There’s something special about September. As a child, I thought it signified the new year. School began the Tuesday after Labor Day. My friends and I marked the years by the school grade. January 1^st was remarkable only for the parades. Once Christmas vacation ended, we returned to the same grade/year unscathed by resolutions made or broken.

September arrived with the smell of school supplies, new bookbags (we didn’t have backpacks), pink erasers, and fresh pencil shavings. I continue the tradition today. Not the bookbags, but my Amazon account attests to my need to replenish office staples and calendars in the fall.

9/21/2007

September also brought a change of season. Brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges stained the leaves of trees that had been deep green through the sticky days of summer. The air filled with the winey scent of apples ripening. I grew up in northeastern New Jersey. My mother’s family lived in upstate New York. Each year we’d take the long drive through the back roads from Rutherford to Utica to celebrate my great-grandfather’s birthday. We’d stop at the first apple stand we saw, bought a bushel for a dollar, and munched our way through the woods. The further north we traveled, the more the leaf color deepened. Once past Albany, the vista was blinding.

9/26/2020

The trips stopped when my mother’s family moved. Fall came to New Jersey annually, but the drama had passed. There was something unique about being immersed in vibrant colors rather than passing single trees lining urban streets. You might say the color commentary lost its color. Until I moved to Maine. The blinding color in my backyard brought back those childhood trips and my great-grandfather’s folklore stories.

10/5/2021

Despite a distance of almost six hundred miles, northern Maine folklore matches that of upstate New York. Now that I’m setting books in Maine, I’ve made note of the stories. Here’s a few for your consideration:

A large crop of berries on the mountain ash trees means a long, cold, hard winter. That’s concerning because this year is a bumper crop

9/25/2022

If woolly worms have a small red band, winter will be hard. Last year’s woolly worms had slim bands, and the winter was mild. The winter of 2020/21 was ice-filled. That autumn the crop of woolly worms had slim bands near their tails. This year, most I’ve seen have big wide bands. The result remains to be seen.

If hornets’ nests are high, the snow will be deep. Last year’s hornets’ nests were right under the roofline of the house and garage. This year we don’t have any—and I’m not complaining. I don’t care how accurately they predict weather. I’m allergic.

9/28/2023

One I haven’t been able to find is apple folklore. Last year, every apple tree anyone had ever planted on this property bloomed and produced yummy apples. The bloom was so prolific that we discovered a small old apple grove that we’d never seen produce before. This year very few of those trees bloomed, and those that did produced very few apples. We’ve been told it could be because of last year’s mild  winter and spring that the fruit didn’t set. I’ll be curious if anyone has any insight.

9/10/2024

Whatever happens this winter, we’ll know soon enough. While we wait, I’ll wish you a happy fall New Year. The photos accompanying this blog were taken in my backyard on various dates in the last week of September.

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries set in the Fabulous Florida Keys and is at work on a new mystery set in her adopted state of Maine. Her short fiction has been nationally published in True Romance, True Confessions, True Story, True Experience, Woman’s World magazines, and in the Falchion Finalist Seventh Guppy Anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Sisters in Crime New England. Visit her website at www.kaitcarson.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter.