As vacation week looms for New Hampshire schoolchildren, Extension Professor/Specialist Emeritus John Porter reflects on what winter "break" meant for him as a young man on a New Hampshire farm.

When city folks think of winter school vacation, they have plans of trips to Disneyland, ski ventures in the mountains, or lying on a beach in the southern sun. At home on the farm, when my dad thought about school vacation, his mind instantly thought about how he had two boys home for a week to get some extra things done—things that had been set aside in the laboring routines of winter chores.