Cottage

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - It takes a certain skill to perfectly toast a marshmallow, which must be impaled exactly in the center with a long stick. You need to position the marshmallow just right over a bank of coals and rotate the stick constantly so the marshmallow turns toasty brown on all sides. When it's evenly cooked and soft in the middle, you must transfer it swiftly to the graham crackers and chocolate square, squeezing to make a perfect s'more. That's one of the simple pleasures of summer that we rediscovered at Hidden Pond, a designer take on the classic Maine woods getaway, located on a country road a mile and...

Changes "This Old House" will make to the Essex cottage: ■ Remove dormer and restore roof line ■ Move kitchen and create first-floor master suite ■ Install metal roof ■ Install more efficient plumbing and heating systems ■ Use stone from property to create foundation veneer ■ Make entrance and first floor accessible...

Helen Lamb picked up the nickname Hellcat for her take-no-prisoners approach to driving, but it fit tidily with all aspects of her life, not least her decision in 1953 to found a summer camp on Martha's Vineyard for the developmentally disabled that would become known as Camp Jabberwocky. Told it would be impossible, she did so anyway. Turning down federal money and the intrusion of outsiders, she built the camp from a borrowed cottage into a 14-acre site in Vineyard Haven, always staffed entirely with volunteers.

ESSEX — When crew members from the venerable PBS series "This Old House" began clearing brush around their next project house a few weeks ago, homeowner John Corcoran put on a hard hat, picked up a chain saw, and worked alongside them. "Part of the reason we moved to Essex was it's a small town, rural, with lots of trees," Corcoran said. "Chain saw therapy, I call it. " The hillside cottage isn't his residence, however. Corcoran and his wife, Julie, have lived in another house close by for nearly a decade, raising four daughters there.

CABBAGE KEY, Fla. - Cabbage Key Inn on Florida's Gulf Coast sounded like the perfect antidote to New England cabin fever: accessible only by boat, no shopping, no television, phenomenal fishing, shells on the beaches, birds in the trees, boat rentals, and a private dock in front of a private cottage. "Old Florida" the ad said. "What the heck is 'Old Florida,' " I asked my wife, Laura, as she booked us a two-bedroom cottage called Cabbage Patch. The answer came about 20 minutes north of the Fort Myers airport.

WORCESTER - Authorities are investigating a Lyman Street fire yesterday that killed a woman in her 60s. The woman's name was not released last night. She was pronounced dead at UMass Memorial Medical Center-University Campus. Deputy Fire Chief Geoffrey Gardell said firefighters pulled the woman from the two-alarm fire at 63 Lyman St. Deputy Chief John Sullivan said that the woman was unconscious when firefighters found her and that she had suffered burns. Heavy smoke and fire was showing from the second floor of the 2 ½-story cottage when...

Changes "This Old House" will make to the Essex cottage: ■ Remove dormer and restore roof line ■ Move kitchen and create first-floor master suite ■ Install metal roof ■ Install more efficient plumbing and heating systems ■ Use stone from property to create foundation veneer ■ Make entrance and first floor accessible...

POMFRET, Conn. - There is more to this bucolic town bisected by scenic Route 169 than meets the eye. A winery surprises with a high-end restaurant. A homespun cafe regularly hosts folk music celebrities. And gift shops double as art galleries. Add an abundance of cozy bed-and-breakfasts, and Pomfret makes a great destination for couples. STAY The town’s newest B&B is Hickory Hill (253 Mashamoquet Road, 860-963-0306, www.hickoryhillbandb.com, $125-$130). The circa 1793 white-pillared home offers two guest rooms with a shared bath and a parlor.

Battle Harbour Battle Island, Labrador& Newfoundland, Canada 709-921-6216 www.battleharbour.com Open July 1-Sept. 15. Accommodations: $22 for a bed in dorm-like setting; $79 for a single room; $88 for a double room in the Battle Harbour Inn ; $132 for a cottage with a double and two single beds, or a double and four singles; and $220 for a cottage that sleeps seven people. Provincial Ferry Services : The St. Barbe-Blanc Sablon auto and passenger ferry runs daily from mid-April to mid-January.

The Board of Selectmen will ask voters to approve the construction of a new ambulance building at the corner of Cottage and Garden streets. If approved, the $1.9 million building would have four bays, a decontamination room, space for six bunks, and a community room seating up to 30. The proposal will be presented to voters on the town ballot in March. - Tom Long

The late Rhode Island artist Maxwell Mays, when asked about the 300 acres he owned here and would bequeath to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, said, "I would like this land to stay open, I would like this land to breathe. " I stood on Hammitt Hill in the middle of the Maxwell Mays Wildlife Refuge, the conservation property Mays left to the Audubon when he died in 2009, a scant 609 feet above sea level but a brisk walk up a well-marked, hilly trail. Breathing deeply from the minor exertion, I took in the sights and sounds of this forest of pine and oak, wetlands, stone walls,...

Former Foxborough resident Don Wilding, author of "Henry Beston's Cape Cod," will speak at the Foxborough Historical Society meeting on March 27 at 7:30 p.m. at the Foxboro Senior Center, 75 Central St. Wilding's talk is titled "Henry Beston's Cape Cod: Inspiration for a National Seashore. " Beston, a Quincy resident, wrote "The Outermost House" in 1927 after spending a year alone in a cottage on Eastham's outer beach. The presentation includes a slide show and a book signing. - Michele Morgan Bolton

CHATHAM - The Cape Cod National Seashore's push to demolish five cottages it considers dangerously vulnerable has come to shove on a remote barrier beach, and many townspeople are outraged. Despite loud opposition from Chatham residents and officials, workers have begun stripping insulation and removing sinks and windows from a cluster of spartan houses that generations of families have used as an isolated getaway on the Atlantic Ocean. The work is scheduled to be completed by April 1, George Price, superintendent of the National Seashore, said Tuesday, so demolition will not interfere...

Police in Hampton, N.H., are investigating a series of copper piping thefts from vacant cottages in the beach area. Police say the suspect or suspects are entering small crawl spaces under cottages through open areas or by prying the hinges of the crawl space doors. Then a pipe-cutting tool is used to remove sections of copper. Police said outdoor showers that use copper piping or are fitted with copper fixtures also are being targeted. The cottages are either vacant for the winter season, or are for sale.

WAREHAM - On a recent afternoon at Town Hall, health agent Robert M. Ethier stood before the bulletin board outside his office with a photo in one hand and a stapler in the other. He glanced at the photo: a dilapidated cottage engulfed by shrubs and trees. Windows were cracked. Weeds poked through the overgrown lawn. Paint was peeling from rotting shingles. He shook his head glumly, placed the picture on the board, and with a few staples - ker-chunk, kerchunk! - the run-down little cottage became the latest addition to his "Wall of Shame.

The high-protein single-serving Fit to Go cottage cheese from Friendship Dairies in New York (99 cents for 5 ounces) works well in a grab-and-go lifestyle. Pick from among 1 percent plain, 1 percent with pineapple, 1 percent whipped, 1 percent no salt added, and more. This is small curd cottage cheese with nothing artificial, very pleasing in taste, texture, and consistency for cottage cheese lovers. And it fits in your purse. Just add a spoon. Available at Stop & Shop Supermarkets.

Q. Our cottage has vertical boards as siding and sheathing — only one layer of boards, and they are tongued and grooved and vertical. Since 1963, when the cottage was built, where the boards end, they are extending a little below the sill and beyond the framework. They are in good shape, except for the bottom two inches, which have become rather soft to the probing of a fingernail. How can I stop that softening and keep water from making it worse? DESPERATE A. The fact that there are no inner sheathing boards complicates the matter.

ESSEX — When crew members from the venerable PBS series "This Old House" began clearing brush around their next project house a few weeks ago, homeowner John Corcoran put on a hard hat, picked up a chain saw, and worked alongside them. "Part of the reason we moved to Essex was it's a small town, rural, with lots of trees," Corcoran said. "Chain saw therapy, I call it. " The hillside cottage isn't his residence, however. Corcoran and his wife, Julie, have lived in another house close by for nearly a decade, raising four daughters there.

Residents opposed to a $32.5 million settlement that allows the sale of Little Neck, a summer cottage colony owned by a Colonial-era land trust set up to benefit the Ipswich public schools, have asked a probate court judge to block the agreement, saying it does not do enough to protect public school children. A motion filed in Essex Probate Court in Salem, where a trial to determine if Little Neck could be sold began Dec. 12, also seeks to have the trial continue and for residents, led by Douglas J. DeAngelis, to be allowed to take part as defendants.

Longtime renters of five federally owned cottages on North Beach Island at Chatham are being told to leave by Dec. 31. The Cape Cod Times reports (http://bit.ly/rZepij) that Cape Cod National Seashore officials are going ahead with announced plans to tear down the cottages, at risk from storms and erosion. Seashore Superintendent George Price said tenants have been notified their annual permits won't be renewed. Local officials and preservationists had hoped to keep the cottages for next year's 300th anniversary of Chatham, or to include them in a wider...