Ere the winter storms begin.”

— Henry Alford, 1844, from the hymn

“Come Ye Thankful People Come”

Columbus Day, I mean Indigenous Peoples’ Day, is right around the corner.

Three years ago, Oct. 8, 2021, President Biden proclaimed the second Monday in October, up to then known as Columbus Day, to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

“I … direct that the flag of the United States be displayed on all public buildings on the appointed day in honor of our diverse history and the Indigenous peoples who contribute to shaping this Nation,” he announced, which seems only fair, considering.

Sunday, Oct. 13, will be the last Keene Farmers Market of the year. Rain and snow are predicted for Indigenous Peoples’ Day the next day.

It’s leaf season and apple picking time again. At the farm stands the pumpkins are all lined up hoping to be chosen for jack-o-lanterns — probably they don’t know about pumpkin smashers — set off by the ubiquitous autumn chrysanthemums.

Surprisingly, many of these chrysanthemums are not even cold-hardy, which you’d think they would be. I bought a perennial chrysanthemum last fall and planted it, and a deer came and ate all the flowers off. Wouldn’t you think deer would be repelled by chrysanthemums? Live and learn.

This is a beautiful time of year, and there is absolutely no sense in looking gloomily ahead, like Eeyore, to the very worst aspects of winter, days so dark that you have to drive with your headlights on at noon, and having to buy snow tires. Maybe you lucked out last winter with all-season tires, but will you push your luck two years running? Snow tires are a big expense, and of course coming up there’s Christmas, and let’s just hope we don’t fall on the ice, because that’s going to set us back big time.

Never mind all that right now. Let’s find a pumpkin for Halloween and some apples to make pie. Cider would be good too.

Scrumpy is a word for cider, derived from the word scrump, which can be either a verb, meaning to steal apples, or a noun, used for dried fruit, or, rather unkindly, for elderly folk.

Some people tell you that the leaf color is more saturated, more intense, when the skies are veiled in mist or scumbled with clouds.

Scumble is another good word. Artists scumble in order to soften sharp lines, to blend and dim bright colors. To scumble is to take the edge off.

Some are still clutching at the forlorn hope that their tomatoes will ripen, flinging white sheets over their tomato plants, thereby disguising them as crouching ghosts, to protect them from the frost.

Do you believe in ghosts? I think everyone believes in ghosts in the middle of the night, whether they admit it or not, but nobody really knows how the whole ghost apparatus works. For example, it’s obvious there should be more ghosts every year since human beings evolved, and yet cavemen are glaringly absent from the paranormal record.

Even in fiction, Neanderthals never materialize at a seance. You certainly don’t hear about hominid ghost sightings. Apparitions are mentioned in the “Iliad,” but most spirits hail from the last few centuries. Maybe they get tired.

On the other hand, people do report visitations from departed dogs.

This is a subject to reflect upon as Halloween approaches.

Although it is our way here in the North Country to make fun of leaf peepers, those foliage lovers who cause more car accidents than white-tailed deer by suddenly stopping or veering off the road to photograph the scenic view, I must admit that I was out leaf peeping myself this week. And yes, I was veering off and making sudden stops with the best of them. Or the worst.

As I stood obstructing traffic on a curve by a drop-off above the Boquet river on State Road 73, discussing cameras with some other old scrumps from Canada and New Jersey, I realized that I was filled with the joy of the season, not regretting the past, complaining about the present or fretting over the future.

It was only for a moment. Euphoria is transitory. I got back into my car and drove off before I caused an accident.

Well, I guess I’d better get in my car now and drive 50 miles or so to buy Halloween candy. It is beautiful here, but rustic. Keep warm, and have a good week.

(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the News since 1996.)