It’s like awakening with a hangover from a monthlong party celebrated with tons of colored confetti. When leaves have dropped and leaf peeping tourists are gone, that’s autumn in New England for many of us living here. Time for leaf cleanup.
We’re world famous for October color. It might as well be a sunset caught for weeks like a kite in the trees. It’s a regional icon essential to our identity and economy. New Englanders delight in flaming sugar maples, lemony birches, and late blushing coppery oaks. The vibrancy of the year’s colors is a subject for discussion on street corners, in supermarkets, and around dinner tables. The effects of rain or drought, the previous year’s snowfall, hours of sunlight, and an early or late frost are among variables providing almost as much partisan passion as politics.
Bright autumnal tints elevate the spirit, put us in touch with natural cycles, and are kaleidoscopically beautiful. But as much as we delight in color, for many of us it’s not the main event as measured in time and energy—at least if you have a lawn and garden. As the season’s more evocative name suggests, it’s the fall of leaves and their cleanup that provides the most immediate connection between people and nature.
