September 2: Who is Our Fall Miser?

Sometimes I pretend that it’s up to the calendar squares or the social media influencers or the seasonal store aisles when the Halloween Season starts. But really, in these here New England parts, it’s up to nature. Too many years, I’ve jumped headfirst into a pile of dead leaves only to find a gritty sand dune beneath me. I get rebuked—rebuked, I say—by summer temps that scream for The Beach Boys over the Misfits.

And I don’t mean any of this post as a slight to my fellow Halloweenauts and pumpkinheads who live in more southern climes, but up here we live and die by the seasons, and sometimes we do both in the same season. And it seems too often that early September is less Septembrr and more Septemburn. I’m writing stream of conscious here, folks.

This year, though, we’re only two days in and it feels like whoever Fall Miser is has beat back Heat Miser without even popping a button on his cardigan. It’s been chilly and overcast and rainy. I’ve worn hoodies and my wool flatcap. It’s been everything we’ve wanted in a seasonal switchover So, today, we decided to risk pushing things a little farther and, what the heck, hit up a pumpkin patch way too early in the season.

We headed to Mack’s Apples, which I’ve written about before, but surprisingly haven’t visited in like two or three Falls. The famous New Hampshire farm stand that has welcomed presidents was still on the closing edge of peach season, but the apples were starting to come in and all the crates where they deposit their pumpkin-lode were out.

Still, though, peaches, so we went across the street to their actual pumpkin fields and apple orchards. I’ve talked about this before, as well, but Mack’s pumpkin patch is the closest thing to a cemetery pumpkin patch I’ve yet seen, separated as they are only by a dirt vehicle path.

Pumpkin patch in the foreground, cemetery in the background.

But more important here was that the apples looked ready to be picked and there were plenty of large orange pumpkins in the patches. Which is fantastic, because the other thing that rebukes us for starting too early besides the weather is the state of the local pumpkin patches.

And then on the way home, we passed a cornfield. So…apples and pumpkins and cornfields and rain and sweaters by September 2. Feels like we’ve been given the go-ahead on this season.

We’ll see if I regret writing that line in the next couple of weeks. I’m not taking down my air conditioners yet, just in case.