The Most Photographed Farm in New England

Posted on May 24, 2012 by anniegraves1

Oof, it’s been a while, but the best way to jump back in is to take a leap, right? I’ll pick up as if I never took a huge breath and signed on to help my mom move from her deceptively small house…two months ago. Never mind that she collects salvage the way some people collect figurines, never met a paint can she could let go of (eighty-six, and I’ve got kitty litter receipts to prove it), and saves glass jars as if there’s a critical shortage. Everything else in my life fell by the wayside as I entered a nether world of shredders, trash removal guys, piano movers, and became way too familiar with the local U-Haul franchise.

But if I stretch it here, I can almost make an awkward transition to Jenne Farm. I’ve spent the last eight weeks packing up belongings that hold all kinds of memories, whereas this Reading, Vermont, farmhouse evokes memories that we mostly only read about. Time stands still when you drive off Route 106 and climb the rutted dirt road to a hilltop that dips down into a valley spreading out like smooth new butter. A farm, a barn, a cluster of outbuildings.

Early spring, the sap buckets were out. In fall, the photographers descend like leaves.

Gloriously photogenic, and by the way, the most photographed farm in New England. Possibly North America. It’s appeared in films like Forrest Gump and graced magazine covers—Life, Vermont Life, Yankee. But it’s not the sort of pristine, overly precious spread that mogol money buys. It’s the real deal. Daryl and Daryl live here. The farm hangs on by a thread as the heirs struggle to keep the postcard picture alive. They lost a shed last year. Another lists like a ship going down. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, and sad, and like watching memory come to life and then fade away. Well worth a photo, I’d say.

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America’s Stonehenge in Salem, NH

Posted on February 29, 2012 by anniegraves1

Double-walled pathway leading to America's Stonehenge

Anyone who’s a fan of standing stones, mystery, or controversy should run (or drive) to investigate America’s Stonehenge, in Salem, NH. This sprawling installation—a mix of stones, henges (circular Bronze Age structures), Oracle Chamber, and purported Sacrificial Table—is ringed round with a labyrinth of twining stone walls that snake through wraith-like woods, raising as many questions as a mystic’s Ouiji board.

Is it truly 4,000 years old? Who built it? What is its purpose? Will we ever know?

In the end, the pictures tell as compelling a story as any oracle ever could. Here, and below, I’m including a handful of photos in sepia, imagining what visitors in the 19th century would have documented. Somehow the brownish tones seem to capture the mood and haunting essence of the place.

With the Spring Equinox on its way, it’s as easy to imagine Colonial picnickers at this site as it is to picture Druids under a full moon, or Vikings, or Native Americans, tracing the sun as it wheels overhead, across a limitless sky and down over stones, casting shadows and scattering questions….

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An Iconic Russian Museum in Clinton, MA

Posted on February 20, 2012 by anniegraves1

«Annunciation Ustyuzhskoe (from Ustyuzh)». Nov...

Words like “iconic” crop up in our modern culture with the frequency of reality TV shows, losing all meaning in the process, but the Museum of Russian Icons, in Clinton, MA, lives up to every definition of the word. Pictorial representations. Religious images painted on small wooden panels. Objects of uncritical devotion. Emblems. Symbols.

While we’re at it, beautiful, startling, and quietly riveting.

You’d have to travel to Siberia to see a larger collection of these Russian beauties. Not really, but you get the point. With 500 icons unexpectedly tucked away in a gorgeously restored brick mill building in the small town of Clinton, it is one of the largest collections outside Russia, and the largest in North America.

Gordon B. Lankton made a fortune in plastics. While he was at it, he traveled regularly to his company’s factory in Russia, where he developed an obsession with icons. In 2006, Lankton graced us with his vision and his icons, opening a gem of a museum overlooking Clinton’s historic Central Park. The oldest icon dates to 1450; other artifacts go back to the 10th century.

We’re all victims of information overload these days—TMI. For instance, it’s not enough for Merriam-Webster to give me a definition of “icon.” I was also confronted with a string of over 200 words that rhyme with icon, including capon, chiffon, doggone, and krypton. Russian icons are reminders of less information. Confirmation that less is frequently more. A picture can be worth a thousand words, and these solemn images encapsulate something basic, grand, and, in the end, bigger than us all. Iconic indeed.

Hours: Tues-Fri, 11-3; Sat 9-3, Thurs 11-7; 203 Union St., Clinton MA, 978-598-5000.

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Johnson Hall Museum: The Greatest Show on Earth…in Maine

Posted on February 12, 2012 by anniegraves1

Nothing can prepare you for Johnson Hall Museum. Sure, you could catalog everything Bill Johnson has collected since he was 10 and plunked onto his 15-acre property on Route 1, outside Wells, Maine. But just try to find a theme—go on, I dare you.

Bill covets everything. Multiple buildings that he’s dragged here from the four corners of the earth: a Sandy Cove nudist shack; a Depression-era gas station; an 18th century blacksmith shop; a weathered train depot waiting for a train. All jam-crammed with stuff. Moose heads, remnants of an old-fashioned soda fountain, player pianos. Everything here has a story. And Bill’s a natural-born storyteller.

He could pass for Anthony Hopkins’ brother or Archie Bunker wearing a pith helmet over a graying ponytail. Bill’s even got a gleaming 1937 LaSalle auto with the license plate “A Bunker,” and points to it proudly, warbling, “Gee our old LaSalle ran great,” from All in the Family. Then, with a flourish, he opens the door to the main centerpiece—the former Elsie Libby Colonial Tea Room. It’s a cavernous building, overspilling with treasure. Music boxes sing songs from another era; the kitchen’s lined with vintage Garland stoves. There’s a decadent dining table from the set of a Woody Allen movie, delicate scrimshaw, blaring Victrolas, cuckoo clocks, teacup collections. Get the picture? Well you can’t. No one can.

The Johnson Hall Museum abuts the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Bill’s created a refuge of a different sort—a hideout for the lost, the forgotten, the past. A museum as fascinating as the man who imagined it—who has no limits on imagination and whose interests happen to encompass everything.

For a tour of one of the great eccentric collections in New England, call: 207-985-0015. A sign outside the doorway to Bill’s kingdom reads: “Enjoy your pictures. $5 restoration donation. Much obliged.”

Bill Johnson passed away on Saturday, February 1, 2014, at age 73, while at an auction at Bo-Mar Hall in Wells, Maine. He was a warm and wonderful personality.

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Gillette Castle: A Crazy Chateau in Connecticut

Posted on February 6, 2012 by anniegraves1
English: Taken on September 25, 2006 by Kevin ...

Gillette Castle, high on the Seven Sister hills

If interest in the PBS hit Downton Abbey is an indicator, we’re all just a crumpet away from coveting our own castle and footmen. Certainly the Grand Life—American style—is amply on display in the mansions of Newport, R.I., where piped-in hot, cold, and sea water baths relaxed our New World aristocracy.

But a real Euro-style castle in New England?

Thanks to the fortune he made playing Sherlock Holmes in the early 1900s, the wildly successful William Gillette raised a massive 24-room castle atop granite hills overlooking the Connecticut River, in East Haddam, CT. Close friends with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gillette not only wrote and starred in the play, Sherlock Holmes—he coined the expression: “Elementary, my dear fellow! Elementary!”

Supposedly modeled after a French chateau in Normandy, every detail of Gillette Castle was designed by Gillette—including 47 doors with hand-carved puzzle locks and an immense salon with 19-foot-high ceilings. The weirdly beautiful 184-acre estate is dominated by the imposing medieval fortress, which cost $1.1 million to build in 1919 and had a mini-train meandering the premises. Today, that three-mile train route is a walking path adorned with stone-arch bridges and tunnels.

Visual drama worthy of Downton Abbey. As Gillette illustrated—and the Crawley family would no doubt agree—a man’s castle is his home.

When: Grounds open year round; castle Memorial Day – Columbus Day, 10-4:30. Where: East Haddam CT. Bonus: Consider taking the Chester-Hadlyme Ferry, below Gillette Castle, to tiny Chester village—a hidden Connecticut gem. The first passengers rode this ferry in 1769, and for $3, you can follow in their wake. Or: May-October, take a pretty 30-minute train from Essex, CT, with a short hike to the ferry and up to the castle.

 

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Eccentric New England: Weird Destinations and Quirky Pit Stops

Posted on February 3, 2012 by anniegraves1
A political and geographical map of New England

Almost 14.5 million of us

There are loads of great travel quotes, but one of my favorites is from Antonio Machado, a popular Spanish poet: “Traveler, there is no path, paths are made by walking.” It’s got just the right mix of mystery, mysticism, and expansiveness to be profound, but enough authority and simplicity to be a bumper sticker.

Here in New England, we’ve got a small amount of square footage, relatively speaking. Roughly 70,000 square miles, compared to Texas at 268,820 (we could still take them), but it’s jam-crammed with attractions, and we’ve got the travel guides to prove it. Fodor’s, Frommers, and Lonely Planet. Best restaurants, B&Bs, family destinations, and pet-friendly pit stops. Walking, biking, hiking, beaches—it’s all part of our package.

But one of the things that makes NE so great is its weird personality. You think “New England” and there’s an actual visual that comes to mind, for me, anyway. An oddball eccentric who says, “Roads be damned—who needs roads. I’m finding my own path.” A mix of Machado and Robert Frost.

I’m a native New Englander, and my job as a freelance travel writer takes me all over the six states, from the top of Maine to the tip of Connecticut, working diagonally, in a zig-zag through NH, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. There’s an eccentric, weird, fun, unexpected New England out there, and I’d like to start sharing it, blog by blog.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a walk.

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Rocking my blog

Posted on February 2, 2012 by anniegraves1

Just opened my Yahoo page to be confronted by a photo of Jennifer Lopez looking all dewy and tousled, with a caption that reads: “J.Lo rocks two stunning looks in one day.”

It made me realize how much I loathe certain expressions that have become part of our celebrity-reality-show-star culture. Phrases like “rocks a bikini” and “baby bump.”

Somewhere along the line, some copywriter at People or US (all good bathtub reading material, don’t get me wrong) came up with a catchy combo, and then must have thought it was good enough to repeat, just in case you missed it the first time around. An editor liked the hook, used it in a headline, and voila, a stupid phrase was born.

The Delete button is there for a reason.

Anyway, enough rant. Starting tomorrow, I blog a book. Right here. Got an idea for a travel blog that I’m going to try out and see where it leads….

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A Desk with a View

Posted on January 12, 2012 by anniegraves1
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English: Portrait o...

Virginia Woolf

The title is an obvious riff on Virginia Woolf’s A Room with a View.

Technically my official workspace is a Room-with-a-Partial-View upstairs, but I rarely use it. That so-called “real” office has one low-to-the-floor eyebrow window with a small but pretty view if I happen to be crawling around on the floor.

My preferred writing desk is a flip-up shelf in the downstairs dining room, with a row of windows overlooking the river. It’s got just the right amount of legitimate distraction (woodstove needs stoking, birdfeeder needs stocking) and cliché distraction (dishes to be washed, food to be eaten in the adjacent kitchen).

But my favorite way to procrastinate is to pick up binoculars and spy on the birds. I’ve got gangs of chickadees and sparrows, rowdy blue jays, dun-colored goldfinches, and silky waxwings congregating on the feeder just outside my window. Why does the nuthatch hang upside down? Where is Mrs. Cardinal today? All good questions that require my attention.

There’s never any lack of stimulation–I can see the entire back yard from up here, like a captain on a ship’s deck. And this Desk with an Ever-Changing View is captivating in all seasons. Here are a few reasons why:

Late spring is luscious...

with a small sandy beach to keep an eye on...

and a friendly riverside cafe.

Winter is a predictable wonderland, with a thin ribbon of water weaving through.

And spring is full-blown melodrama, depending on rains, snow melt, and dam control.

It's never dull.

Oooh, and my nuthatch is back.

Time to throw another log on the fire. And maybe check out the fridge.

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Down the rabbit hole

Posted on January 10, 2012 by anniegraves1

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Airborne

Since I’m barely breathing out of one nostril and almost everyone I know is sneezing, coughing, or in recovery, I thought it might be fun to dig a little deeper into some facts about the common cold.

Instead, googling ‘interesting cold facts’ took me straight to the interesting gold, goldfish, and golf facts page, without one single sniff in the direction of colds. I took it as a sign to learn a few factoids, and here are the most interesting discoveries I made:

  1. The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 195 pounds.
  2. The goldfish is the most popular fish in the world (actually, in the ‘word’ according to the authoritative source I was using).
  3. Eight-five percent of golfers slice the ball (is that really the best golfers can do?).

Then I looked up ‘funny common cold facts’ and found these hilarious bits:

  1. My friends and I are most contagious on days 2-4.
  2. I really should be feeding a cold and starving a fever, according to Duke U. experts.
  3. The symptoms of inhalation anthrax can mimic the common cold, according to the CDC. Really.

If these are the funny facts, someone needs to check the definition of funny, which according to Merriam-Webster is ‘affording light mirth and laughter.’ I’m still not laughing, but the synonym ‘chucklesome’ is pretty darn hilarious.

Posted in A Desk with a View, Health | 2 Comments

Yogurt makes good floor polish

Posted on January 9, 2012 by anniegraves1

Look at that floor!

Who knew. This morning, when the container of strawberry-pink Stonyfield dropped from the fridge and exploded on the kitchen floor, I had no idea I’d be making an unexpected cleaning-product discovery.

Turns out the slimy sweet yogurt requires multiple scrubbings to remove, unless you happen to like the sound of Uggs sticking and peeling off a wooden floor. Now from my writing desk overlooking the Contoocook River I also have an unbroken view into the kitchen where the floor gleams thanks to its early morning yogurt baptism. I would imagine Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup yields similar results.

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