It is the first night with a new, but familiar chill that nudges me to get back out of bed and trudge down to the linen closet to get out extra blankets. As I pull the summer-stored stack of cozy cloth up to my neck, I hear the nearby song of Cailleach Oíche -the Night Crone, as I learned from my Irish family as a child -or to most people, a Great Horned owl. Cailleach is a powerful figure in Irish mythology. Her name means “old crone”. She is the shaper and maker of the land, and autumn and winter are her seasons -the seasons of senescence. Her purpose is to remind us of the inherent wisdom of the cycles of nature -teaching us that transformation requires something dying away to bring forth something new. Perhaps no other season evokes such romanticism, such mystery, and traditions of both preparation and celebration, as autumn. Perhaps no other part of the world has harnessed this autumnal magic, or perfected it via a fusion of nature and custom, as perfectly as New England.
Even without human custom and observance, autumn in New England would be a spectacle unmatched worldwide. Mother Earth puts on a show in this region that is more function than frivolity -though you can’t convince me that creatures of the forest and sky don’t pause their pre-winter frenzy now and then to just look and take it all in -even if it’s more for confirmation of their instinctual changes in routine than reverence.
Of course, New England foliage is the star in the show and people come from around the world to see and experience the feeling of being enveloped in a jewel-colored riot of vegetation. The Division of Travel and Tourism Development reports that over 7.5 million people will travel each year to one of the New England states for “leaf peeping” -a particular vacation planned entirely around seeing the fall foliage and taking part in the many autumnal customs and experiences New England has to offer. Over $8 billion annually is generated in New England strictly from fall foliage tourism. Mother Nature has drawn quite a crowd simply doing her thing in this region. That said, the process of taking the land from summer to fall is no small feat and deserves our utmost admiration, respect, and protection.
When the dense, vert, New England “jungle” as I like to call it, begins to be pricked here and there with neon oranges, yellows, and reds, it is actually often a process of returning to true form rather than transforming into something new. Leaves are not, in their original forms, green. Once they develop from their often-colorful bud stage, they turn green due to the chlorophyll that dominates the chloroplasts -specialized organelles that carry out photosynthesis in late spring and summer. When summer wanes, the chlorophyll breaks down, unmasking pigments that were always present or, sometimes, newly produced during the season.
Leaves with yellow and orange pigments are due to carotenoids (xanthophylls, beta‑carotene) and are present all summer but hidden by chlorophyll. Once green fades, they become visible, giving aspen, birch, and some maples their golden tones. Trees with red and purple pigments, via anthocyanins, are the exception because they are produced in fall, not present all year. Their formation depends on trapped sugars, sunlight, and cooler temperatures. This active process can create brilliant scarlets in maples and other species. When the kaleidoscope of fall is past peak, tannins come into play and give the faded brown tones that come from leftover pigments and chemical changes as leaves die and cells break down altogether. These are the skeletons of the canopy that are left just before the first snow fall. I cannot conjure up a more beautiful process of senescence that occurs on earth than the changing of the leaves -though I am sure there are some that rival.
With the canopy of transformation evoking the instinct for survival as well as sentiment, we creatures here below also change from our carefree summer ways to rushed revelry. In New England, some creatures leave and some stay -each having their own winding-down (or up, depending on their habits) process that begins if you watch closely on late August nights. Hummingbirds, that flew thousands of miles northward in the spring -often returning to the same nesting areas, gardens, feeders, and territories they left behind the year before, become little gluttons at the feeders. There is never enough sugar water or an adequate number of feeding holes in my feeders as tiny battles carry out between the territorial, minute sword beaks. They have reason to hoard and hurry, for they are about to embark on a GPS-free, 500-4,000-mile (depending on the species) journey before the frosts set in and flowers die back. They can’t afford a moment to relax as they enter hyperphagia -a natural state of eating 2-3 times more than usual and doubling their weight.
For those that stay, preparations are no less mandatory and serious. The hibernation preparation of bears becomes a nation-wide sports bracket with the U.S. National Park Service enthralling us via social media with “Fat Bear Week” in which we eagerly watch (and be honest, laugh at) and vote for tagged or observed bears in various national parks as they unknowingly compete to inflate like oversoaked sponges in preparation to live off their own fat stores for months. Perhaps a lesser known, but no less dramatic and cut-throat contest, takes place in our New England woodlands with much smaller residents than bears.
The Eastern Chipmunk has quite a task each autumn to ensure survival and if they had tiny GoPro cameras attached to them, we would likely be observing their daily adventures with as much interest as our favorite tv dramas. Chipmunks must take full-advantage of the seasonal release from the oak trees above. Stuffing as many as six acorns in their mouths at a time, chipmunks must gather at least 100 acorns to make it through the lean winter months ahead. Not only will the feast from the trees likely be under snow soon, it will also be scarce, if not nearly gone. Theft of their stores by other creatures while out gathering, and countless other creatures with the same goal in mind (survival) make preparing for winter an intense and stressful task for the common chipmunk.
Animals are not the only ones making fall preparations. Many plants, shrubs, and trees are transforming before our eyes. Each Autumn, many people fuss over non-native chrysanthemums and ornamental kales, but New England is awash with delicate billows of deep yellow and purple, pink, and white as native goldenrod and asters. These late-blooming natives provide critical nectar and pollen when most other flowers have faded, and, contrary to popular belief, goldenrod doesn’t cause hay fever.
Goldenrod self-seeds at will with a vigor that usually indicates it should be yanked out immediately from any manicured area, but if you understood the critical role these nearly-glowing, starry-bloomed tufts play in ensuring the health of over 115 specialist-species of native pollinators, you would happily enjoy their stunning, cheery compliments to a fading landscape. In fact, if you leave them be in your yards, they will also reward you by improving the soil they have been grown in and they will outcompete invasive plants. Often dancing in the autumn breezes together, New England native asters and goldenrod that border the edges of neon woodlands and rain-soaked roadsides, should be as treasured as the pumpkins on our porch.
Should any of the millions of tourists need more than the stated above to be enthralled in the majesty of a New England autumn, they will easily find a nearly overwhelming number of other autumnal pastimes to satiate their Mabon itch. Any jaunt down a country road will inevitably lead you to an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, farmstand, or fall festival that will most likely look like a Tasha Tudor painting or something from a Thomas Kinkade gallery.
There are, apparently, so may apple orchards in New England, that there is no source with an official count, and more are added and closed each year creating a constant flux. What is easy to find out however, is how many varieties of apples can be found across the six states of autumnal abundance. Over 120 varieties of apples, both heirloom and modern, are grown across New England. Cult favorites, such as Roxbury Russet (the oldest named American apple, hailing from Massachusetts) and Northern Spy, draw the hard-core pome enthusiasts, while everyday cravings for McIntosh and Honeycrisp can be satiated with an hour or so wandering fruit-laden trees among children and families and foodies determined to tap into their inner-pomologist. Around $2.82 million a year is spent by orchard goers in New England each year -making this “as American as apple pie” pastime a crucial part of the local economies.
In addition to the fresh fruit, there is a seasonal quest for hard apple cider fans and New England has little competition for being the hub for the finest hard ciders around. Using heirloom apples like Kingston and Roxbury Russet, New England cideries have continued producing the historic beverage and earned it an immovable place in the local cuisine and culture. With most of the $6.1 billion made each year by apple cideries -most of them in New England, it is safe to say it is as much a part of local autumn industry as the humble apple itself.
In addition to the ubiquitous apple, there is little to no competition for the other autumn crop found in New England this time of year. New England pumpkin patches are a must-see and must-do event for the full autumn in New England experience. While again, the exact number of pumpkin patches in New England is not documented, there are over 200 according to newenglandharvester.com. While most pumpkin patches are privately run and do not publish annual income statistics, there have been some larger pumpkin patches in the area that reported over a million dollars in revenue from a single season. While that is the exception more that the rule, it is no joke to consider the colorful Cucurbitaceae an imperative part of the New England autumnal season.
Truly, the merits and wonders, both natural and human-made, of autumn in New England could run the entire length of this paper. Considering the confines of print, and the fact that all this and more is just outside your door, it is best for you, reader, to see it all for yourself -whether you have been in New England all your life or, like me, you are a fairly new transplant still in their green wonder of the region. Perhaps the crowds are off-putting and trendy destinations irritate those seeking a unique experience, but there are still so many passed-by moments of seasonal splendor found in a quiet walk in golden woods, or a solitary picnic of orchard apples and Vermont cheddar and a can of local hard cider. Perhaps you get a thrill from the scarf and boot-clad crowds hauling wagons of pumpkins and the happy riots of festival games being played by Halloween-anticipating children. Whatever kind of autumn experience you seek, you will find it best fulfilled in our little corner of this vast world. How lucky are we for that simple gift?
The most important thing I learned from the legend of Cailleach Oíche about autumn is that it is a time to come back home to yourself -to gather the abundance of lessons and experiences you grew and harvested for the year, to filter out the ones that don’t help, and to cozy up with and turn over in our minds the ones that are worth keeping. Cailleach Oíche would have found her lessons all the more perfectly mimicked here in New England -where autumn is an experience, not just a season, and where we can marvel at how beautiful senescence -letting go- can be.