New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Wow here we are on the edge of October and still no frost in Epsom yet. And my garden is still struggling on with a few more summer squash not quite big enough to pick. But in the last week we have pretty much cleared out most of the vegetables. About a week ago my daughter and her family and my wife and I picked two buckets of cucumbers, a whole box full of ripe tomatoes and a bucket of potatoes. I then picked off another eighth or ten cucumbers a few days later and turned the final bunch of cucumbers into what I am hoping will be sour dill pickles. Twelve quarts more. I did give away a whole bucket of cucumbers to someone who gave me batches of dill when mine was gone. So a pretty good trade.

I went to my garden yesterday and picked off the last of my tomatoes ripe and green. Just a dozen or so. So my garden is pretty well wound down for the year. I am in need of a frost to kill the plants off to make clean up easier. 

The carnage on our highways continues, though I'm seeing kills at a lower pace. In all my years I have never seen so much death on our roads. The gray squirrel kill is phenomenal.  Thousands upon thousands of squirrels killed in just this area alone. Hard to believe there has been such a spike in numbers in a short time. Something definitely is weirder than normal going on. 

Lots of turkeys about. But I am not seeing much for deer in the fields. I am seeing a Monarch butterfly headed south every day or two. Way more then the last couple of years. I hope this is a good sign for them. A few geese have been milling about the local fields as of late too. For most birds we are well into migration time. So the state is draining of life both by road kills and migration lately. 

The local farmer has been chopping is corn silage the last two weeks. The distant whirring of his chopper is a sure sign of fall around here. And the leaves are turning with some already drifting off the trees. The pace of fall will pick up by the day over the next couple of weeks. New Hampshire will be in transformation so quickly that it is worth taking an extra moment to pay attention to what is happening outside. The fall season will slip away so quickly.