NH Outside: Fall Archives

Here we are again at the turn of another season. For me this a major point of the year; the harvests are in and the corn fields are stubble, haunted by mice and their kin.

Now I prize the rare days of October’s bright blue weather, a gift worth sapphires. More accurately, they are days of rubies and topaz, citrines and garnets strewn across the hills. I revel in the days of golden sun and towering white clouds soaring over New Hampshire’s mountains are the days brimming with life, and their brevity is a reminder to enjoy it while we can. Wring out the gusto!

It’s true that every lake and pond has a frame of reds, oranges and gold to bronze. Quiet summer days are gone. Blustery days bring whitecaps riding on the larger lakes, but there are those few still mornings when the colors are doubled at the water’s edge. Paddling quietly, moving on the water’s surface, I can cross reflections that disappear as I come to them, beckoning me on like a mirage in the desert.

But the mountains are where autumn’s treasure is on full display. Miles of roads and trails wind through our White Mountains to give unparalleled views over thousands of acres of color and an incredible variety of textures and topographies. I love to move through the deciduous forests from the bright softness of comparatively lush growth to the more austere, rocky slopes.

In these mountains every trail is cut by streams, clear water running from the rocks, seeping or leaping as it obeys gravity and finds its way down the slopes. The sounds of water offer a counterpoint to the rustle of leaves.

As I gain height the evergreens become more prevalent. The breeze has a more whispered voice. Shade holds a chill, but in the sunshine warmth melts through my jacket, sinking into my body. On such a sunny, slightly damp day, I climb higher still, where the balsams fur the rocky slopes, to enjoy the incomparable scent of balsam riding on the cool breeze.

I turn and look out to the northwest to the huge U-shaped valleys where once glaciers hung above like solid clouds and rivers of glacial silt scoured the land. I try to imagine it. I close my eyes and feel the cold wind, chill from the mile-high ice blowing past me. I open them again and it is our own bright and bold October in the mountains.

The views out over some of the glacier-carved valleys give a tempting idea of what the hawks and eagles see as they ride the thermals up the mountainsides. A huge bowl of brilliance, hemmed in by the old worn mountains of New Hampshire’s ranges.

I see how the colors follow ridges and valleys and notice the flaring scarlet of the swamp maples clustering where their roots trail into the dampest soils. Following the jewel-box of deciduous colors trailing up into the dark, spiky evergreens, I see how the evergreens infiltrate the gray of bedrock and talus slopes. I long for wings.

Previews of November’s bleak days come at the very tops of windward slopes where October’s gales have already scoured away the leaves on the few dwarfed hardwoods. Even the hardy evergreens are bent and stunted, edging rock outcrops worn as smooth as pavement.

Still, even in the grey of old rock, I sometimes find an echo of autumn’s colors, a hint of deep red, where actual garnets lie in the stone. I retreat quickly back to the next lower level patting the balsam needles as I pass, hoping to keep their fragrance lingering with me at least until I get home.

These October days of gold and garnet will be my treasure box in winter; one that I will open when the grey and cold gets oppressive. They will see me through until the next turning of the year.

By Carol White, Master Gardener

Hasn’t it gone quiet? The only natural sound seems to be the wind as it blows the leaves in swirls and sways the tall grasses. There are still birds around – sudden little flocks of chickadees landing in the elderberry bush, feeding for a bit, then moving on. They’re here, but so quiet. Even the blue jays move noiselessly through the trees. A shadow on the ground is the only indication that they have swept through the yard. I see a squirrel dash across the yard, but quietly. He hasn’t scolded in weeks.

The sunflower heads hang heavy with seed. They appear bowed in prayer. The bright yellow petals of the black-eyed Susans show only the cone-shaped centers now. The petals have all withered away. In the daylily bed, only Ollalie Keith stands tall and budding. All the other plants have been shorn of scapes and are now resting. The red leaves of the aruncus brighten a dark corner of the woodland garden.

Even the raspberry patch is quiet. The canes are bent over with ripe, purple fruit. The sweet aroma still draws the bees and wasps but they move slowly now. I inadvertently touch one while picking berries and it simply, slowly flies away. I fill a large bowl with the fruit, tossing a berry occasionally to the dog that sniffs around the ground-touching canes.

The other dog has discovered something near the daylily bed and can’t be tempted away. At last, my bowl full, I walk over to check out her discovery. She’s found a new hole near the corner of the stone wall. As always, I’m amazed at the perfect roundness of the hole. Only two inches in diameter, it is as round as a pipe and hidden in the grass. There are no piles of dirt nearby, not like the piles the moles leave around. I once saw a chipmunk come out of just such a hole so I presume a chipmunk made this one. Where is the dirt? How could it have hidden the entrance so well? When I think of the size of the animal and the tiny size of its brain, I’m in awe of what it has accomplished.

This past summer, we’ve been visited by several Northern water snakes. Their black skin is checked with dull red, black, and tan figures, most easily seen when they are digesting a nice meal. Dull from the warmth of the sun and the energy they need to digest, they lounge on the rocks around the vegetable garden. The bulging meal expands the skin, easily revealing the intricate pattern. I know the garden is riddled with chipmunk holes and tunnels, and I wonder if the snakes simply wait near a hole to grab a meal or if they move down into the tunnels to seek their prey. I think they dined well this summer, but I haven’t seen any snakes at all for weeks now. Are they already hibernating, wound around each other in some den?

The ground is littered with acorns, making walking dangerous for the unwary. I pick up empty caps and save them for the fairy houses I hope to make this winter. Perhaps I’ll also scoop up some of the acorns and set them aside to throw out when the winter snow has hidden all other food. I know the blue jays and the squirrels will enjoy them. I wonder if a bear or deer will come by tonight to feast on the acorns. Surely this is food they need to help them fatten up before winter comes.

The pine trees look so odd at this time of year. The old needles are turning brown. Before they fall off, they make a sad contrast to the green of the new needles at the ends of the branches. Once they are gone, the tree looks fine again, the spaces simply dark, not empty.

The needles fall on the lawn and the creeping thyme and the driveway and we rake them up. Some I’ll use in the compost bin throughout the winter to balance out the wet greens from the kitchen. Others I’ll save for an experiment in discouraging slugs from getting to the green beans. Some needles fall among the leaves under the trees and these we leave to compost and give back nutrients to the soil. The lush pile of colored leaves and brown needles are Mother Nature’s own fertilizer, one that has worked well for millennia. I kneel down to smell the aroma of earth and fall and the promise of regrowth come spring.

The air is chilly now. A frost has been predicted for tonight. My outdoor tasks for today are done. It’s time to freeze some raspberries.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

I picked up some leaves on my morning walk through the woods. One is an oak leaf, its vein a brilliant red amid the curled and mottled green. Two others are a maple turned yellow-orange and a pale-lemon-colored, oval leaf with pointed edges.

The change of leaves from green to gold, crimson and bronze is a miraculous yearly happening. In New Hampshire, where the colorscape is renowned for its beauty and draws tourists from all over the world, “leaf peepers” bring money to our state. To me, though, the value of the leaves is in the looking and smelling and appreciating the wonder of it all.

I recently returned to New Hampshire, my native state, after four decades of living elsewhere. No matter where I lived, I always had moments in September or October where I thought about fall back home. People I’ve met in those elsewhere places, who remembered I was from “up there in New England,” would remark knowingly to me about the beauty of fall in Vermont. Yes, fall is pretty in Vermont, I’d say, but I’m from New Hampshire and our trees are just as good-looking as those next door.

There are times when I stop and take in the magnificence of a scene. The swath of rubies, goldenrods, coppers and mahoganies blending with pointy green firs and stands of white birches against a radiant cerulean sky sometimes looks too surreal to be true, but I know it is. I imprint the panorama, because within a week or so after peak season, a rain storm or big blow will scatter those jewels to the ground where they quickly turn brown.

I walk along paths strewn in places with pine needles as thick as sponges underfoot. I see spring ferns that popped up along the sides of the trail and have now turned lime or rusty brown. The heavy summer rains this year spawned many mushrooms, which add to the wide-ranging flora layering the forest floor. Tranquil ponds along the way mirror the kaleidoscope of color and sky. Boulders, their rough surfaces covered in patches of velvety green moss, stand like sentinels watching the land. There’s a pleasant, decaying, earthy smell in the air. Most glorious of all: the canopy of red, orange and yellow I hike beneath.

I’ve read that leaf-color changes begin as deciduous trees sense the shortening days and longer nights. They stop making carbohydrate to feed themselves, and the chlorophyll breaks down, revealing the yellow and orange pigments that were always present in the leaves, but masked by green during the growing season. Bright light and sugars trapped in the leaves produce other pigments that dominate the fall color in many tree species.

I don’t know the names of all the trees whose leaves I picked up, but a Web site declares there are 70 native trees found growing wild in our state, and a state forestry report estimated four billion trees larger than an inch in diameter statewide. So many types, some rare, it often takes a tree expert to identify some of the trees that live here.

There are as many leaf shapes as tree species. Leaves are defined as simple (leaves with one leaflet per stem), or compound (many leaflets per stem). Leaf shapes are given names such as ovate, lanceolate, heart-shaped, and cordate and names such as entire, lobed, serrate, and crenate, to their margins (edges). Botanists say trees evolved their many leaf shapes to capture adequate sunlight and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, to prevent overheating, and prevent excessive water loss.

An article in the Nashua Telegraph estimated that 608 billion colorful leaves fall in our state each year. Many homeowners grouse about all those falling leaves. They see red when they imagine themselves raking and bagging for weeks.

But what proves irritating to some is a rich food source for Mother Earth. As they decay, fallen leaves release nitrogen and minerals such as potassium, calcium, iron, manganese, iron, sodium and zinc to nourish and renew the forest for another growing season. Decaying leaves provide fodder for the lady slippers, wild calla, goldenrod, bittersweet and other woodland plants I see along trail edges early in the year. Smart homeowners mow, mulch and/or compost the leaves to use in flower beds and vegetable gardens.

Like a well-tended garden, my soul is enriched by autumn’s glory. I am reminded fall doesn’t spell the waning of another year, but signals the magic renewal of life itself.

By Pauline Pinard Bogaert, Master Gardener

The thermometer read 24, no wind whispered, and I stood on the driveway inhaling that fine autumn air. The sky, as blue as a kid’s crayon, shimmered as the sun climbed over the ridge to warm our valley. With maple leaves having already dropped, copper and gold blinded me with their fluorescence. A gorgeous autumn morning.

So quiet, so still, and then I heard it: fall. Fall, the verb.

Warmth from the sun had finally reached the treetops behind our home, melting the frost and knocking the final bits of stubbornness from the leaves. They fluttered and cascaded to the forest floor, scratching branches along the way, swooshing a bit in an unfelt air current. With no other sound to compete, they cluttered and clanked, sounding almost as metallic as they looked.

A blue jay squawked, perhaps alerting the others that summer’s camouflage would soon no longer protect them. Perhaps the jay complained about the first deep, deep frost. Perhaps it called an early morning greeting, to wake up the rest of the flock.

Nevertheless, in a week or two, the trees will be bare of this vibrant splendor and we will enter the second phase of autumn: Stick Season. Lovely for its austere elbows and knees of silver and pewter, Stick Season allows us to peer deeper into the woods, watching wildlife meander through the underbrush.

We watch as boulders appear: big, granite, glacial erratics that we haven’t seen since last winter. We welcome them back, though, obviously, they've been sitting there year-round for thousands of years. With each new layer of fall leaves slowly decomposing, the soil around them gets richer each year. Little critters burrow into that soft, matted fluff, hiding seeds and making well-insulated nests.

Perhaps the weathered boulders shift a bit, or crack apart through the freeze-and-thaw cycles during the year, but for the most part they stay put. Some of these boulders, at least the parts we can see, are much bigger than our cars. We are happy to have them remain where they are.

We admire gravity, keeping all that rock in place, and we dodge gravity as our big old oak trees release their acorns. It’s a hard-hat zone near our wood-yard. We hear those plump, nut-nuggets pummel and ricochet off the wheelbarrow, the log-pile covers, and the car if we've forgotten to move it from the ambush. Sometimes, for only for a second or two, we mistake those gray, lichen- and moss-covered boulders for visiting wildlife. Once we debated the bizarre winter arrival of a 36-inch-long rock under our bird feeder. That bobcat quickly decimated the gray squirrel population that frequents our winter-only bird feeders.

Soon, the white stuff will fall. It will cover those fallen leaves and highlight the boulders. Snow will allow us to see the animal tracks of those that live and forage in the forest behind us.

Some beech and oak leaves will cling all winter to the branches. The sun bleaches them of color and they’ll flutter in unseen breezes making a racket of white noise. Finally, they’ll either slowly tatter to pieces or drop when spring’s new buds push their stubborn selves off the branch.

The morning was really waking up now, the sun higher in that cyan sky. Suddenly I heard it dripping, then raining: Ping, ping, ping. How could that be, without a cloud in the sky?

I puzzled for only a second, then grinned and turned to our house. The sun had finally hit the metal roof. The white layer of frost had melted off the edges and dripped to the next roof. Plunk, plunk, plunk.

The frost shower only lasted a minute or two, and I thought of the fleeting moments of life that we so often miss. Find your minute of wonder. Listen to the leaves fall or the frost melt and drip. Inhale that crisp air in the morning or the sensuous deep funk of decaying leaves in the late afternoon. Embrace that tapestry of color by jumping into the leaf pile you just raked. Or crush one of those leaves in your hand and inhale its fragrance. Soon, it will be gone for another year.

By Laura Richardson, Master Gardener

The swamp is quiet now. The great nests high atop the dead trees stand empty and silent. The 18 young great blue herons and their parents have all left. Quiet reigns where once there were raucous cries.

The red-winged blackbirds and grackles have also left, as well as the tree swallows with their iridescent blue wings. The very air seems empty, bereft of their brilliant colors and acrobatic swoops. The deep-throated croaks of the bullfrogs have disappeared. Once the night was filled with their symphonic calls. I look in vain for the four young mallards that swam along so comically behind their mother. She and they have left. Where are they now? Have they joined a group on a larger body of water or have they already begun the great trek south to warmer weather?

The crickets still grind out their evening songs, but slower now, as the cooler nights lessen their enthusiasm. Sometimes a blue jay will squawk about something as it flies over, but mostly, there’s a sense of waiting, a pause in time between the noise and exuberance of summer and the slumber of winter. It’s like the time in the evening when you lie in bed, waiting for sleep, and you listen hard for sounds. Each seems magnified against the empty background.

After clear skies for much of the summer, we’ve had thick gray clouds and heavy precipitation. The rain has brought a new sound, one missing for most of the summer: water running over and through the beavers’ dam. I expect the beavers hear it too and are working to shore up their construction before the winter ice appears. I like the sound of the running water. It’s a soft sound, a background sound, a soothing cadence to the soft rustle of dried grasses.

A swamp maple is already showing off its new garment, the first of many to add a final burst of color before the bare starkness of early winter comes. Soon the sound of wind in the trees will change from a whisper of moving foliage to a rustling of desiccated brown leaves.

Up in the evergreens, the squirrels are busy and not as quiet. With self-important chirps, they dash from limb to limb, out to the very end, knocking off seeds and pine cones, then quickly scurry down the trunk to the ground to gather up all they can. Last fall they must have buried some sunflower seeds in the area behind our shed, for now tall sunflowers nod their heavy heads there like small giants asleep on their feet. How many other plants have begun life thanks to the squirrels’ need to stash food away for colder days?

Suddenly, the winterberry has erupted in brilliant red. One day the berries were a subtle green and the next, scarlet pearls shone out from the leaves. How did it happen so quickly? Nearby, the goldenrod is flaunting sunny hues to light up the shortening days, while the asters add soft shades of purple to the final hours of summer. The elderberries too, are rich in color now, the deep purple looking luscious enough to eat. A small cluster of black-capped chickadees flits from branch to branch, calling as they go, while searching the bark for insects. They let me stand close by, still and silent, and eavesdrop on their conversation.

Evening slips in earlier now. The air is different­crisper, sharper. The sun, already lower in the sky, begins to sink down behind the tall pines long before I’ve finished my twilight walks. I watch the bats dart about overhead. Flit, flit­and gone, lost against the darkening trunks. Only when they fly above the treetops can I see them silhouetted against the sky. Feast now, I tell them, winter is coming.

Everything is in abeyance, waiting, waiting. Standing here, I feel as if Mother Nature is holding her breath, stretching out the last, lingering days of summer while she gathers her energies for the great burst of autumn and its riotous exuberance of reds, oranges, and yellows. And then, at last, the deep rest and deeper quiet of winter.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

These are the days to drink in the precious gold of autumn. As the sun slants low in the sky, the golden hues dazzle us in their brilliance. The black-eyed Susans in the garden flaunt their yellow petals at the wind, which replies by swinging them jauntily in the sunshine. Behind them, tall golden sunflowers nod their huge heads. Each day, the centers expand outward, enveloping the yellow petals until all that’s left are the seeds.

The chipmunks race up the tall stalks to stuff their cheeks with seeds. The chickadees are there too, often hanging upside down as they peck away. A bird releases one seed from its cradle then flies away to crack it open and feast. Are they the birds that have been here all summer long? Or have our birds flown south already and these are migrants from further north, happy to have found a feast to sustain them on their long journey?

Other birds are busy gathering seeds, too. Another flash of gold announces the goldfinch, and soon a small flock of finches is busy eating seedheads around the garden. I watch one bird land on a grass blade nearby and the light stalk sways nearly to the ground. Undeterred, the bird moves along to the very end of the stalk and nibbles on the seed.

The sun dazzles today. It lights up the fading black-eyed Susans and the heavily blooming sunflower stalks, and behind them, the pale gold of clumps of Karl Foerster ornamental grasses. A light breeze is music to the grass, which seems to dance with wild joy.

The goldenrod is buzzing as the bees cover the surface of each cluster of blooms. The bees seem to know that the oncoming cold will soon take the flowers, so they hurry from blossom to blossom. The bees themselves are a golden hue, as are the pouches of pollen on their legs. From sun to flower to bee to pollen, the circle of life itself is represented in the colors of this pigment we humans value so much.

I pick up a fallen maple leaf. The outer edges are a rich, deep red which subtly melds into orange and then gold. In the low sunshine, the colors speak of many things: of spring showers and slowly lengthening days, of the warmth of summer; of cool fall evenings with bright full moons.

On one edge of the leaf, a little grey spider eyes me, then hops to another part of the leaf further away. “Where will you spend the winter?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer, so I put the leaf down where I found it and hope he will survive until spring.

By Susan M. Poirier, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

The fall precipitation has gotten me to thinking of puffballs and bird’s nest fungus. Autumn weather in New England is always a catalyst for mushrooms, and water may be the most important ingredient.

Fungi are neither plant nor animal, but ancient beings that have made up their own rules. This causes abrupt name changes whenever a mycologist discovers some new chemical contortion or connection. Any habitat with even a dribble of moisture has been colonized by some fungal form and there seems no reproductive method that they haven’t tried.

Hardly a matrix remains unchallenged by the astonishing array of fungal enzymes, and many plants over the millennia have made symbiotic alliances with fungi; some plants, including many orchids, can’t live without them. In trees, wood-decay fungi play a key role in producing beautiful, multicolored patterns in the wood called “spalting,” an embellishment especially prized by woodworkers.

Water may be the only commonality agreed upon by all species of fungi. Water awakens the microscopic, thready hyhpae, which comprise the main body of a fungus. This tangle of threads perforates what we persist in believing is solid ground. In industrious self-employment, these hyphae transform larger things into smaller things. These larger things are as varied as granite, trees, leaves, feathers, insects, shower curtains, and the contents of my refrigerator. The foam in brooks is most often a by-product of aquatic fungi.

Dampness finalizes a fungus’s plan to organize and send forth the familiar mushroom. A particle of evaporated water in an intentionally self-cooled mushroom cap catapults a spore on its journey out of the gill or pore off to a suitably damp new beginning or a desiccated and sorry death. The design is so precise that with all our apparatus we could not duplicate it. Even the shape of a mushroom cap is adapted to allow an appropriate air current to move the spore along its way.

I am thinking in tonight’s rain about more unusual forms of fungus though. The bird’s nest fungi are easy to overlook. Very small, but quite common, they look like groups of quarter-inch cups, leftover dinnerware from some Lilliputian gathering. Each contains a few lentil-shaped “eggs.” These capsules contain the spores, and they are waiting for rain. A well-placed raindrop can propel one of these carriers a surprising distance—up to several yards—which is the point. Offspring must be sent off to fresh food supplies.

Some species of these miniscule nests eject “eggs” trailing sticky threads, which cause these reproductive structures to adhere to any surface they strike. With luck, one of these eggs, called peridioles, will accidentally become part of some herbivore’s meal, eventually left behind somewhere, complete with a ready-to-eat lunch.

Rain is also crucial for the continuation of many kinds of puffballs. Unlike the commonly depicted children’s-book mushroom, puffballs have neither gills nor pores to send their spores aloft. Instead, their reproductive dust matures within the protective sphere, a system that prevents premature drying. Expecting rain, a pre-ordained pore enlarges and opens on the upper surface. A few good smacks of a downpour and puffs of spore erupt into a stiff, damp breeze—perfect for starting more puffball mycelium to continue the process of decay beneath a lawn.

The deluges of this past month have caused puffballs galore on a baseball field I know. They glow in the moonlight like little Halloween ghouls arisen mysteriously from barren turf. Some are large enough for late-season myopic outfielders to prematurely explode them. Enough will have escaped intact, awaiting the rain.

By J. Ann Eldridge, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Coverts Cooperator