October in Color, and in Black and White

It’s hard to conjure images of fall foliage, brisk temperatures and shorter days when we’re still winding down the summer. Last night, the thunder was loud enough to drown out the sound of dogs barking endlessly in our neighborhood. (When we’re lonely, we bark!)

Hail pelted our back deck, covering it with a thin blanket of late August ice. One of our porch chairs looked like we had dumped a beach cooler on it. Then the rain subsided, and the quiet, such as it is on the city streets of Manchester, returned. 

For many of us in New Hampshire, fall is our favorite season. Come October, tourists from all over the world visit the Granite State to witness the intense brilliance of color, especially in the White Mountains and the Lakes Region. 

It’s when we hike to the top of Mount Major in Alton Bay to enjoy a summit that offers spectacular views of Lake Winnipesaukee (which I tell newbies offers the biggest bang for the least amount of effort).

We celebrate those spectacular views with a guide to New Hampshire foliage hikes by Jill Armstrong, paired with stunning images by some of the state’s best photographers (page 48). You can enjoy the artistry from your living room chair, but we hope it inspires you to leave the confines of your home and explore the state’s great, fleeting beauty.

Autumn is also a time we ponder the cycle of life. Those leaves falling off the trees will form beds in the forest and slowly decay, creating the sweet smell I had once forgotten after many years away from New England. The trees will lay bare for the cold winter months and emerge with new green leaves come springtime.

Humans don’t much like pondering the cycle of life when it comes to their own precious time on Earth. We laugh about it instead by being scared out of our minds on purpose. For this month’s “In Their Own Words,” Assistant Editor Emily Reily visited with Eric Lowther, who for nearly 20 years has been producing Haunted Overload, an annual outdoor scare-fest at DeMeritt Hill Farm in Lee (page 34).

Sara Richard and her mom, Carol Richard, celebrate life by embracing death and the memories of those who have come before us, reversing the scouring effects of the wuthering winds of time on headstones in old cemeteries.

The “Graveside Ladies,” as told by Assistant Editor Elisa Gonzales Verdi (page 62), restore neglected headstones whose inscriptions have been obscured by lichen. In that way, they uncover stories of families who might otherwise be forgotten.

For last year’s October column, I spent some time talking with Sara and her work as a writer/illustrator of gothic books and comics. She told me about the hobby she shares with her mother as well as her healthy sensibility about death as being a natural part of life. 

That’s a sentiment we all can appreciate.

Blame the Newt  

Careful reader Dan Scanlon, a commercial Realtor with Colliers based in Manchester, teased me about the presence of “Anaheim” among the 60 New Hampshire locales listed among our Spot the Newt entries in my September column. I was California dreaming that day. I blame the Newt. 

The latest batch for the September issue (see winner on page 9) included entries from a dozen communities not recognized last month: Alstead, Antrim, Atkinson, Bristol, Dalton, Gilford, Glen, Hebron, Jefferson, Lakeport, Lancaster and Stratham.

We received one entry via email from “Niederhofstetten, New Hampshire.” 

Ayuh, Austria.