Fall in New England

My favorite season in New England is fall. From the crisp mornings to the leaves of red, bronze, and yellow to the pumpkins with painted on faces or cut out grins. Mums in every hue smiling their happy faces up at you in the last remnants of brilliant color before winter shows its solemn white face.

Fall in New England provides a great time for everyone every weekend.


Last weekend I went to the Milford Pumpkin Festival. This is an annual event that has a gigantic pumpkin contest. For this contest size does matter.

There is entertainment from local artists on a main street stage in the middle of the town circle and then there is entertainment out in the streets.

Food is everywhere. Actually, there is one road cordoned off that I refer to as food alley. All the fair foods you could possibly want is down this road, including wood fire pizza and one of my favorites, fried dough.

Inside the courthouse and in booths spread out through the main streets is a craft fair where local vendors get to show and sell their wares. You can always find something that you just can’t do without and have to buy.

For the kids and of course people like me, “big kids” there is face painting, scarecrow making, and pumpkin painting.

Overall, the Milford Pumpkin Festival is a three-day affair of fun, food, and fresh air.

This weekend I went apple picking with a couple of girlfriends. Every year on the weekend of October 15th, I go apple picking for my favorite apples, the Mutsu. If you have never had a Mutsu apple I will tell you that you are truly missing out. A softball-size green apple is to die for. It is great eating right off the tree, great for baking pies and cakes, and as my friends and family will attest to, they make the best caramel apples.

The best part of apple picking is truly the time you spend wending your way thru the trees talking with your friends and family and seeing who can pick the best apples or the most. If you have kids, watch out. If you give each kid a bucket to pick their own apples you’ll be eating apple soup, apple, pie, apple strudel every day for the next year.

This is my friend Lisa picking her first apple at an apple orchard.


For the second year in a row, I went with friends (Colleen and Lisa) to Meadow Ledge Farm in Loudoun, New Hampshire. This is a great farm because not only do they have a huge selection of trees to pick from but also they usually have entertainment in the afternoon. A nice local band plays in the “back yard” for your musical enjoyment.

To top off this terrific morning or afternoon, why not share some fresh, hot off the press, apple cider donuts with your family or friends. There is nothing like these and I have never found another place that sells them hot and fresh. It really makes a difference! After you wait in the line that usually winds its way out the door, why not sit outside on one of the benches that are scattered about, listen to the music from the local band, and talk with family and friends while enjoying those fresh cider donuts.

If you’re in the mood next year, feel free to join Colleen, Lisa, and myself on our annual apple picking Saturday. The benefit besides our company is that I take the apples we picked and make the best, most gigantic caramel apples you have ever seen or tasted.

What will next weekend bring? I know that Lisa is going to be going to a Renaissance Festival, yes, dressed in costume. For me, I'll be making beer with a few friends. From then on if I want to find something fun to do all I have to do is read in the local weekender newspaper called The Hippo Press or what I see on the http://www.nhevents.com website for festivals or fairs.

Mum crazy

Fall is my favorite season! All that wonderful crisp air, the bonfires, snuggling up in a cozy sweater and the vibrant colors of fall just give you the warm fuzzies.

Probably one of the best parts of fall are the mums. Their sweet smell and their bright colors and varying shapes are amazing. Just what we need to add some life while the trees go to sleep and drop their leaves.

This weekend I went mum crazy. I planted yellow, pink, and red mums along with two baby lilac trees, and lily bulbs that will bloom next summer in my retaining wall in the front yard. To protect and entertain the flowers I put my big bunny sitting in their with them.
In addition to adding a little whimsy to my yard, I put some new mums in the flower boxes on the railings of my porch and deck then planted others into the various front and back yard gardens. It looks as if a painter came by with a paint brush and added a splash of color to my outdoor area. Oh yeah, that's Mayhem in the door window looking out at me.
Yesterday I even picked up a couple of bails of hay and placed them inside this old bucket that my neighbor gave me an I repainted. On top of those bails of hay I added two mums, two pumpkins, and another little bunny. Now every time I drive up to my house I am greeted by smiles of mums.
I took one of the bright pink mums, the kind that look like they have daisy petals, planted it into a hand-painted terra cotta pot that a friend gave me, set it next to an old tree on the side of the yard where people drive by, and set another set of bunnies who like to read next to it. Now when people drive by they are greeted by fall.

If we could just hold back winter and keep fall for six months I would be a very happy camper.

Ready for the weekend…and FALL

Is it just me? Am I the only one ready for the weekend? Ready for fall?

I was ready for the weekend before the week started. Maybe it’s because it’s fall, my favorite season where the air is crisp and everywhere I drive I see the bright orange, reds, and yellow leaves reminding of a warm burning fire. It is the time of year where I dress in snuggly warm sweaters, blue jeans, (okay, jeans are my preferred attire any time of year for any event) and cozy socks topped off by leather boots. What can I say? I am a country girl at heart. (Shh. Don’t tell anyone. It will be our little secret.)

I like fall because the crisp, cool air breathes life into everything. The breeze through opened windows smells clean and the rustling leaves are an invitation to go outside and visit them and the smiling mums planted in the garden and along my rock wall. A crackling fire not only warms my fingers and toes, but roasting fluffly white marshmallows on a stick until golden brown then squishing them between two graham crackers and chocolate warms me inside and turns me all ooey and gooey. Added bonus is that the melted chocolate makes my lips sweet and very kissable.

For some people fall is an ending, the ending of summer, the death of all those pretty annuals planted in the garden and yards. For me, fall is a beginning. It is a time where I de-clutter and clean out closets, the house, my life and bring in the new. The poor garbage collection people probably roll their eyes as they turn the corner with their behemoth of a truck and bone-crushing compactor for my street with a dread of never knowing what they will find parked at the end of my driveway each week. To that I say, “I had to carry it to the end of the drive. All you have to do is dump it in your monster machine.”

Fall is watching football and hockey games on television while curled up on a sofa or in a chair eating a bowl of my famous nose-clearing 3-meat chili (beef cubes, ground beef, and bacon) and drinking a cold beer, preferably Magic Hat #9. This is the season when I enjoy baking cookies and pies not just for the tasty treat factor, but also for the homey feel that a fresh baked batch of chocolate chip cookies brings to the house. Along with the baked goodies, I make homemade hot cocoa and on a really chilly day I heat some up, add in a little Kailua or Bailey’s and top it off with a heaping swirl of whipped cream. You know the kind that leaves a creamy moustache in its wake after the first sip.

My favorite holiday, Halloween, is in the fall. Decorating the porch and deck with pumpkins, some carved, some not, with scarecrows and dried ears of corn that the squirrels eat is fun. Handing out candy to the costumed, screaming, and hurried trick-or-treaters while I watch a scary movie, the only night a year I do this, is a blast for me. I always over buy the treats. Walking through a haunted house and jumping three feet off the ground and screaming like a girl (oh that’s right, I am one) because some green hand shot out from a hiding place in the wall is hysterical.

Think of all the fall festivals to attend and the fried dough to eat. Don’t forget about the craft shows to go to just in time before the holiday and shopping season. It is interesting to see what someone else designs and makes. I love homemade anything!

This is the best time of year to start a blazing fire in the fireplace, turn on a table lamp, and sit on the sofa with my feet tucked up beneath me, a glass of spiked hot cocoa or a good wine (in my case that would be champagne) and read a terrific book. Even reading with someone at the other end of the sofa, our feet touching, makes me feel all warm and squishy inside.

Probably the best part of fall is the time spent with one special person going on short hikes, walking hand in hand or in some instances glove to mitten. Then when it’s time for bed, crawling under the three layers of blankets and shoving my ice cold toes between very warm, hairy legs and waiting for a yelp before I giggle and get pinned to the mattress.

This is why I am ready for and love FALL.