply.

“So, we’re going to see a hall. Wow.”

“Don’t be like that. It’s where your abuelos became citizens.”

“Oh, yeah,” my mom says, sugar in her voice. “I remember that day. Verdad , Luis?”

My father, wearing a jacket zipped up to the neck and a Patriots hat, simply nods. I watch him in the rearview mirror through my white-rimmed sunglasses. Always, I drive. Otherwise I get carsick, a trait I passed on to my boys. They have playlists and lollipops to distract them. I have the road ahead—and stories. Always stories.

Like how my parents were married in a civil ceremony in a courthouse in Manchester, New Hampshire, instead of Boston because they were afraid that officials at City

When my mother first came to America, she longed to speak Spanish so much that she would open the Yellow Pages, find a random Spanish surname, and dial the number.

Hall would ask too many questions about their legal status. In the mid-1970s, immigration raids were common, and their paperwork had not yet been finalized. They could not imagine being sent back to their home country like returned mail. Safer to quietly marry just over the border, in New Hampshire.

In the car, my mother loves to share stories. She goes on about fulano (so and so) this, and fulana that, sharing random anecdotes about people I vaguely know. But today, the stories spin on the axis of memory. The day my parents became U.S. citizens in Faneuil Hall. And how, aside from the births of their children, it was the most important day in their lives—that, and when they got married.

First, Faneuil Hall. I admit, I didn’t always know the story. But raising kids of my own is a glorious prompt, really, to hear my parents talk about their past. How when my mother first came to America, she longed to

speak Spanish so much that she would open the Yellow Pages, find a random Spanish surname, and dial the number. And how my father used his first paycheck in Boston to buy a winter coat. I love that my boys are inheriting these details, and I hope they will remember this day trip in particular.

After we park, we step onto the sidewalk and stretch a little. Something about autumn in New England always makes me sit up straighter, lean forward, a whiff of cinnamon and sharpened pencils permanently in the air. We are here. In “the city.”

“Be careful!”

“Hold his hand!”

“Did you lock the car?”

I am.

OK.

Yes.

No matter how much time passes, it seems, I am still my parents’ daughter.

And, a mother. “I’m hungry,” my 5-year-old announces. He is wearing a green Gap sweatshirt and sneakers to match. “All right, let’s get some food first,” I say, squeezing his hand.

We walk to Quincy Market, and within 20 minutes, we’re all sitting together on wooden cubes at a table among strangers and tourists for a celebratory meal: Greek salad, clam chowder, chicken lo mein. We ask who wants a bite—Yes, yes, take more . And we smile, at each other, and at our phones for dozens of pictures. There can never be enough.

Afterward, we head toward the actual building, the “hall” where hundreds of naturalization ceremonies have taken place over the years, including that of my parents in the fall of 1982. The location for each year’s ceremony is randomly assigned, my mother explains. Theirs could just as easily have taken place at the Moakley Courthouse, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, or Worcester Art Museum. I imagine my parents on that day, standing—holding hands?—on the creaking wood floor where so many like them had stood before, people for whom American citizenship meant a freedom and protection unlike any other, and possibility, like a lit match to ignite a new life.

Yet I recall a line from one of Annie Dillard’s great essays: “There is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go.” What did my parents let go of that day they lifted their right hands? A past, yes. A country, yes. But also: never again having to worry about not belonging.

We zigzag our way through the crowd, step outside into what is still one of the sunniest October days I can remember, and approach the grand brick building with arched windows, its white steeple making it look even grander. Did it used to be a church? Was the architectural

I believe this is why my mother and father raised their hands inside the Manchester courthouse and Faneuil Hall so long ago: to embrace the new, but never forget the old.

design intentional? Did the building always hold such significance?

“This is it?” my son asks.

From where we stand on the steps of Quincy Market, I can’t help but see the building through his eyes. The structure resembles a child’s drawing, something he might scrawl with crayons. Simple, but significant.

“Sí ,” my mom replies, and sneakily hands him some Sour Patch Kids. My children, like me, are inheritors of the sweetness that comes with being a United States citi zen, which for us was based simply on the latitude and lon gitude of our birthplace. Simple, but significant.

On our way home, we decide to drive through Jamaica Plain, the neighborhood where my parents used to live. My mom narrates the past with every street we pass— stories and anecdotes and more than a few murmurings of “Oooh, I remember….” My dad chimes in every so often with: “Take a left.” Soon, names circle back like familiar spices—Francisca, Irma, Esperanza—as well as the men tion of real estate prices, and regrets for not having bought a triple-decker as an investment. Back then, though, their eyes were on marriage, having their first child, and, of course, citizenship. After they were sworn in that day in Faneuil Hall, they had filed applications for their parents and siblings, extending the possibility of freedom to other branches of the family tree.

As we reach Sheridan Street, where they had rented a second-floor walk-up, everything is smaller, narrower: roads, driveways, spaces between houses. But in my mom’s memory, it is all massive. She taps the window. “Oh, that hill! I remember in winter. Oh, no … when I was pregnant. Forget it!”

now I can also imagine my mother standing in the courthouse in Manchester, New Hampshire, on a Monday morning, her hair pressed into thick black waves, maybe playing with her knuckles as she waits for my father to return from a quick drive to the convenience store to buy film. A camera was one of the first things she had bought in the United States. She has no pictures of herself as a child. Not one. Since then, she has made up for the empty photo albums of her past.

When my father finally returned to the courthouse, she was relieved. But then they realized they didn’t have any

“There,” my father says, when we arrive at the exact house.

The boys tilt their heads up at the second floor, as if a younger version of their grandparents will step out onto the balcony and wave. I look up, too, picturing my parents as a newly married couple, on the verge of a life together.

“This is where you had your wedding reception?” I ask, putting the car in park.

“Forty-eight years ago this October,” my mother says. While I have seen the triple-decker before, years ago,

That Saturday evening, they ate tamales and danced in the space made by pushing the couches against the walls. Someone snapped a picture of the two of them sipping champagne with their arms linked inside each other’s.

Maybe this is what it means to move countries, to have one arm always linked to the past, as the other binds to the future. Maybe I am not so different from them. Even though I was born in Boston, I, too, have always felt an in-between-ness, and a deep connection to Guatemala— what the poet Pablo Neruda called “the tiny dark-skinned country at America’s waist.” I know, now, that this connection began from hearing my parents’ stories, these portals to the past. It is why I want my children to hear them. It is, I believe, why my mother and father raised their hands inside the Manchester courthouse and Faneuil Hall so long ago: to embrace the new, but never forget the old. And so, half a century later, on this glorious autumnal day, we all stand together. We angle our heads back, and squint in the sun.

FINDERS view

One of the oldest camera clubs in the country has seen everything about photography change— except for its hold on the human imagination.

Imagine if the seven men who founded the Boston Society of Amateur Photographers on October 7, 1881, could time-travel to a weekly meeting of their group today, now the Boston Camera Club, at the Old South Church on Copley Square. Back in the 19th century, photography was as much about chemistry as art. The equipment was cumbersome and took time to set up. Patience—and money to finance the pursuit of images—was crucial.

With both the science and practice of photography having seen so many technological advances since the founders’ time, it would be as if they spoke a language from a faraway world when meeting the members of today. They would

look in disbelief and amazement at the photos on display. How could they understand cameras that use no film at all? Or that fly into the sky and take images with no human eye behind the lens? Or that are tiny enough to slip inside a pocket, yet make images of surpassing beauty and clarity? They could not. But if they looked at the photos on these pages, spanning decades and including work by both members and honorary members, here is what they could connect with: the spirit that speaks to all passionate photographers, amateurs and professionals alike. The need to hold a breathtaking moment, and to be able to say, I saw this. And it lives here forever. For all of us to see. —Mel Allen

Playing in the South End: Boston, Massachusetts (1939) ARTHUR GRIFFIN, © GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Among the photographers, artists, scientists, and other notables who have received honorary membership in the Boston Camera Club was Arthur Griffin. Sometimes called “New England’s photographer laureate,” Griffin was a pioneering photojournalist in the mid-20th century who worked for The Boston Globe as well as Life and Time magazines. His legacy lives on at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts.

 Earth Shine over Boston, 2020 | JÜRGEN LOBERT Lobert captured this photo one evening during the pandemic, when “going out into an open space at night was one good way of staying sane,” he says. Using a long lens, he was able to make the moon appear large compared with the city, while bringing both close to the viewer.

 If You Can’t Spot the Sucker at the Table, It’s You, 2024 | PHILIP BORDEN Borden’s multiyear documentary project on street chess players features this evocative portrait of “Doc Chess,” one of two dozen players who congregate daily to play matches in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Diner, 2022 | ELI HOLLANDER

In describing this image he took in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hollander says: “The people in the diner captured my curiosity ... living in their own separate worlds in that particular moment in time, a moment that will never occur again.”

Every Step Counts, 2024 | KELLY CONLIN

Says Conlin: “Urban art provides a compelling backdrop for the hustle and bustle of New Yorkers—and a vivid reminder that ‘every step counts.’”

 PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEFT

Apple Blossoms, 2023 | CRAIG CHILDS

Working in his attic studio in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Childs created this graceful still life with cyanotype photography, a camera-less technique that dates back to the 1840s.

 PREVIOUS SPREAD, RIGHT

Taking a Spin, 2020 | BETH LUCHNER

While visiting Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, Luchner looked up to see the amusement park’s Star Flyer ride in motion, swinging passengers around at a height of more than 200 feet. She caught the perfect circle it made, punctuated by the riders’ different feet and body positions, using only her cellphone camera.

In Between, 2023 | MOTI HODIS

“I love the mystery of lights at the end of tunnels, and how colors, shapes, and people interact with them,” says Hodis, who happened upon this moment in Volterra, Italy.

Setting the Sails for a Race, 2021 | YAIR EGOZY

At the annual schooner festival in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Egozy was aboard a chase boat that let him take action images at relatively close range. “This photo shows the sailors adjusting the sails at a height that I would not have dared to climb.”

Atlantic Puffin, 2021

SIMON BUNYARD

“Puffins fly very fast and are hard to photograph, especially at close range— this was a fun challenge,” says Bunyard, who was watching puffins bringing fish back to their newly hatched chicks on Grimsey Island, 25 miles off the northern coast of Iceland.

Bullough’s Pond Cloudscape: Butterscotch Sunset, 2022 | ELLEN FOUST

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(Continued from p. 43)

the butter is crumbly and pea-sized. Stir in the egg and vanilla with a fork, or your hands, until the mixture holds together when squeezed. Alternatively, to make the topping and crust with a food processor, pulse the dry ingredients and the butter in the bowl of the processer until the butter is pea-sized, then pulse in the egg and vanilla.

Remove 1½ cups of the crumb mixture and refrigerate in a small bowl. Evenly press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan with floured fingers, prick holes in the surface with a fork, and bake for about 15 minutes.

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To make the apple filling, whisk together the granulated sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in the same large bowl in which you made the crust and topping (no need to clean it first). Add the apples and toss to coat with a flexible spatula or your hands. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and toss a final time. Carefully cover the partially baked bottom crust with the filling, pressing it down lightly. Sprinkle with the remaining chilled dough, using your fingers to pinch off and create crumbs, and gently press to adhere.

Lower the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for 60 to 65 minutes, rotating at the halfway point, until the crumb topping is lightly browned and the apples bubble around the edges and are soft in the center. Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature. Serve straight from the pan or lift out of the pan by the parchment overhang, running a butter knife around the edges. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, slice into bars, and serve. Keep the bars in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Yields 16 bars.

BLACK BOTTOM CUPCAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE FILLING

The legendary combo of chocolate and cream cheese in these cupcakes is so good, and yet so weirdly underrated. Here, the

softest and most perfect of chocolate cakes surrounds the tastiest little tangy pocket of sweetened cream cheese, studded with melted chocolaty bits. I like serving them a little warm when the creamy middles are still just this side of molten.

FOR THE FILLING

6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips, finely chopped

FOR THE CUPCAKES

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup packed light brown sugar

¼ cup vegetable oil

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup very hot tap water

1 teaspoon espresso powder (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Have ready a 12-well muffin tin lined with paper liners.

To make the filling, stir together the cream cheese, brown sugar, and salt with a fork in a medium bowl until combined. Gently stir in the egg and vanilla (don’t overmix). Refrigerate while you make the cupcake batter.

To make the cupcakes, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Whisk together the oil, vanilla, and egg in a liquid glass measuring cup and pour over the dry ingredients. Using the same measuring cup, measure the water, whisk in the espresso powder (if using), and pour into the bowl. Whisk the batter until smooth. It will be very thin; don’t worry.

DIRECTIONS

Evenly portion the batter among the prepared muffin wells. Top each with 1½ tablespoons of cream cheese filling, using a small portion scoop or measuring spoons.

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway point, until a wooden skewer inserted into the cupcake comes out with a moist crumb. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 5 minutes, or until you can safely remove the cupcakes from the tin without burning yourself. Serve warm or at room temperature. Keep the cupcakes in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Yields 12 cupcakes.

SPICED PUMPKIN SNACKING CAKE WITH FLUFFIEST CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

This cake turned me into a pumpkin lover. That is partly due to the fact that it is paired with (an outstanding) chocolate buttercream, and chocolate is always a wildly influential player. But there is something else going on here, too. The warming spices, the bright orange color, the tight soft crumb, and the way the flavor and texture improve over a few days—all contribute to making it one of my go-to fall favorites.

FOR THE CAKE

Cooking spray or softened unsalted butter, for the pan

1½ cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¹⁄ 8 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

½ cup vegetable oil

1¼ cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 scant cup (213 grams) pure pumpkin puree

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1¼ cups confectioners’ sugar

Black Bottom Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling

Spiced Pumpkin Snacking Cake with Fluffiest Chocolate Buttercream

¹⁄ 3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons whole milk

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square cake pan with cooking spray or softened butter. Line with a long piece of parchment paper that extends up the two opposite sides of the pan.

To make the cake, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, granulated sugar, and vanilla for 30 seconds; whisk in the eggs, one at a time, and then the pumpkin. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a flexible spatula just until the last streak of flour disappears. If the batter is super lumpy, give it a few more folds until most of the lumps disappear. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and shimmy the pan on the counter to even out the batter.

Bake for 27 to 30 minutes, rotating at the halfway point, until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out with a moist crumb or two. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for about 20 minutes, or until you can safely lift the cake out by the parchment overhang without burning yourself. Run a butter knife around the edges if it resists. Let cool to room temperature before frosting.

To make the buttercream, beat the butter on medium-low speed in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until smooth. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar, a little at a time, and then the cocoa powder and salt, until combined, scraping the bowl with a flexible spatula, as needed. Beat in the milk and vanilla and continue to beat on medium speed for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, as the frosting lightens in color and gets fluffier. Generously frost the cake, leaving the sides bare, and serve. Keep the cake, wrapped, on the counter for up to 3 days. Yields 12 servings.

(Continued from p. 60)

KENT FARMERS’ MARKET: It’s not unusual for day-trippers from New York City to make the 90-mile run to the Housatonic River Valley town of Kent to load up at its Friday market. They’ll head back to the city with fruits and vegetables harvested at the gateway to the Litchfield Hills, along with handmade cheeses, organic baked goods like madeleines and scones, gourmet mushrooms, locally crafted salsa and chips, and honey from a nearby bee farm. kentct.com

OLD SAYBROOK FARMERS’ MARKET:

One day a week isn’t enough for the folks who organize Old Saybrook’s market, held right downtown on the shoreline community’s vibrant Main Street. On Wednesday and Saturday mornings, nearly a dozen vendors offer bread and brownies, free-range eggs, farm-raised pork and chicken, herbal blends for salad dressing, soaps made with goat and sheep milk, handcrafted cheeses, and 20 kinds of pie. oldsaybrookfarmersmarket.com

PUTNAM FARMERS’ MARKET:

Agriculture thrives in the northeastern portion of the Nutmeg State known as the “Quiet Corner.” Eight local growers are on the vendor roster for this year’s lineup of Saturday markets, offering veggies, berries,

eggs, dairy, and meat—perennial plants and cut flowers, too—with Sugarz Bakery in nearby Danielson providing oven-fresh treats. Handcrafted jewelry, soaps, and textiles help round out the artisan section. putnamct.us

WETHERSFIELD FARMERS’ MARKET:

Just down the road from Hartford, the grounds of the 1774 Solomon Welles House are home to Wethersfield’s Thursday market, where eggs from freerange poultry, meat from pasture-raised livestock, organic produce, and smallbatch cheeses star alongside fresh-cut flowers and CBD products. The schedule is sprinkled with special learning events on topics ranging from beekeeping to pizza making. wfmarket.org

MAINE

BLUE HILL FARMERS’ MARKET:

There’s no shortage of good things to eat and drink at the Blue Hill Peninsula’s biggest farmers’ market—fresh produce, of course, and even homemade pasta and coffee from Maine’s first solar-powered roaster. But this Saturday event is also strong on local handicrafts, including Blue Hill Spoonworks’ wooden spoons, Creeping Thyme Farm’s handmade toys, and the region’s most famous artisan

product, represented by Brooklin’s Random Pottery. bluehillfarmersmarket.com

BREWER FARMERS’ MARKET: Over on the Brewer side of the Penobscot, the Bangor area’s largest farmers’ market takes place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in front of the Brewer Auditorium. Amid all the produce, maple, and honey (and bagels and international foods), there’s what we’d expect in Maine: wild blueberries in season, fresh from the barrens. Brewer also offers a crop we wouldn’t expect: Maine cranberries, in three varieties. brewermaine.gov

CAMDEN FARMERS’ MARKET: Just a few blocks back from the waterfront, Camden’s twice-a-week market—spring to fall on Saturdays, and Wednesdays through September—highlights such treats as Brazen Baking’s creations, made with Maine-grown and milled grains; Blue Barren Distillery’s spirits, flavored with local botanicals; and Frontier Maple Sugarworks’ syrup, aged in bourbon barrels. All this, plus an array of fresh produce … and Hubbard Brook Farm’s dozens of styles of handmade baskets. camdenfarmersmarket.org

DAMARISCOTTA FARMERS’ MARKET:

One of the central Maine coast’s most eclectic markets is a staple of summer and fall Friday mornings, with produce from the surrounding countryside complemented by cheeses from Lakin’s Gorges; Broad Arrow Farm’s pasture-raised pork, sold fresh or transformed into mouthwatering charcuterie; Slice O’ Country’s jams, pickles, and condiments; and more than 10 kinds of mushrooms from Wild Fruitings. Colombian street food from Portland’s Maiz is on hand to satisfy grazers. damariscottafarmersmarket.org

ELLSWORTH FARMERS’ MARKET:

Travelers heading for Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park mingle with locals at Ellsworth’s Saturday market, stocking their campsite larders with fresh fruits and vegetables, free-range meats, cheeses, preserves, and maybe a few exotic goodies (think: sourdough cinnamon rolls, chocolate babkas, Indian samosas) to munch in the car. There’s also artisan handiwork including pottery, knitwear, and note cards for travelers to bring back home. Facebook

LEWISTON FARMERS’ MARKET:

Lewiston’s Sunday market, held downtown on the banks of the Androscoggin, offers all the farm-fresh produce, baked goods, meats, and cheeses that you’d expect, but with a multinational flavor. Somali immigrants, experienced in the agricultural

Apples from 18th-Century Purity Farms at the Coventry Farmers’ Market in Connecticut.

Gary Hall

Juniper Studios

Juniper Studios J+J Photo

traditions of their homeland and now adapting to having just one growing season, have joined in the local New Roots Cooperative and are amply represented at the market. lewistonfarmersmarket.com

PORTLAND FARMERS’ MARKET: “Since 1768,” the market folks say, and surely the produce was organic back then, just as it is now. Held at Deering Oaks Park—a place beloved by Portland native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—the Portland market hosts more than two dozen vendors, with some setting up on Wednesdays, some on Saturdays, and other harvesting enough produce for a double appearance. There’s always humanely raised chicken, beef, and pork, and Maine’s coastal bounty shows up in the form of Emily’s Oysters. portlandmainefarmersmarket.org

MASSACHUSETTS

COPLEY SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET:

Tucked between two icons of Boston’s Back Bay—Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library—the green space at Copley Square hosts more than three dozen farmers, bakers, and prepared-food

vendors on Tuesdays and Fridays through late November. With offerings ranging from fresh organic produce to take-home meals, and from gourmet chocolates to local fish and shellfish, this is the Hub’s biggest and most popular farmers’ market. massfarmersmarkets.org

NANTUCKET FARMERS AND ARTISANS MARKET: “Nantucket grown” is the mantra of Sustainable Nantucket’s Saturday market, which showcases produce harvested from farms scattered throughout the island. Surprisingly, more than 50 thrive here, some on land leased from the Nantucket Land Bank—market shoppers can even buy cranberries from a local bog. Vendors include beekeepers, flower growers, and suppliers of artisanal salt (of which, we understand, there’s plenty close by). sustainable-nantucket.org

NEWBURYPORT FARMERS’ MARKET: The Sunday market at Newburyport’s Tannery Marketplace brings together vendors of locally farmed produce (even organic mushrooms), smoked fish, cut flowers, handmade pasta, freshroasted coffee, baked treats, prepared

ethnic foods, and much more. The North Shore’s artisans join in, too, with an array including goat-milk soap, sea glass jewelry, and alpaca woolens. thenewburyportfarmersmarket.org

NORTHAMPTON FARMERS’ MARKET:

If it grows in the Pioneer Valley, you’ll find it in downtown Northampton on market Saturdays. Unlike many seasonal markets, this one goes beyond a plentiful offering of farm-grown foods to include garden perennials, houseplants, and bouquets— and even fig trees, courtesy of Twin Oaks Farm. Zawalick’s Sugar House’s maple syrup, cream, and candies are special treats, as are the berries and other fruits from Westhampton’s Outlook Farm. northamptonfarmersmarket.com

ORLEANS FARMERS’ MARKET: Is there room for agriculture between Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic? Since 1994, Orleans’s Saturday market has answered with a resounding yes. It features fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs from farms, greenhouses, and market gardens from Buzzards Bay to Truro. These share space with seafood vendors, artisan food

producers, craftspeople, and musicians right downtown. orleansfarmersmarket.org

PITTSFIELD FARMERS’ MARKET: The first teen-run farmers’ market in western Massachusetts has a triple mission: providing a retail outlet for the region’s growers, empowering young people eager to bring healthful food to the Pittsfieldarea community, and improving food access for families in need. It’s all part of Roots Rising, a local organization that also gives teens a chance to work on the farms represented at the Saturday market. farmersmarketpittsfield.org

WILLIAMSTOWN FARMERS’ MARKET:

Home to a big name in the Little Ivies, Williamstown hosts one of western Massachusetts’s favorite Saturday markets. Look for just-harvested produce, cheeses and meats from small farms, plus Svenfish’s wild-caught seafood. Don’t miss the naturally leavened sourdough bagels from Hexagon (no, they’re not shaped like that). Berkshires artisans contribute quilts, woodenware, jewelry, ceramics, and other examples of their region’s renowned creativity. williamstownfarmersmarket.org

Follow the Faerie House walking trail and marvel at the artistry and magic of over two dozen pint-sized dwellings. Family fun all month long.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

KEENE FARMERS’ MARKET: This Saturday market keeps it strict: All produce vendors must be based in Cheshire County or one of its surrounding counties, and all prepared products must use local ingredients. Those rules aren’t hard to follow, with organic growers from Rindge, Walpole, Westmoreland, Fitzwilliam, and other southwestern New Hampshire towns well represented. Even the crafts lean local: jewelry from Spofford, and Adirondack furniture from not the Adirondacks, but Swanzey. keenefarmersmarket.com

LANCASTER FARMERS’ MARKET:

Growers from New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont gather at this Saturday market, where crafts play an equally appealing part. Before stocking up on produce (and maybe while devouring a cupcake or three from Liv’s Sweets and Treats), check out the little wooden-faced, knitwear-garbed “North Country Personalities” from Mt. Crescent Crafts, pick up a custom birdhouse, and plan a pampering with lotions and balms from Lancaster’s own Carmella’s. lancasterfarmersmarket.org

LEBANON FARMERS’ MARKET: Colburn Park, the handsome heart of Lebanon, hosts a Thursday evening market that proves this busy stretch of the Upper Connecticut Valley still has plenty of room for organic farming, sugaring, dairying, and smallscale meat producers … and for the Bagel Lady, a perennial market presence. A party atmosphere prevails, with weekly live music, a children’s art tent, craft demonstrations, and dogs—at this market, they’re welcome. lebanonnh.gov/farmersmarket

MWV FARMERS’ MARKET: The initials stand for Mount Washington Valley, and the 14 growers and prepared-food vendors at this North Conway market prove it’s a bountiful valley indeed. Sheilagh Flynn’s colorful, richly detailed tiles are a craft highlight, and spirits from Cathedral Ledge Distillery and Tamworth Distilling reveal a local flair for an ancient alchemy. Held on Tuesdays, the market runs till 7, so the Smokin Rednecks barbecue truck is good to have around as dinnertime approaches. mwvfarmersmarket.com

PETERBOROUGH FARMERS’ MARKET: Wednesday is market day at the Peterborough Community Center, where southern New Hampshire’s farmers, gardeners, and small-scale meat producers share space with craft bakers (Flag Leaf’s croissants, pastries, and naturally leavened breads are a standout), artisan cheesemakers from Bending Branch Farm, and—most

welcome in these days when inland seafood shops are a vanishing breed—Liberty Fish, offering sole, cod, halibut, swordfish, scallops, and more. Facebook

PORTSMOUTH FARMERS’ MARKET:

The Saturday morning event alongside City Hall is the biggest and most varied of four markets run by Seacoast Eat Local; the others are on different days in nearby Durham, Dover, and Exeter. Arrive hungry to cruise vendor booths abounding in locally grown and harvested produce, fresh-caught seafood, and crafts, then head for a picnic table with a sampling of international specialties from Karimah’s Kitchen (Lebanese), Bucovina (Ukrainian), and Tulsi (Indian). seacoasteatlocal.org/portsmouth

TAMWORTH FARMERS’ MARKET:

Tamworth is a small town, but its Saturday market features one of the more eclectic arrays of local products to complement the ubiquitous vegetables, sourdough, maple, and honey. Duck eggs? Goat-milk ice cream? Mead? You’ll find them all here, along with highbush blueberries, cultivated and foraged mushrooms, organic milk and yogurt from grass-fed cows, kombucha, and even jerky for dogs. They’re serious about music, too, with regular folk, bluegrass, and blues performers. tamworthfarmersmarket.org

RHODE ISLAND

BLOCK ISLAND FARMERS’ MARKET:

If one farmers’ market a week is good, two is better. That’s the idea out on Block Island, where Wednesdays and Saturdays are market days. There aren’t all that many farms on the island (the participating 1661 Farmstead, also known for its menagerie of exotic creatures, is an exception), so fresh produce shares space with local scones, pickles, mustard, yogurt, and crafts including jewelry, pottery, and knitwear. bifarmersmarket.com

BURRILLVILLE FARMERS’ MARKET:

Balmy Rhode Island’s long growing season is why melons like cantaloupes and watermelons make an appearance here, while they’re harder to find in northern New England markets. Open Saturdays at the Stillwater Mill Pavilion in Harrisville, this market is where to find berries, too—don’t miss vendors Hickory Hill and Natural Harvest Farm. Rustic Goat and Stonehenge Farm both offer goatmilk soap, but Stonehenge ups the ante with goat-milk caramels. Sweet tooth not satisfied? Look for Gabe’s Family Kettle Corn. burrillvillefarmersmarket.org

CASEY FARM MARKET: In Saunderstown, 300 acres of fields and farmland

surround a handsome 18th-century homestead preserved by Historic New England. Maintaining nearly 400 years of agricultural tradition, the Casey Farm operates as a certified organic source of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers, all available at a Saturday farmers’ market through the end of October, as well as through a community-supported agriculture program. Before shopping, take a guided tour of the farm. casey.farm

HOPE STREET FARMERS’ MARKET:

This Saturday market at Lippitt Memorial Park is a farmer-run cooperative featuring produce, pasture-raised meats, seafood, eggs, baked goods, and more. An artisan fair takes place on market days, and there’s always live music to enjoy with a picnic lunch. hopestreetmarket.com

TIVERTON FARMERS’ MARKET: The most popular farmers’ market on Rhode Island’s eastern shore roves as far afield as Wayland, Massachusetts, for the Neighborhood Farm’s just-harvested produce, and reaches right across the bay to Narragansett’s Brightside Seafood for fresh-caught fish. Each Sunday during the market season, small-batch producers sell everything from cupcakes and pasta to pet food. Shoppers can also browse Ecuadorian woolens, wooden kitchenware, and pottery. tivertonfarmersmarket.com

VERMONT

BRATTLEBORO AREA FARMERS’ MARKET: The Green Mountain State’s original back-to-the-landers and their successors are the soul of Brattleboro’s Saturday market, hosting nearly 60 vendors. Farms along the temperate Connecticut River Valley get a jump on the growing season, and offer their bounty along with homemade granola, artisan spirits and breads, and myriad crafts. brattleborofarmersmarket.com

BURLINGTON FARMERS’ MARKET:

The Queen City’s Saturday market has outgrown its old City Hall Park location and is now a fixture of the South End Arts District. With more than 75 growers and food producers offering things such as grass-fed beef, English muffins, salami, ginger beer, and, yes, shrimp raised in Vermont via aquaculture—plus some three dozen artisan vendors—it’s easy to see why more room was necessary. burlingtonfarmersmarket.org

CAPITAL CITY FARMERS’ MARKET: The golden dome of the State House shines above the crowds, vendors, and musicians at central Vermont’s favorite Saturday

gathering. The Montpelier market brims with organic produce, great baking, and fine craftwork, but also hosts surprises like Community Dock, purveyor of wild-caught Alaska salmon and halibut, and a world tour of eat-while-you-stroll treats. Lots of market regulars wind up skipping dinner. capitalcityfarmersmarket.com

CHAMPLAIN ISLANDS FARMERS’ MARKET: The Champlain Islands’ surprising agricultural abundance stars on two days in two locations: Saturdays in Grand Isle, and Wednesdays in South Hero. Fresh vegetables and fruits from Pomykala Farm and other island growers share space with Black Angus beef from Dreamwalker Farm, handcrafted gelato from Paisley Scoops, black currant specialties from Vermont Currant, and wines from Snow Farm Vineyard. champlainislandsfarmersmarket.org

NORWICH FARMERS’ MARKET: More than 50 vendors take part in the Upper Valley’s biggest and most varied farmers’ market, serving Vermont locals and the Dartmouth College community across the river. Saturday’s out-of-the-ordinary offerings include Norwich Creamery’s ricotta and jerk meats from The Karibbean. Artisan products range from VT Fuzzies’ alpaca yarns and knits to Silo Distillery’s small-batch gin and vodka. norwichfarmersmarket.org

VERMONT FARMERS’ MARKET:

Rutland makes it easy to combine market browsing with a downtown stroll—all the action is right in the city center. After tracking down Rutland’s famous murals, cruise the market for fresh produce, specialties like Mendon Mountain Orchards’ pies, and crafts from candles to indigo-dyed fashions. Wash down an enchilada with an agua fresca (Mexican fruit drink) and maybe have a vegan cookie. The outdoor summer markets are held Wednesday and (the big one) Saturday through the end of October. Note: The Vermont Farmers’ Market also operates in Fair Haven on Thursdays through mid-October. vtfarmersmarket.org

WAITSFIELD FARMERS’ MARKET:

Tucked beneath mountains famed for the Sugarbush and Mad River Glen ski areas, Waitsfield’s market is a prime Saturday destination along iconic Route 100. Shop for fruits, vegetables, and berries from farms throughout the Mad River Valley and beyond, along with artisan breads from the likes of Barre’s Rise Up Bakery, cheeses from von Trapp Farmstead, and spirits from Vermont distillers. There’s lots to nosh, and music is live through mid-October. waitsfieldfarmersmarket.com

Charles Louis Heyde, Steam Train in North Williston, Vermont, (detail) 1850. Oil on canvas, 20 ⅝ x 35 ¼ in. Collection of Shelburne Museum, gift of Edith Hopkins Walker. 1959-49.1. Photography by Andy Duback.

The Bears Next Door

(Continued from p. 85)

Canton, Hartland, and other places west of Hartford. They are also moving south, near the shoreline of Long Island Sound. They seem unfazed by areas where streets, industry, and houses butt up against state forest and other natural lands. They are extending their territory by swimming across the Connecticut River. “Eastern Connecticut could support as many bears as western,” Hawley says. “It’s such good habitat that they will be there eventually.”

Connecticut’s recent bear-human encounters have been a mix of unnerving and downright scary. A bear tried to drag a 10-year-old boy into the woods in Morris in October 2022. Last year in Avon, a bear bit a 74-year-old woman out walking her dog, and another encounter made national news when a bear got into a crate of cupcakes outside an Avon bakery and did not budge until it had devoured five dozen. A Simsbury woman walked into her kitchen

on a Friday afternoon this past May and found the pantry ransacked and a female bear eating and dragging food out to the deck, from which she had broken in via a screened window. State environmental police killed that bear, according to their policy, because she was using houses for food and would continue.

Although 70 to 80 percent of their diet is plants, especially acorns and berries, black bears will eat anything. They will eat turkey eggs, turkeys, deer fawns, dead deer, and other creatures. Hawley has watched bears dismantle a beaver lodge and grab the inhabitants. This is normal behavior by wild animals.

But normal for a Connecticut bear now also means ambling through town. Bears roam up driveways, through backyards, into garages and kitchens, looking for calories. They scoop birdseed out of dangling feeders; they pull lids off garbage cans and eat what they find. They steal farm animal feed. And they will make their dens near or under buildings, attracted to the warmth.

Western District conservation officer Jesse Nivolo says state police have

answered burglary calls and found the “burglar” was a bear. “They don’t take anything of value, and they eat everything in the house,” he says.

Every year, a bear will break into a car somewhere. In Hartland, a bear smelled food inside a Toyota Prius and managed to open the door and climb in. Then it could not get out—and panicked. “Everything was destroyed,” Hawley says. “The steering wheel was gone.” In Sharon, a bear broke into a Volkswagen Rabbit that had been converted to biodiesel, running on used fryolator grease. The bear found jugs of the grease inside and ate it.

After the Craig family in Goshen found the shredded remains of an Amazon package that had gone missing from their front porch—with the bicycle helmet they’d ordered left behind—they placed a trail camera on a nearby tree. “Within a three-day period we had five large bears wander down our front walk,” Melissa Craig says.

On an early evening last October, Jay Cox was reading on his back deck in rural North Guilford. His golden

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retrievers, Bunker and Mosey, lay at his feet. He looked up and spotted a bear lumbering up toward the stone wall that ran below the deck. He called quietly to his wife, Dody. They moved the dogs inside and started filming. They remembered that earlier in the season they’d noticed knocked-down bird feeders and one of the suet cages discarded in the woods. Now the large bear—one not tagged by the state—swaggered to a feeder swinging from the branch of a dogwood tree and began scooping out and eating birdseed. A minute later, Cox says, the bear “gave it a little whack” and ambled away, back toward the woods.

“We took our feeders down,” he says. “We have not put them back up. I miss them. But I loved the bear. He was very dear. He was really cool.”

This bear has no name. That is what sets it apart from Bunker and Mosey. It is a wild animal, and it wants one thing: food. It does not want human love and acceptance. This is the difference that Connecticut’s bear biologists say people need to understand.

A major part of the bear biologists’ work is answering calls from people who don’t know what to do when bears walk onto their properties. The advice: block

up the lattice under porches and decks, secure food, remove bird feeders. For the biologists, the response part of their job can feel like chasing their tails, Hawley says, because many bears here have no fear of humans. In Maine—the most bear-populated state in the Northeast— an annual hunting season has made bears leery of people. Hawley notes that his relatives in Maine have seen bears run away from bird feeders because they associate them with humans. But in Connecticut, it’s the opposite: Mother bears will teach their cubs to follow them to the feeders and the trash cans. Hawley is clearly frustrated. “There’s really nothing good about allowing bears access to these anthropogenic foods,” he says.

The increasing number of bearhuman encounters in Connecticut resulted in the passing of a new state law last October. Among other things, Public Act 23-77 says people may legally kill bears if they are attacking a human or a domestic pet, or entering a building occupied by people. This brings up an obvious question: Should Connecticut legalize bear hunting? Hawley says a hunting season would change how bears act, making them more wary of humans. However, it would be a challenge to manage such a season, since

Living with Bears

My Farmington Valley town and the one just north trade a top ranking back and forth. But this isn’t a point of pride, like some football rivalry. It’s a point of precaution. Connecticut DEEP’s wildlife sightings map currently shows us in second place—by just four bears. And I know that number should be three because I watched a massive bear lumber from my neighbor’s property onto mine while I was gardening just the other day. It’s such a common occurrence that my neighbors and I no longer report most intrusions.

Living with bears means keeping a marine horn and bear spray by my door. It means looking left-right-left

every time I step out. I don’t want to risk a situation like the one my daughter found herself in, when she was heading out to the garage and had locked the house door behind her. Suddenly, she saw a fast-moving bear headed her way. Yes, she screamed, and thankfully, she didn’t fumble her keys. Of course, there are times when sharing my backyard is a joy. We saw “H-1,” as her yellow ear tag christened her, reappear with three adorable cubs twice. I was less happy to watch her devour a bag of my trash, looking up only casually as I banged pots and pans as if to say, “Thank you for the dinner music.” It wasn’t H-1 but some

about 80 percent of the state’s bear habitat is on private land. Where Maine has fewer than 50 people per square mile, Connecticut has almost 750, making it the fourth most densely populated state. This not only complicates the issue of hunting but also puts stress on wildlife—including bears. While checking on and changing the collars of hibernating females in the first three months of 2024, the researchers found that 10 of them had borne no cubs this year. Though Hawley says they don’t know why this happened, it’s not unreasonable to think that stress could be a factor. Certainly, the biologists feel it: Much of what they do to study and protect bears gets noticed. Sometimes when they try to move a bear from an urban area, a crowd will gather nearby and start taking videos with their cellphones.

other wanderer I nearly bumped into one day walking back from retrieving my mail, head down, lost in an L.L. Bean catalog. My crushed-stone drive is a busy intersection on the local bearway, and he wasn’t stopping to avoid our near-collision.

My emotions got a workout that day, but it was nothing compared to the heart thuds I felt after witnessing an actual collision last fall on a dusky, wet back road. Mama dragged her lifeless cub off the road, then hovered, wailing along with her surviving cub. Pure anguish. And the only words of comfort I could find for the equally distraught driver were: “They are everywhere. It is not your fault.”

—Kim Knox Beckius, Yankee travel editor

A recent controlled feeding study over two summers revealed how quickly bears adapt to human food—and how it can actually alter where they range. State biologist Melissa Ruszczyk placed barrels of trail mix in 10 secluded sites on state land within the home ranges of collared bears. The barrels were deliberately situated outside the animals’ core areas so that researchers could see whether wild bears used to wild food would change their movements around easily available human food. Most of the barrels were refilled regularly, but a few were left empty as a control; all were monitored by remote cameras.

Although she is still evaluating the observations, Ruszczyk says early results suggest that the bears—who fast developed a taste for the blend of fruit, nuts, and chocolate—organized their lives around those barrels, changing the core areas within their home ranges. Even at the barrels that were left empty, Ruszczyk notes, she saw bears that acted as if they expected something to be there. “Some bears would huff,” she says. “Some bears would walk right in and sit right next to you. As a bear biologist, it’s almost heartbreaking. It’s funny, but it’s really sad.”

Because these were wild sites and the experiment lasted for only two seasons, the bears quickly readjusted to finding wild food sources when the trail mix

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The Promise

A Most Unusual Gift of Love

disappeared. Bears will not change their ways so easily when they’ve been eating human food in settled areas. They associate people with food, and if the food isn’t there, they start looking for it.

The dynamic becomes even more dangerous when people intentionally feed bears. In many areas of Connecticut, people have fed wild bears regularly so that they return again and again, expecting food. This is, as Ruszczyk puts it, “the ultimate selfishness.”

the poem reads:

Most Unusual Gift of Love

THEPOEMREADS:

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“There are people out there, whether they are doing this unintentionally or intentionally, that have had these chronic food sources available to bears for a decade,” Hawley says. “If this is a female bear, she’s having cubs every other year, so the yearlings stay with her for a year and three months. They’re experiential learners, so they don’t have a chance. Because this is what she’s teaching them: Hey, there’s acorns over here, but this is way better, kids. You can come here and get 10,000 calories in 30 minutes, whereas if you go out and forage acorns, it’s going to take three days. That’s what we were trying to get at, to show how bad this really is.”

Dear Reader,

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Cubs learning to eat human food will grow up, have their own families, and teach them to eat human food. They do have the instinct to look for wild food if human food is removed, but if they’ve been relying on the latter for generations, that switch will take time.

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The drawing you see above is called “The Promise.” It is completely composed of dots of ink. After writing the poem, I worked with a quill pen and placed thousands of these dots, one at a time, to create this gift in honor of my youngest brother and his wife.

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Connecticut’s bear biologists say they spend more time teaching people how to manage the bear-food proximity than they spend studying bears. Hawley says that DEEP hopes to add a provision in wildlife regulations that will allow them to issue warnings to anyone who leaves out bird feeders that result in regular bear visits.

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In 2020, the town of Simsbury passed an ordinance that requires bird feeders be removed between April 1 and November 30; it also prohibits the intentional feeding of wildlife and the improper storage of food, garbage, and other wildlife lures. The penalty: $250 per offense, with the threat of legal action after two offenses.

In 2021 the town of Granby passed a similar ordinance specific to the feed-

ing of black bears. “We aren’t getting a lot of complaints now,” says Captain Kurt LaFlamme of the Granby Police Department. “The ordinance has definitely been helpful.”

Granby residents have seen so many problems with bears and humans that they may have been more than ready for the ordinance. For years, one resident fed bears in her yard, and eventually her neighbors, whose children encountered bears every time they played, put their house on the market. It took forever for the house to sell, the story in town goes.

That brings up the elusive difference between emotional love for a wild animal and respect for a wild animal. Consider that sleeping mother bear in Canton: Anyone watching her, as the biologists took their samples and changed her collar, and noticing how her fur ruffled as they settled her back into her den, may have found it easy to love that animal. Anyone might have wanted to linger, just a bit, in her presence. But in order to keep this bear wild, the humans knew they had to depart.

Jennifer Abalan Kershaw knows firsthand what that tug of emotional attachment feels like. As animal control officer in three bear-heavy towns—Granby, Hartland, and Barkhamsted—she spends a lot of her time dealing with bear interactions and teaching people how not to attract bears—and what to do when the bears come anyway.

Eight years ago Kershaw rescued a bear cub, whose mother apparently had been killed, who kept showing up on people’s porches. She lured the cub into her vehicle with French toast (“I put it out for her, and she went for it,” she recalls) and then took her to a private wildlife rehabilitator. Kershaw chose not to involve the state wildlife division in the rescue, she says, because she feared the cub might be euthanized.

A few months later, she watched as the rehabilitator released the cub into the wild.

“I cried like a baby to see her get set free, back into the wilderness,” Kershaw says. “She went running like she’s supposed to. She didn’t lollygag and turn around. I hope she’s out there producing babies, and is safe and in the woods.”

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Sladust

Life in the Kingdom

(Continued from p. 128)

moments, I consider that without it, I wouldn’t be here right now, bantering with Kyle and Katy, watching the sun glint off the surface of Flagg Pond, my nose filling with the sweet scents of marsh and field and forest, reminded yet again of what a gift it is to live in a place I love so deeply and am blessed to inhabit with people I hold in such high regard as the ones sitting right here beside me.

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I’ve had the privilege of writing this column for nearly a decade. Even more so, I’ve had the privilege of people reading it for nearly a decade. I’ve long believed that the gift of attention is the greatest gift one can give or receive, and for all these years I’ve been the recipient of my readers’ attention. Of your attention. For that, I’m incredibly grateful.

A lot has changed over these years. Our family moved. Our sons have transitioned into and through their teens and are now entering young adulthood. Rye lives in Montana, working on a cattle ranch and as a big-game hunting guide. When I spoke with him only an hour before I sat down to write this, he was at the tail end of his first season of branding, and in his voice I could hear both excitement and the fatigue of long hours. Fin is teaching whitewater kayaking in Idaho only a few hours west of his brother. He lives out of the bed of his old Toyota pickup and tells me it’s not so bad, though sometimes he wishes he had enough headroom to stand upright.

At times, it’s almost overwhelming to me that my children are grown, and that their days begin and end more than 2,500 miles from where I now sit, in places I do not know, and have never even seen, at least not yet. I am so grateful that they are both thriving, and living in embrace of the big, magical experiences this world has to offer. As every parent knows, none of this is guaranteed. All we can do is our best, even in the face of the humbling knowledge that our best might not be enough.

Another thing has changed, too: Penny and I are no longer together. We now live as neighbors, with her in the original home we built nearly a decade ago, and me in the house we built as a rental a few years back. It’s just down the road from her place, perched at the height of a sandy knoll in a way that somehow reminds me of a ship at sea. In the evenings, I work on clearing a copse of spruce and fir along the southeast side of the house where I intend to plant a forest orchard. Thus far, I’ve amassed a satisfying pile of saw logs, stacked a small mountain of brush, and planted a half dozen apple trees along the fringe of the cut.

But in my mind’s eye, I can already see it coming to life, taking a shape I can’t quite bring into focus but which I allow myself to believe will be even more beautiful than I can possibly imagine. And while I might once have been naive enough to say with certainty that I will be here to see those trees bear fruit, my naivete has long since given way to a more realistic acknowledgement that I cannot know with any certainty what the future will bring. But for now, at least, I am settled. For now, I plant with the intention of watching the blossoms unfold for many years to come.

Through all the changes in my life, both over the past year and in the many years before, one thing has remained constant: I love writing this column. I love sharing the small stories of my life, of this place, and of the people who inhabit it. I love how it compels me to slow down, to pay closer attention, to search for just the right words, in just the right order. There are times I feel as if I’ve gotten it right, and times when I know I haven’t. But even that is part of the pleasure, if only because it means that my writing here is an honest reflection of myself: doing the best I know how, but sometimes falling short. I guess that’s maybe about the most any of us can realistically expect of ourselves.  I hope to be sharing stories from the Kingdom for many years to come. And I hope that you’ll all be along for the ride.

Change Happens

What stays constant is the love of the land.

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM HAUGOMAT

n the early evening, Kyle and Katy and I pile into Kyle’s truck and we drive the 16 miles of narrow, winding roads in our town, measuring sections that were damaged—and in many cases, obliterated—by last year’s flooding. There are a lot of sections. I ride in the back seat with one of those wheeled measuring devices at my feet, and when we arrive at each start point, Kyle slows to a fast idle. I open my door and dangle the measuring wheel until we reach the end of the section, at which point I pull it back into the cab, check the recorded distance, and relay it to Katy, who makes a note on

her clipboard. Kyle recites the GPS coordinates off his phone, and she makes a note of these, too. And then it’s on to the next section, the cool, late-day air sluicing through our open windows, fluttering the papers on Katy’s clipboard and raising goose bumps on my arms.

In my worst moments, I curse the government and its infinite spool of red tape, much of which seems to me irrelevant, even nonsensical, more a test of persistence than a gathering of essential information. But in my better

(Continued on p. 127)

It’s been a year since the flooding, and still we are navigating reams of FEMA paperwork, of which there seems to be no end. Twice we’ve been assured that we’ve submitted all the necessary particulars only to discover there’s still more to be done—another set of coordinates, another column of measurements, another stack of invoices, another state permit, and so on. It’s like the end zone keeps moving into a receding horizon, and along with it, the funding that will help our small town claw its way out of the deep financial hole we’ve had to dig in order to reopen our roads.

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