Winter begins on Dec. 21, the winter solstice and longest night of the year. It’s the season to chase away the darkness with candles, holiday lights, and gatherings around the […]
Visual Stories
FAMILY RECIPE
Biscotti With Love From a Grandma’s Kitchen in Yonkers
A cookie for the holidays and for always
It’s a terrible thing to say about one’s grandmother — especially one’s Italian-American grandmother — but mine was not a great cook. Her specialty was a swamp-like egg drop soup […]
MEET THE MAKER
Dried Flowers Capture Summer Colors in Winter Wreaths
Grower Meryl Gartside brings her design skills full circle
It took a while for Meryl Gartside, the owner of Blue Lobster Flower Farm, to find a way to extend her flower-focused business into the winter months. “I don’t have […]
READING ROOM
Perfectly Pointy or Not, a Tree’s Best When It’s Surrounded by Friends
At the Wellfleet Public Library, a picture book about the search for perfection
Wellfleet resident Corinne Demas wrote The Perfect Tree for her two-year-old granddaughter Morgan. The book, with illustrations by Penelope Dullaghan, came out this year. Morgan is 14 now, but at […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
Leaning Into the Wind and Rain
The air is raw and the mind protests, but the soul wants to go for a walk
I don’t want to leave the house. My mind says no. It insists on comfort, makes claims about self-preservation, and rejects the idea of going for a walk in the […]
WARRIORS WATCH
Hockey Teams Win Their Openers
A weekly wrap-up of Nauset Regional High School sports
EASTHAM — The Nauset Regional High School winter sports season got underway last week with all nine varsity teams in action. Boys and girls basketball and boys and girls hockey […]
EDUCATION
Provincetown Schools International Trips Resume
The 8th graders are headed to London
PROVINCETOWN — Nineteen eighth-graders will be heading to London this spring when the local school tradition of sending upper-grade students on an international journey returns for the first time since […]
RARA AVIS
This Week’s Bird Sightings
Confirmed bird sightings on the Outer Cape in the week preceding the Independent’s deadline on Tuesday, Dec. 13 included the following, based on a report prepared by Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet […]
NAVIGATING BY THE STARS
Jupiter in Aries Is a Starship Enterprise
It’s a good time to boldly go where you haven’t gone before
Better brush up on your Klingon, ensign. On Dec. 20, Jupiter is moving at impulse speed into Aries, and we are bound for strange new worlds. Jupiter rules Sagittarius, which […]
GARDENER’S NOTEBOOK
A Green Garden in Winter
The season’s first frost doesn’t stop Jean Horner from growing food
Text and Drawings by Abraham Storer Jean Horner has been working on farms and in gardens since she was 18, after an earlier gig as a professional polo groom. These […]
PRESERVATION
After 21 Years, Provincetown’s Land Bank Expires
$9-million program paid for conservation land throughout town
PROVINCETOWN — Last month’s special town meeting primarily concerned the town’s sewer expansion program, but there was one significant outlier on the warrant: Article 2, seeking $1.75 million of Land […]
TASTE MEMORIES
The Joy of Cookbooks
Vintage favorites are the ones cooks most want to give
Cookbooks aren’t always for cooking by. That’s what we heard when we asked a few dedicated local cooks about their favorites. These kitchen volumes are for bringing back taste memories […]
ON THE LANDSCAPE
The Simple Joy of Watching the Birds
After hanging a feeder, a nerdiness ensues with new rituals
Five years ago, I walked out into the yard of the house I was renting and hung a bird feeder. “I like birds,” I thought. “Perhaps I’ll enjoy watching them […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Remembering the Rachel, Lost in the Long Storm of 1798
A marble tablet in a Truro cemetery names the crew ‘and one more’
What came to be known as the Long Storm of 1798 arrived on the New England coast on Nov. 17. One Portsmouth, N.H. newspaper, under the headline “Violent Snow Storm,” […]
WARRIORS WATCH
Seasoned Warriors Set to Open Hockey Season Against St. John Paul II
A weekly wrap-up of Nauset Regional High School sports
EASTHAM — When the Nauset High School boys hockey team returns to the ice on Thursday night to face St. John Paul II at the Hyannis Youth and Community Center, […]
