Remember the story of the red chair? You know, the image I put on Facebook that inspired a visit from a Californian photographer who then sent me the most amazing photograph she had taken of the chair? I wrote all about this last spring, and told everyone I ever met all about it, and you [...]
Archive for the ‘Cape Cod’ Category
Steady Pressure
My mother should write a self-help book. With over 30 years logged as a kindergarten teacher, she has lots of great advice. My husband quoted her in our local paper this week and I have received a few calls and emails saying that her words inspired them. She has certainly inspired me over the years, [...]
Things Are Coming Together
The winter has been unseasonably warm, with Quahog diggers out on the mud flats at low tide in the middle of February. They scatter over the landscape, the afternoon light low on the horizon and it looks like a scene from the Breugel-era, all hand tools, muscle and community. This warm weather is great for [...]
A Walk in Beebe Woods
Walking the Cape Cod woods in winter is a special treat, especially after a light dusting of snow. The jewel in Falmouth’s crown of conservation land is a 300+ acre property called Beebe Woods, which astounds the visitor with ponds, paths, ridges, hidden stone walls and wildlife. I wandered there for several hours yesterday, seeing [...]
Snow Day in Woods Hole
Even though it’s Sunday, I feel like today is a real snow day here in Woods Hole. I mean who can pay bills or even watch football (OK, maybe by late in the day football is OK) when it looks like this outside? My photo essay on the January 21, 2012 snow storm: Dusk last [...]
Tools of the Trades
There are some weeks when being the innkeeper at the Woods Hole Inn does not feel like work, when I look out at the view over the water and just have to pinch myself. This was one of those weeks. The new exterior stairs were completed, and I now have an easy way to walk [...]
The Second Dormer
As the walls come down at the Woods Hole Inn, new bright lumber is installed next to the aged, dark timbers of 140 years ago — marrying the old with the new. Vintage, restored. This week, they ripped the second dormer off the top of the building. I always knew these roofs would need to [...]
Peeling an Onion
Week three of construction started today. Our crew is still demolishing the interiors, literally peeling back the onion-like layers of time to reveal the bones of the house. Our structural engineer Mark comes every so often to make sure the place is still standing. Today he told me that the wood was in excellent condition, [...]
Miniature Tugboats
Late September is often cool and crisp, punctuated by the smell of woodsmoke as people start using their fireplaces to take the chill off rather than fire up the gas-burning boiler. Grass mowing ends as the cool air ends the growing season and the tomato crop withers on the vine. Not this year. It has [...]
Time Machine
In fall, the early settlers of the real Plimouth settlement would have been busy preparing for winter, digging root vegetables into cellars, salting fish caught in the remaining long days and checking the seams on their thatched roofs before the winter storms. Today, a visit to the Plimouth Plantation (a recreated village replete with role [...]
All About Irene
Sunday is already a bit of a blur for me. Mix exhaustion with adrenaline and too much caffeine and you get a solid forget-me drug. I know I made it to the Inn to help with breakfast and there was a large crowd there enjoying the meal after several successful weddings (yes, we had guests [...]
Preparing for Irene
We are preparing for Hurricane Irene. Will she pass with a whimper like last year’s Earl, or rumble through roaring like Bob or Carol, or the dreaded Hurricane of 1938 that decimated this coast so many years ago that only octogenarians remember. Doesn’t much matter because no one can actually see into the future (even [...]
Musings from the Midwest
This dispatch by Casey Manning, a wonderful writer who is here with us for the summer: “There’s something internal that breeds in those who grow up in landlocked states — something that fascinates them about water. For those who age watching blurred cornfields out of passenger windows, it’s hard to fathom the expanse of endless [...]
June is for Weddings
The produce, finally fresh. The sun, steadily shining. The weight of school children’s daily burden, graciously lifted. June is a month understandably adored. And June, throughout centuries of folklore and more modern tradition, is the month for weddings. In Roman myth, the month of June was thought to be lucky for marriage because its namesake, [...]
From Guest Blogger Caroline Matthews
Summer in Woods Hole. Long evenings where the light lingers past 9 pm. Steady ocean breeze from the southwest. Cocktails on the stern of a wooden boat in seersucker suits and floppy hats. That’s what it looked like to me from the glossy magazines. In my 22 years of relentless travel, somehow I had never [...]
Waterworld in Woods Hole
One of the most unique things about Woods Hole is it’s collection of houseboats. See, most of Woods Hole is right on the water. Look at a map and you will see that we are on a peninsula of a peninsula of a peninsula, literally the last little strip of land on the southwestern edge [...]
Farm to Table
At the Woods Hole Inn, we often spend a lot of time on the “table” part of farm-to-table but today I got to head out into the field and see one of the farms that we source food from in the summer. Coonamessett Farm was founded over 30 years ago by Ron Smolovitz, who along [...]
Going Green in Woods Hole
Woods Hole — Members of the Woods Hole Business Association were treated to a tour of the Woods Hole Research Center facility this week where they learned about the scientific organization’s cutting edge green building practices as well as the scope and nature of the WHRC’s research and policy initiatives. The morning started with a [...]
From the Mountaintop
In the summer of 2010, we decided to start offering our guests a custom designed t-shirt and announced a photo contest. We asked guests to wear their “Woods Hole Inn, old number 28, Stylish Lodging and Victuals, Upper Cape Cod” shirts in unusual and visually arresting locations. We asked them to take photos and submit [...]
Spring is Around the Corner
I know it’s getting warmer because I have forgotten to put my slippers on three mornings in a row. Now, when it’s really cold outside, my kitchen floor feels like ice and there is just no way that I can “forget” the slippers that wait under the radiator for me with their soft lambswool lining. [...]
Snow in the Hole
Woods Hole in snow, Landfall Restaurant, Winter Walks, Quicks Hole, Snow in LA
January on Eel Pond
I ran out of steam paying bills at my desk and decided to take a walk around the Eel Pond this afternoon. The clear, still air is colder than usual today in Woods Hole. My brisk walk while the sun was setting revealed boats, houseboats and summer docks stashed for winter. Despite the feeling of [...]
Hurricane Season
Hurricane Earl. We watched you on the news, tracked you online, fretted about you for days. We boarded up windows, moved all the outdoor furniture indoors, warned traveler not to come, even shut our restaurant down in anticiaption of your messy arrival. The hatches were battened by noon Friday. And then we waited. I took [...]
Great Reviews
Great Reviews
Walking around WoHo
From our summer guest blogger Caroline Matthews: I’ve had the great opportunity to live like a genuine Cape Codder: on the water. The nights are always cool and comfortable out on the back porch and the mornings start right at 6:45 thanks to the friendly folks at the Steamship Authority. What to do when you’ve [...]
