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Alpenglow on the Franconia Ridge
Some geraniums in North Woodstock don't die after their time in the garden - they come to Faddens General Store to pass the winter and brighten the chilly days of Main Street passersby .
There is snow on the ground already in this White Mountains town and the wide window is crammed with more than two dozen of the red and pink plants, some belonging to other people, where Mary Fadden will tend to them as they draw sustenance from the warm, if not stingy, rays of winter sunshine that stream through the window.
There are days where it is little more than sunlight that comes into the general store, which has a sign on the side of it that reads, ''If we ain't got it, you don't need it.'' A Main Street fixture for nearly a century, the store is now an anachronism. People need what Fadden's doesn't have and mostly head out of town, to Plymouth or Littleton, to find it.
''Theres a lot of competition,'' says Jim Fadden, whose grandfather, James Henry Fadden, bought the store in 1915. ''The townspeople can go to Shaw's or Butson's,'' even though those supermarkets are 25 miles or more away.
So a couple of months ago, Jim and Mary Fadden made the difficult decision to sell this piece of family history, where Jim Fadden's grandfather, father and he had worked all their lives.
''Some people live in the past, but we don't want to do that,'' Mary Fadden said. ''Life is too short to watch TV and go to work.''
Adds Jim, ''It's going to bother me - no question about it.''
The floor of the store creaks comfortably as the Faddens putter about it. It does, of course, have a history.
James Henry Fadden was born in Thornton Gore and made his way to North Woodstock, where he opened a meat business in what is now the Landmark Restaurant, across the street from the general store. That original store burned and Fadden moved his operation across the street into the building that is there now.
But there were once two stores on the site and somewhere along the line, James H. bought the whole building, jacked it up, closed off the port between the two stores where a horse and wagon could back into and made it into one store.
He sold meat and other groceries, as well as anything else people needed. It was never the only store in town, but it served well the community. It thrived in the days before Interstate 93 came through in the 1960s, when traffic had to pass through North Woodstock on its way to and from the North Country.
Jim Fadden's father, Norman, took over the store when James H. died in 1961 at the age of 91. Norman Fadden, who used to watch the comings and goings on Main Street from the generous storefront windows, died several years ago at age 95, leaving Jim Fadden, who had worked there, with few exceptions, since childhood.
These days, the store sells newspapers, candy, cold drinks, a few gallons of milk and other basic staples. There are also items you might be surprised to find - paper bag holders; glue traps for mice; poker chips; Teaberry gum; Moxie and even emergency drinking water tablets.
''We get a lot of Appalachian Trail hikers in here in the summer,'' Jim Fadden said. ''We do well in the summer.''
It is also scattered with antiques and most of those will go with the store when it is sold. It is the couple's fervent wish that it will be bought by someone who cares for history.
It was not an easy decision to list the store, the Faddens said. It is only tended by Jim, who goes in seven days a week and goes home ''when I feel like closing.'' But being a few years away from 70, the couple would like not to be so tied down.
''The economy is a long way from being what its supposed to be,'' Jim Fadden said. ''If I was 20 years younger, I would keep at it. Times are changing - this is a place for someone younger.''
Faddens General Store is listed with Pembroke-based Historic Properties for $348,000.
Jim and Mary Fadden will keep it running until new owners take it over. Until then, Mary will continue to care for geraniums, like the big stewpot Everett and Fran Howland give to her each winter for safekeeping.
''It's so old, but it lives on and on,'' she said, trimming back its buds.
And Jim Fadden will use the other window to start another crop of tomato plants before Town Meeting, a practice he has had for years in the latter part of February. The pots go in the window in late winter and when the spring planting season rolls around, they go home with customers to gardens all over town.
The plants thrive in the window, Mary Fadden says.
''We eat tomatoes in the fall until we can't eat them any more,'' she said.
Oct. 17, 2002
Snow fell in the high country yesterday afternoon. This dose of winter blew in on high winds that all but erased the foliage on the hillsides. But here in the valley, there still remains some vivid colors. On South Mountain next door in Lincoln, the foliage had just passed peak.
The days have been cold, but the air clear and crisp. This afternoon, I was distracted by the play of light and clouds across the Franconia Range. This morning, a huge purple cloud played tag with the sunrise, casting daylight and shadows in a most awesome pattern.
The ancient maple at the Batchelder Farm has lost all of its leaves now, casualties of wind and heavy rain. There was an interesting phenomenon this fall on many maples. It seemed that the outer leaves turned color well before those closer to the trunk. The result was that in some places, there were two peaks - the second occurring when the first leaves dropped from the tree.
In all, it was a delightful, if not unusual fall season. Amid fears that drought and dryness, the autumn colors were as glorious as they are every year.
We have just a few more perfect fall days, surely though, not enough to do all we need or had hoped to do when summer loomed long and languid before us. We`ll enjoy them, rake in hand, before the clock gets set back, the nights get long and the landscape turns to winter.
Thank you so much for visiting North Woodstock this fall. I`m going to take a break for a few weeks, but I`ll let you know when this page gears up again. If you are a faithful reader, thank you. If you just discovered this page in the past few weeks, please drop a line - see the links below - say hello and get on my mailing list.
It is hard to believe ... but one year from Saturday is Bryans and my wedding day! We hope the season will be as long lasting as it was this year.
Oct. 8
A quarter moon hangs lazily in the eastern sky tonight. At 7 p.m., it is dark, clear and cold here in the mountains ... it seems that summer is well and truly behind us. We began to wonder when we contemplated switching on a fan the first week in October.
It is in the cover of darkness and these frosty nights that the leaves change and every day, the landscape is different. The fall color spectacular has been slow in coming this year, which many attribute to the lack of frost, lack of rain and the mystery of Mother Nature herself.
I work for a daily newspaper and the assignment for today was to take a foliage ride and write about it for our Sunday readers, so I set off mid-morning along the Woodstock to Warren Road, with detours to Elbow Pond and the Ravine Lodge on the slopes of Mount Moosilauke.
What was striking was how much green there was on the roadside, while at the very highest elevations, there were signs the wind was too much for the leaves. Typically, peak foliage has come and gone, but it looks like there will be good strong color well into next week.
It was a gorgeous day and crispy cool. We have banished the summer wardrobe and donned fleece, all in the space of a few days.
There are many, many visitors coming through town now. Traffic is slow as everyone takes in the beauty of autumn. As I follow behind slow moving cars from far flung places as Texas and Kansas and Saskatchewan, I try to imagine seeing such blue skies and colorful hillsides for the first time.
I can`t and I am very glad that this is my place in the world.
Oct. 4, 2002
A frost advisory is out for tonight ... the sort of weather that should indeed follow an 80 degree day in October.
The colors have been languidly changing this week - there has been little to set them on fire, so we`re hoping they start to pop after the frost tonight.
The changing season has brought the mice home. They`ve been paying a visit every night this week. One of them pays the price. We`re hoping the word gets around that theyre not welcome, but they seem not to be getting the message.
Some weather is moving in this weekend, but the leaves are not so fragile that we`ll lose too many of them. The big holiday weekend is coming up after this one and I think they`ll be plenty of fire in the mountains for everyone ....
Sept. 29, 2002
We finally got some much-needed rain early Saturday, thanks to the light punch of Hurricane Isidore. His winds were negligible ... the leaves seemed to have been spared.
What is most striking about the landscape is how little color has come out here. There seemed to have been some slow, but steady, change in the last two weeks or so but then it seemed that it all came to a stop. Not that we minded, but it is curious to be staring at October without the blaze of color!
Bright sun washed out the sky this afternoon and before it sank below Kinsman Notch a few minutes after I took this picture, it seemed to light up the leaves of the ancient maple at the Batchelder Farm from within, making them nearly translucent. With no haze at the higher elevations, the Franconia Range was a deep purple.
Now were are casting our weather eyes to the hills and try to determine why the colors are slow in coming this year. The reason, if you listen to the ruminations, is that since there hasn`t been a frost yet, the leaves have not had a significant trigger.
I just think that the colors want to take their time.
After all, what in the world can be the hurry?
