♪♪ It is time.

♪♪ Somewhere, the first leaf falls.

An early sentinel of change.

It calls an end to the reign of green.

The bittersweet season has arrived.

Trees begin hoarding precious sugars for their selfish purpose.

Sacrificing the leaves as pawns.

But within approaching death, is glorious beauty.

The fall begins.

♪♪ Why should I be the first to fall?

Of all the leaves on this old tree.

Though sadly soon, I know that all will lose their hold and follow me.

While my birth brothers bravely blow.

Why should I be first to go?

♪♪ [Crows caw] ♪♪ [Wind blows] [Birds singing] ♪♪ ♪♪ [Children laugh] Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend as a maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees.

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; There’s a bee on it.

Apple cider would be good, should make some hard cider?

No, no hard cider.

Keep going, don’t stop, if you stop It gets tough to get going.

No, I was!

It would be a pleasant pastime to find suitable names for the 100 varieties which go to a single heap at the cider-mill.

We should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, The rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild-flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple finch and the squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, The November traveler and the truant boy, to our aid.

[Indistinct chatter] The harvested fruit hides behind glass, preserving its color for breakfast tables and winter cakes.

A contrast to the spendthrift leaves expanding their color for the eyes of any passing creature.

[Birds chirping] The products of my farm are these sufficient for my own and here and there a benefit unto a neighbor’s bin.

With us tis harvest all the year.

For when the frosts begin, we just reverse the zodiac and fetch the acres in.

[Child talking] [Birds chirping] [Birds chirping] ♪♪ Autumn's earliest frost had given to the woods below.

Hues of beauty such as heaven lend it to its bow.

And the soft breeze from the west scarcely broke their dreamy rest.

♪♪ ♪♪ [Camera clicks] ♪♪ I do not see why since America and her autumn woods have been discovered.

Our leaves should not compete with the precious stones in giving names to colors.

And indeed, I believe that in course of time, the names of some of our trees and shrubs, as well as flowers, will get into our popular chromatic nomenclature.

♪♪ [Birds chirping] Delicious autumn.

My very soul is wedded to it.

And if I were a bird, I would fly about the earth.

Seeking successive autumns.

♪♪ There are experiences un-encompassed by words, or pictures.

[Birds chirping] For the last weekend here.

Yeah.

The rain might’ve washed it out a little I know, I’ll have to clean that roof [Door unlocks] Wow Golden hair!

A three season cottage in a four season land must close for a time.

Want me to get this chair for you?

But there is one last weekend.

It is time to sweep and store and use once more those things of summer.

All right, Madison gets to get out first.

And last, round the fire.

It's time to sort the year's events.

And I was like, dad I caught the turtle!

In the other gardens and all up the vale from the autumn bonfires See the smoke trail.

Pleasant summer over and all the summer flowers.

The red fire blazes, the gray smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons.

Something bright in all flowers in the summer.

Fires in the fall.

Let's have a toast to next year at the camp.

I hope we have as much fun as we did this summer.

And we'll catch a bigger curl.

Cheers!

[Crickets chirping] [Steam blows] All aboard!

[Bell rings] ♪♪ Heading on route 112, which is also the Kancamagus Highway.

Another feature about this road that is nice because of the foliage is the fact that you're not driving down one straight road.

It's not anywhere close to being a boring ride.

It is not scientific curiosity that brings the leaf peepers.

It is disbelief that nature can be so profligate, emptying its purse in a handful of places.

♪♪ ♪♪ [Bell rings] ♪♪ There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood.

Touch of manner, hint of mood.

And my heart is like a rhyme.

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

♪♪ The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry of bugles going by and my lonely spirit thrills to see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

[Crowd singing] There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir we must rise and follow her when from every hill of flame she calls and calls each vagabond by name ♪♪ All the hills blush.

♪♪ [Crickets chirping] It is Independence Day in slow motion.

The fireworks are our nature's fuse.

And the starbursts last for weeks.

The name of it is Autumn.

The hue of it is blood.

An artery upon the hill.

A vein along the road.

Great globules in the alleys.

And oh, the shower of stain.

When winds upset the basin.

And spill the scarlet rain.

It sprinkles bonnets far below.

It gathers ruddy pools.

Then eddies like a rose away upon vermilion wheels.

♪♪ [Loon wails] ♪♪ Oh.

Hushed.

October morning.

Mild.

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall.

Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild.

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest.

Call.

Tomorrow they may form and go.

♪♪ Oh!

Hushed October morning mild.

Begin the hours of this day.

Slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief parts.

Not averse to being beguiled.

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day at noon.

Release another leaf one from our tree.

One far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist.

Enchant the land with amethyst.

♪♪ ♪♪ October gave a party the leaves by hundreds came with chestnuts, oaks and maples.

And leaves of every day.

The sun shines through the carpet and everything is grand.

This weather led the dancing professor wind the band.

The chestnuts came.

And yellow the oak, the crimson dressed.

The lovely Mrs.

Maple.

Its scarlet looked their best.

All balanced to their partners and gaily floated by.

The sight was like a rainbow new fallen from the sky.

Then in the rustic hollow at hide and seek.

They played.

Party closed at sundown.

And everybody stayed.

Professor wind played louder.

They flew along the ground.

And then the party ended in jolly hands.

Around.

The winds have welcomed you with softness.

The sun has blessed you with his warm hands.

You have flown so high and so well that God has joined you in your laughter, and send you back gently into the loving arms of Mother Earth.

God bless every part of it.

That's some tasty stuff here.

♪♪ The quest for peak color is an elusive pursuit.

Is it on the other side of the mountain?

Or maybe just down the road, not taking one way to find it is to have someone else do the finding.

Oh, I'm seeing some beautiful color out there.

A little bit of haze.

No smoke.

Thank goodness.

Some beautiful maples on a little mountain across the street.

There.

In towers scattered about the forest's foliage, observers take their daily measure of nature's show.

Good afternoon.

Amanda, this is prospect tower in Manchester.

Calling with the foliage report, it's as close as your nearest paper, radio or web.

Fitchburg is coming in at a full 100%.

These are man's roots.

The Aboriginal forests are gone.

First giving way to farms and now reclaimed by trees, but by maples, not pines.

Man in his ignorance has magnified nature's glory, but he may also diminish it, for the hardwoods need cooler climes and a warming globe could push the maples out of New England.

Strange to think that timeless scenes could run out of time.

(Carnival Sounds) Good morning I have several announcements.

We just wanted to let people know that the parade has been canceled today due to weather and flooding conditions.

However, the bagpipers will still be performing under the tent down here in the water power entertainment stage at 1:00 (Bagpipes Playing) The 58th annual Waterfall Foliage Festival woodsman contest is here.

Let's have a round of applause for our contestants who have come out in the rain.

Will perform death defying acts for you.

A moral character is attached to autumnal seeds.

The leaves falling like our year The flowers fading like our hours.

The clouds fleeting like our illusions.

The light diminishing like our intelligence.

The sun growing colder like our affections.

The rivers becoming frozen.

Like our lives.

All their secret relations to our destinies.

October rains are no April showers.

They bear no promise of fruit or flower to come.

Instead, their cold rivulets leached color from the ground and sky.

October rains are the wettest, the chilliest the least welcome of all.

Ruining the rarest of gifts.

A fall day.

But not just any fall day.

(Cheering) Show no mercy.

Take no prisoners.

All right.

Yeah!

Let's go!

All right.

Go!

Homecoming weekend.

Time to show mom, dad and that girl what you're made of.

These young men are on their own.

The rain so unrelenting.

The cheerleaders don't wear their uniforms.

Don't want to ruin them As the minutes tick by, the pristine green devolves to primeval mud.

Go, go go.

Yeah.

And those X's and O's so well planned to become blurry.

Squiggles caked in soil.

Okay, hold on to it.

Who can say this isn't a day to remember?

That's the way guys.

That's the way.

Certainly not.

Those who lived it.

Outstanding job conditions weren't perfect.

He got it done on the field.

When we need a job.

Feel good about this.

All right.

One thing.

The dance is tonight.

Chicks dig winners.

(Cheering) ♪♪ All are agreed.

Nature enriches its palate in preparation for its most splendid show.

Tints and shades make their debut in even the most modest of places.

Briefly, all the world is a canvas.

♪♪ But what of the works of man?

Are they more beautiful in the fall?

Do nature's colors add a fresh coat of paint to an old home?

Does a chair give more ease when there's a nip in the air?

♪♪ Hast thou a soul as well as I.

To breathe and blush and live the same.

What matters if I make out, cry, and call myself a prouder name?

One made us both by his high will he gave alike and takes away.

We grind as small in his great mill.

Dust unto dust.

Our roundly shall.

♪♪ All bridges take you somewhere covered.

Bridges and grace you on the journey.

With 19th century admonitions.

Sinews of wooden beams and trusses.

And barely a glimpse of anything so modern as a rivet.

♪♪ The journey can be brief.

One modern town to another.

Or it can be down its own lane of memory.

Where promises of love like the aging oil stained boards still quietly shout endurance in the face of the endless cycle of seasons.

♪♪ And we have Poncho and Lefty.

A very large pair of Holsteins.

The largest team at the fair.

They may bring their fattest cattle and richest fruits to the fair.

They are all eclipsed by this show of men.

♪♪ These are stirring autumn days when men sweep by the crowds amid the rustle of leaves like migrating finches.

♪♪ This is the true harvest of the year.

When the air is but the breath of men.

The rustling of leaves is as the trampling of the crowd.

♪♪ Spades take up.

Leaves no better than spoons.

And bags full of leaves are light as balloons I make a great noise of rustling all day.

Like rabbit and deer running away.

But the mountains I raise elude my embrace, flowing over my arms and into my face.

I may load and unload again and again.

Till I fill the whole shed.

And what have I then?

Next to nothing for use.

But a crop is a crop.

And who's to say where the harvest should stop?

♪♪ Now I fall.

Now I leap and fall.

To feel the leaves crush under my body.

To feel my body buoyant.

In the ocean of leaves.

The night of them night heaving with death.

And leaves rocking like the ocean.

Oh, this delicious falling into the arms of leaves.

Into the soft laps of leaves.

Face down I swim into the leaves.

Feathery breathing, the acrid odor of maples swooping long glides to the bottom of October.

♪♪ There's just something about pumpkins.

These great orange orbs arrive as the sun diminishes.

It's not so much that we eat or as admired.

There's something kind of hearty, like about the atmosphere.

When the heat of summer is over and the cool and fall is here.

Of course we miss the flowers and the blossoms on the trees, and the mumble of the humming birds and the buzzing of the bees.

But the air is so appetizing.

And the landscape, through the haze of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days, is a picture that no painter has the color to mark.

And the frost is on the pumpkin, and the fathers of the sun.

No doubt the pumpkin has our attention.

♪♪ Every year in Keene, New Hampshire, it rules the city for a day and night.

♪♪ I spot the hills with yellow balls in autumn.

I liked the prairie cornfields, orange and tawny gold clusters.

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October, when dusk is falling, children join hands and circle around me singing ghost songs and love to the harvest moon.

I am a jack o lantern with terrible teeth.

And the children know I am fooling.

♪♪ ♪♪ Last call for the sweet nectar of spring.

Polly's Pancake Parlor is closing for the season today.

Roger.

How many?

Two.

Maybe a shared table with another couple.

It's no time to get picky.

About 40 minutes.

At this point, it's kind of backing off, so.

Yeah.

You're fine.

You're fine.

I'll work right around you.

We get used to those tight quarters at college, nestled in where else?

Sugar Hill.

This family business has been serving up breakfast bounty for seven decades.

And Polly's daughter is still making sure things are right.

I'm 77, and I was ten when this was all started.

Sir.

What would you like?

I'm gonna have the.

What do you.

Buckwheat?

I don't know what do you give me the of the plane?

Would you like me to make you three plain and sweet?

Buckwheat.

Yes.

That's okay.

Whether you crave oatmeal, buttermilk, cornmeal, buckwheat, whole wheat, or plain.

Better get here before the snow flies.

I'll bring you a little more sirup and butter, lady.

So there's no fighting.

Sure, but thanks for coming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See you next time.

♪♪ It is the final harvest before the cold.

All else has been jarred, pickled, canned or dried.

♪♪ The pantry is full.

the shed is next.

The years in ways.

There is nothing adorning the night.

There's no Eve and the day has no morning.

Cold winter gives warning.

♪♪ Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice.

♪♪ Yet still.

The wild flowers would blow.

The golden leaves would fall.

The seasons come the season.

Seasons go.

And God be good to all.

Above the graves.

The black berry hung in blue and green.

It's green.

And hair bells swung as if they run.

The chimes of peace beneath me.

The beauty of nature loves to share the gifts she had for all the common light, the common air or crept the graveyards wall.

♪♪ This modest plot of land has long seen traffic ebb and flow.

Ox carts, horses, carriages, pickups, Chevy's hearses.

And still the markers stand a little more worn by rain and wind, but still delivering that irresistible engraved invitation.

Behold and see as you pass by.

As you are now.

So once was I, as I am now.

So you must be prepared for death, and follow me.

♪♪ Where do they go?

The tale of down leaf.

Time is quickly told.

But what happens to the leaves?

They don't go back where they came from.

Like the flood waters.

They resemble.

They can't all be burned or raked or stuffed into those clever orange bags made to look like enormous pumpkins.

They blow into the woods, and there they darken.

The cold rains fall on them and they darken more.

Then the snow covers them over for good, and they're gone for another year.

Down leaf time is not a beautiful season.

Certainly it's not a famous one.

It has neither press nor poet, but still it has its friends.

♪♪ ♪♪ As the season wanes and the days diminish, the time has come for the clan to gather.

♪♪ On Thanksgiving Day.

When from east and from west.

From north and south come the pilgrim and guest.

When the gray haired New Englander sees round his board the old broken links of affection restored.

♪♪ When the care wearied man seeks his mother once more.

And the ward matron smiles with a girl smile before.

What moistened the lips.

And what brightens the eye, though what calls back the past.

Like the rich pumpkin pie.

♪♪ Nature's alarms are quiet now.

They're scarlet.

Warning.

Silent and faded.

Having alerted all creation of what is nigh.

Their season has ended.

The leaves have surrendered their colors laying bare the branches.

For the renewal to come.

Why should I be the last to cling.

Of all the leaves on this bleak bough I fluttered since the fire of spring.

And I am worn and withered.

Now I would escape the winter gale.

And sleep soft silvered by a snail.

When swoop the legions of the snow to pitch their tents.

In roaring weather.

We fallen leaves will lie below and rot.

Rejoicing together.

And from our rich and dark decay.

Will left our brothers of the may.

♪♪