Irving and I have gained the impression, born over the many years of our regular travels to Vermont and New Hampshire -- the two New England States whose mountain landscapes call out to us to keep returning to enjoy mountain hikes, first with our children, then on our own -- that the people who live there are almost without exception, kindly, friendly and outgoing. Interacting with such people makes life infinitely more enjoyable. The natural spontaneity of their engagement with strangers is both refreshing and reassuring.

 

We've noted, over the years, that service people in particular, employees of supermarkets, gas stations, all manner of commercial shops are unfailingly polite, deferential and helpful. That can only partly be explained by the fact that most of our encounters have been in rural areas, areas highly dependent on tourism. And because we are attracted to these natural wilderness regions that also draw visitors from the adjoining state of Massachusetts we can quite clearly differentiate the manners of the latter from the former. 

 

In comparison to Vermont and New Hampshire operating a series of official rest spots for travellers, complete with tourism information buildings and restrooms set in manicured micro-parks with picnic tables and benches for the use of people driving through, Montreal, the Canadian province adjoining Vermont which also used to operate similar rest stops, closed theirs years ago, and now offer no comfort stations at all for the use of people travelling through the province, much less bilingual signage as a sign of courtesy.

 

While we were away last week driving around New Hampshire visiting our old haunts, the 'check engine' light and another engine warning light came on. This of course, concerned Irving. Before we left he had taken the truck in for regular maintenance and checks and it was given a clean bill of health. The truck is a Nissan, and we've had it for ten years, a really excellent vehicle. Our friend Byron, the proprietor of the cottage complex where we were staying suggested we stop in at O'Reilly Auto Parts at Plymouth.

 

We did that, and the mechanic who came out with diagnostic equipment to check things out under the hood, verified that the signal lights were alarming us for no good reason, since everything checked out perfectly fine. Her opinion was that excess oil sprayed under the truck chassis in preparation for winter protection from rusting had triggered the warning lights, nothing else. Irving thanked her, and wanted to pay for the service, but was informed that the establishment doesn't charge for that service. He thanked them profusely. Then he drove on to WalMart and came out with a large layered chocolate cake. We drove back to the auto shop, and he expressed his appreciation once again, with the cake.

 

That was then, this is now, a beautiful warm 20C day of full sun and light breezes. Night temperatures now plunge between 6C and 10C. Our meals have changed completely from an emphasis on light meals mostly salads of one type or another, or barbecued meals with corn, to more substantial comfort-preparation meals. And we're back once again to having Friday night meals in the dining room. Last night we had chicken-noodle soup, Cornish game hen with roasted mushrooms and cauliflower along with a potato pudding, for dinner. 

After breakfast this morning I baked simple sugar cookies, a rolled-out cookie dough that Irving prefers to all other types of cookies. He'll have a large baked apple stuffed with raisins and honey-cinnamon with his much lighter dinner tonight.

 

Our circuit in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie was beyond pleasant. Because the temperature is cooler now, they ask to be let out on the deck to enjoy the warmth of the sun these mornings. In the ravine, along the forest trails, it's impossible not to notice random shrubs beginning to turn colour.  And although fall colours haven't yet decorated the forest trees, there's plenty of fallen leaves of a dun colour crisping on the forest floor.

 

Change is in the very air. This is the time of year when wild fall asters rule the wildflower roost. They're now even more numerous and fresher than the Himalayan orchids still in bloom, but in only select colonies on the forest hillsides. We also noticed that discrete colonies of Partridgeberry spread on the forest floor are flaunting their red, ripe berries for fall.

 

When we returned home, I decided to remain outdoors for a while, to sweep up the walkway of fallen leaves and above all, tons of tiny red, ripe crabapples fallen from the trees above. It's obvious that our neighbouring squirrel and chipmunk populations have been enjoying the apples. They carry them from the ground to elevated areas like the garden infrastructure that Irving built so many years ago, to nibble at them. Jackie and Jillie, back from their walk, enjoy a few of the apples as well.

 

I also cut back branches of our overgrown spirea encroaching into the areas claimed by one of our yews and a sunshine maple alongside the driveway. It always feels so good to be out in the garden, doing these little chores, looking about, appreciating the form, texture and colour still ornamenting the garden. By next month the chores will take on a different character, for then it will be a much more difficult and quite sad engagement, when the garden has to be disassembled. So we enjoy it while yet we can...

 

Hard to believe that a week ago we were in the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire and the weather was unbelievably hot and humid. Today we woke at home to heavily overcast skies and an infinitely cooler temperature that wouldn't budge above 16C, although yesterday's high under a bright sun was 24C. Even so, it felt cool and we wore long-sleeved shirts and light jackets. Today we needed warmer clothing, and even Jackie and Jillie wore light little shirts against the cold.

 

Jackie and Jillie overlooking the Baby Basin

 

At the cottage there was a housekeeping element in that every day the kitchen waste was collected and a new trash bag accompanied the fresh linen we received daily. We would render back the four bath towels, four hand towels, washcloths and tea towel every morning, and receive in return freshly washed-and-dried replacements. A two-bedroom cottage doesn't take much to tidy up every day and we'd leave for whatever adventure we had planned for the day, returning in the late afternoon to the cottage to rest and prepare dinner.

 

 

One of our day trips was the short drive from the Waterville Valley to the Franconia Notch and one of its star attraction that didn't include ascending to a mountain peak -- the Basin. There were quite a few other people around who had come to see one of bountiful nature's many geological splendours. The Basin is a granite bowl scoured out of the granite side of one of the many mountains, over the aeons. The water rushes downstream off the mountains, swirls wildly about the bowl, and continues on its way down to the Pemigawasset River below.

 

 

We usually take a narrow, root-staircased sidetrail to the Baby Basin before approaching the 30-ft-wide Basin. It's a miniature of the larger one and doesn't attract many people because of the moderate difficulty of access. Most people who visit these sites tend to be older and not in very good physical shape comparatively speaking.

 

 

This morning brought us several hours of steady rain. When it stopped and most of the laundry had been done, we went out with Jackie and Jillie who were giving us their usual anxious messaging of wondering what was taking us so long before heading out. One of our neighbours was having a specialty lighting company install permanent LED Christmas lights on the perimeter of his roof, so he would no longer have to undertake the usual annual installation of conventional lights.

 

 

The puppies didn't mind wearing light jerseys and they poked about everywhere as usual. Jackie, who usually lingers by our side more than Jillie does, has been doing a lot more independent exploring, racing ahead more often just as his sister does. Mostly responding to the irresistible lure of odours on the forest floor in the inner reaches of the forest. And the far more visible presence of squirrels these days of oncoming autumn. 

 

Yesterday's French onion soup suited the coolness of the evening and today I'm planning a fish paella, hot and spicy and nutritious. Swinging fully into the cuisine of colder weather. Although perhaps we've yet to enjoy a week or so of Indian Summer later in the month or at some time in October. Not as uncomfortably hot as last week, to be sure, but a pause before the really cold late-fall weather sets in, as an introduction to winter...

 

The garden still resembles a late-summer garden. Some things have died back, but for the most part, annuals like begonias, petunias and zinnias are fairly hardy to cooler temperatures and they're continuing to bloom brightly. Some of the roses are also re-blooming, but certainly not all of them. The Canna lilies won't bear any more blooms, but they worked hard at it all summer. Even the hydrangeas are looking weary, but the Morning glory vines are still scrambling upward and onward, happily blooming.

Jackie and Jillie look very svelte after their grooming. They're no longer puzzled at the abrupt change in home-and-landscape that we inflicted upon them last week. They're contented to have been returned to the old and familiar, our house and our near proximity to the forest we visit with them every day. And truth be told, so are we. We're still a bit exhausted from the trip...the long drive there, and the return drive home. But things have returned to 'normal' for us, and while we most certainly enjoyed ourselves in New Hampshire we're comfortable and grateful to be home again.

Jackie at Smarts Brook Trail

The day after we arrived at the cottage and settled ourselves in, we went off to the nearest town to do our week's grocery shopping. Hannaford, as it happens. We're quite familiar with the supermarket, have been using it for many years. What never ceases to amaze us, and for which we're thankful, is that no one objects, not the managers nor customers, when they see two little dogs riding in the childseats of the shopping carts. Jackie and Jillie cooperate, sitting in their carrybags in the carts, and we take our time stocking up on food for the week.

That done, after our return to the cottage to put everything away and have a late breakfast, we set off for the nearest and dearest of our trail-hiking expeditions, Smartsbrook, in the Waterville Valley of the White Mountain National Forest. It's a hike we've been long familiar with, as familiar as we've become over the years with the drive to get us there, recognizing all the places and geological features along the way. That day was a warm and sunny one, only one of the many we took pleasure in throughout the days of our stay.

The forest features yellow birch and hemlock, though there are oaks and maples, pines and spruces as well as an ample lower-storey growth of dogwood and moose maple. And fungi, tons of different kinds of mushrooms. The only wildflowers left are goldenrod and asters though we saw ample evidence of trilliums, straw lilies and Ladies slippers that bloomed in the spring.

Today, at home, we've had another beautiful late-summer day. Cooler temperature, but sunny. And we went off for our afternoon trek in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie after completing some household chores. Irving emptied the birdbath in the backyard, watered the garden and the garden pots there, while I cleaned the bathrooms and Jackie and Jillie waited patiently for us to stop all that nonsense and take them out for their daily hike.

Because the weather is turning toward fall and we now have cooler evenings, yesterday's dinner of beef stew and buckwheat groats, yellow beans and strawberries reminiscent of winter's comfort food suited the day perfectly. I've decided to follow that up today with another kind of comfort food, and after breakfast pre-prepared the toasted bread crouton portion of the soup made aromatic with garlic and Parmesan cheese.

 

On one of the two warm and sunny days during our week-long trek in the Waterville Valley, we decided to take the long drive along the Kancamagus Highway to Rocky Gorge. We had intended to stop first at Sabbaday Falls to enjoy the spectacle of the falls in full frothing rage down its forest cliffside into the forest stream below, but then changed our minds and made a mental note to stop there on our way back from Rocky Gorge.

 

The Falls is the attraction there in and of itself. We had once, many years ago, taken a long, undistinguished trail that led to a distant summit on a trip with our younger son, but hadn't enjoyed that expedition and felt no wish to do that trail again; too much of it was open; a narrow trail outside the forest environs, for too long before plunging into the forest and I seem to recall some switch-backs and boggy terrain.

 

So, at the Falls, there's a relatively short uphill trail from the parking lot to gain the landscape of the tumbling, roiling Falls, through a bit of forest alongside; on one side of which there is the stream fed by the Falls rolling downhill. For an enjoyable trek along a trail, we held out for Rocky Gorge and soon after passing the Falls arrived at Rocky Gorge.

 

For a change, the parking lot held few other vehicles, and we barely saw anyone else on the pathways leading to the Gorge, nor was there anyone in its near environs. It was a different story altogether by the time we had completed our hike for the afternoon, and ambling out of the forest, we encountered a veritable stream of visitors.

 

The gorge itself is quite the spectacle; carved by ferocious eddying and streaming water coursing off nearby mountain slopes, the horizontal rocky ledges invite the visitor to make their way over onto them (with care) to observe the water flowing in a series of falls flowing into the Swift River. There's a bridge that fords the river and from it sightlines left and right show the river winding its way along, while on the opposite side in the distance, mountains from whose slopes the water courses form the background.

 

Over the bridge a pathway leads to the small lake nestled within the forest, around which the Lovequist trail makes its way. Along the pathways of the forest, we saw white, glowing bunchberries in bloom, as well as wild rhododendrons in bloom and some azaleas as well. At the edge of the lake we were inundated with crowds of dragonflies of a type we'd never sen before. They looked stubby and black in comparison to the graceful, colourful ones we often see in Ontario.

 

And they were on the hunt, restlessly zipping about nipping mosquitoes and black flies. So we  blessed their enterprise. We had repellent with us, but we hate using the stuff and rarely do. By the time we had completed our circuit around the lake, we had been mercilessly bitten; with deep bites taking flesh from every part of our bodies; black flies particularly like the back of the neck, behind ears, and are skilled at making their pestiferous way inside clothing to reach body parts one might believe to be inaccessible to them; nothing of the kind.

 

The trail was fairly dry in most places, unlike large areas that we often find steeped in bog. There were several places with extended deep muck where we briefly picked Jackie and Jillie up to convey them across those areas, but for the most part the trail is a friendly one. There are the inevitable places where trees have fallen and detours are in order or clambers under/over; no challenge for Jackie and Jillie.

 

The trail mostly skirts the lake, while forested hillsides rise fairly steeply on the opposite side of the trail. By the time we completed the circuit, with its occasional ascents and root-and-rock-tricky challenges the day had heated up and so had we. 

 

It's hard to tell whether Jackie and Jillie remember other times when they've been with us on trips to the New Hampshire woods of the White Mountain National Forest. They have accompanied us for years, a week in the spring, and another in fall. Dogs have fairly good memories and it's quite feasible that they do find themselves familiar with a landscape visited infrequently.

 

 

In any event, once we were ensconced in the cottage we rent at those times in the Waterville Valley, they make themselves right at home. They find all the places where they can be comfortable and more or less claim them as their own. Entitled little pups, they are. Of course we'd have it no other way. Sharing with them is part of our own pleasure in removing ourselves briefly from the familiar.

 

 

We decided we would return to Smartsbrook for another hike there. Before we did, though Jackie and Jillie made a friendly trip over to say hello to the three miniature goats that our host houses behind their own large traditional country home. And nor did they intend to ignore the presence of the tiny white bunny which was quite unfazed at their presence.

 

 

The hencoop chickens now, that's another story altogether. They're mixed breed hens, raised from chicks. In fact, the last time we were there three years ago, before the Pandemic, the chicks were being warmed by a heat lantern in their very early days. They've turned out to be excellent layers, the eggs they leave for our host to pick up are coloured in beautiful soft shades of ivory and brown. We were given a gift of a half-dozen and enjoyed them; fresher than any eggs acquired in a supermarket. 

 

And then we returned to Smartsbrook and this time it wasn't raining, so no one needed rainjackets. The roar of the mountain stream tumbling over rocks and boulders has its own pleasurable cadence and loud though it may be as the trail edges closer to the streambed, it is also soothing and tranquilizing. The constant spray of the stream moisturizes the air; reason enough why vegetation on the forest floor grows to great size, and why there is copious lichen of various colours and forms clinging to the trunks of trees and hanging from their branches.

 

We hear song sparrows in the forest, and see yellow Admirals fluttering about the trees. Underfoot the trail is wet and on either side grow straw lilies, lilies-of-the-valley, and false Solomon's Seal in abundance. Only one lonely Ladies Slipper comes to our notice. Jackie and Jillie forge enthusiastically ahead, and we follow. The footing is fine for the most part, but complicated here and there as it narrows to accommodate ladders comprised of crossing roots and rocks liberally strewn about.

 

This also happens to be the day we've decided to drive south in the state, to mosey about what is called Antique Alley, a series of antique, memorabilia and frankly junk shops along the route. Where now and again we end up popping into shops, with Jackie and Jillie sitting in pouches slung over our shoulders. A not inconsiderable weight which guarantees we don't linger too long in any one place. It's part of the fun of being there. But there is disappointment when we come across one shop after another shuttered, the result of a downturn in the trade.