The Autumnal Equinox will occur bright and early on Sunday morning — 5:51 a.m. EDT to be precise.
Because we had such a dry, hot summer, more than a few trees around here have started the show a little early. There’s a little oak tree in our backyard that turned completely yellow around Labor Day and has already dropped all of its leaves. Generally, though, “peak foliage” doesn’t hit this part of Massachusetts until mid-October. Parts of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are probably pretty well along by now, I’ll bet.
This travel website has some information about the likely dates of peak foliage throughout New England for this season, in case you are planning to come for a visit. Foliage season is very popular in the inland parts of New England. The coastal regions get most of the tourist dollars, and the inland folks don’t get to overcharge the flatlanders until much later in the year.
I had an idea for a new sort of tourist trap — “Rake Your Own” leaf fields. The apple orchard people have discovered that there is a ton of money to be made letting people pick their apples themselves. So why not give people a chance to take home a whole bag full of genuine New England Autumn Leaves that they’ve raked up into their own pile and bagged themselves? You can charge them a buck for using the rake, and then charge by the bagful for the leaves. Plus, you wouldn’t have to worry about anybody eating the product while they were wandering around. Not to mention all of the up-selling for stuff like hot cocoa and cider, fresh-baked cookies, and so on. All you’d need to do is convince some pretentious New Yorkers that they were getting something exclusive, score some puff piece in the New York Times, and you’d be rich beyond your wildest dreams by Thanksgiving…AND your lawn would be SPOTLESS.
Awesome idea. Make sure you serve cider doughnuts, though, ’cause that’s what fall is all about.