Hi everyone! it’s been a while and I apologize for not writing more… 
I’ve been researching stories and as a photographer in Salem MA with Vistaphotography one of my passions is following the fall foliage throughout New England for Yankee Magazine. Each year is a bit different and sometimes the year has just wonderful color and others, less so. 
This year Eastern Massachusetts is being hit by the winter moth which came to us via Europe and in the last few years it has found a source of food which happens to be our beloved sugar maples (Acer saccharum ) which gives us our spectacular scarlet reds and oranges. (seen at right)
The culprit at left has only been here a few years and with no natural enemies to keep it in check it has been spreading from south of Boston to now north of Boston in Salem.
I witnessed the mating flights last November and it was like a fairy wonderland with thousands of the moths flying in the woods near my house.
Now before you start canceling your trips!!!
All is not lost since the area is a small one and also a scientist from Harvard started this month releasing some European flies that are the natural enemy of the moth. They are picking a couple of locations both north and south of Boston so they will spread out from these areas and start to keep the winter moth population in check… I’d like to get a few for my trees but I don’t seem to be high on their list.. 
If you want more information on the winter moth control efforts check this WBZ news clip on Youtube.
All in all the problem will be a small area in eastern Massachusetts and the rest of New England will be unaffected but you can check both here and on my blog at Yankee Magazine where I keep a close eye on anything that might affect our search for fall foliage.
You can also visit Facebook where I admin Yankee Magazines Facebook page for fall foliage. There you can follow both my posts on where the fall color is happening and many other photographers post there with what they are finding. This year that page should be a happening place.
You can also follow me on Twitter (Foliage_Reports) and I try to post during my days on the road what I’m finding where ever I’m at. You can also reply back to my posts with questions on specific areas that I may have not visited yet to see when I’ll be hitting those areas. Or I may ask one of my other contacts what they are seeing in these areas.
So If you have any questions be sure to either drop me a line here or at Yankee or on Facebook and I look forward to hearing from you this summer leading up to our fall explorations…
Jeff Foliage
Travel report:
Silas Griffith Inn
Last week we woke up to a partly cloudy morning and said good bye to the Inn, this is a definitely a place to come back to.
Cathy has created a comfortable place for people to stop at. The sitting rooms are set up for adults or kids and they had a wide screen TV with every game console you could imagine hooked to it. So if it rains and you decide to stick around the common room then the kids shouldn’t drive you… too nuts?
Common room
We hit the road and drove to Arlington where we located two covered bridges and I found a stream that was behind an antique store that used to be a grist mill.
grist mill
We then stopped at the Norman Rockwell exhibit which by the way is in a sugar shack! Yes I don’t kid you and our opinion is if you want Norman Rockwell then go to Stockbridge MA. I will say their apple cider doughnuts are great as are the rest of the edibles they have there.
We traveled over 313 into NY and down route 22 until we picked up route 2 back into the Berkshires. Anyone who has never driven that winding steep road
old shed
between the NY border and Williamstown is missing it. It’s too late for this year but make sure you do it next year. The biggest trouble I had was gawking and not hitting the guard rail.
We both feel an entire day needs to be given to North Adams and Williamstown. The MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams and Williams College in the latter are such that on a sunny afternoon you will be hard pressed to not spend days there…
We stopped at the Eagles nest for dinner with the sun setting and while the food was very good and their signature mulled apple cider drink was very warming on a cool afternoon (44 degrees) the service was a little distracted… maybe it was the valley view’s? It’s good to do once but I’d like to hear if anyone else had a different take on this place..
View from Eagles Nest restaurant
We continued in on the Mohawk trail and the sun soon set. My only disappointment was that the color all day had been less than stellar and a waitress at the Eagle’s Nest said she thought the rain had drained the color over night. I mean I had found great color the day before but today the colors were muted all through the south west VT into NY and back along the Mohawk Trail.
Check back through the season as I post trip reports on my journeys through the New England Foliage
Jeff Folger
View from the Sunset Hill House Inn
I went up late in the afternoon to the Lincoln/Woodstock NH area and I ended up in one of my favorite places, Sugar hill NH.
I decided to try the Sunset Hill House and see what the “Grand Inn” was like. All in all it met or exceeded all my expectations. I had an east facing room and when I woke the next morning I saw the picture to the left.
I had breakfast (also wonderful) and was soon on the road. I took pictures all through the area and there was no shortage of subjects.
I keep coming back to the Sugar Hill Meeting house and this is about the best shot I’ve ever gotten of it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be happy but I’ll keep trying.
That’s all we can do is too keep trying to get our best shot. You keep coming back to the same subject and you learn what light it looks best in and sooner or later you will get it just right..
Jeff Folger
www.facebook.com/yankeefoliage
I have something of an interest in fall foliage. I’m spending a ton of time on Yankee Magazines Facebook fan page for fall foliage. My Vistaphotography fan page has been lagging a bit because of all the questions that pop in from people from all over the globe who plan to visit New England this and every autumn.
This is the cover of Globe weekend fall foliage edition.
I was on the Boston Globe weekend magazine a couple of Sunday’s ago and it coupled with an interview on the Weather Channel with Jim Cantore. I recorded it and put the video up on Youtube… I’ve been interviewed on the radio before (and currently on Thurdays at 11:10AM EST on 980 WCAP in the Merrimack Valley.
Of course the big question is when will peak be? and equally tough to answer is: How do I ensure I don’t miss it? I don’t think folks are too happy with some of my answers which may be a bit too truthful… To start, I don’t work for the Tourism Division of any state so what you get from me is what I see and not what it takes to get more visitors into our stores. If there is no color the that’s what I’ll tell you.
Ok, the answer to the first question: I don’t know! I can usually anticipate that between the 28th of Sept and 20th of October we will have great color somewhere in New England… and with a good system of foliage spotter friends throughout New England and talking to forest rangers and people who know a lot more than I do I have educated myself on when to expect good if not “peak” color.
The answer to the 2nd is even worse: If you are coming in for only 3 days, then it will be hit or miss and more likely miss. If you come back each year you will get a feel for it and soon you will have a good idea of when peak happens. I live here in Massachusetts and I don’t hit “peak” every time I head out the door and I have 30days to play with!
Last week, I traveled on Friday the 25th because my readers of my other blog on the Yankee Magazine website are either posting on the Yankee foliage map that peak has come or they’re asking when is peak???
Came by to say hi
Well as of Today Sunday the 27th, “Peak” hasn’t happened. I checked with a fellow photographer in the mid Vermont region and she says that between the heavy frost, rain and wind, some leaves did come down. But luckily it wasn’t a hard rain or wind or it would be a lot worse. Wind, Rain and Frost all together are not a leaf peepers friend.
Keep watching my Yankee blog for foliage updates and if you need more immediacy than that then follow me on Twitter at either foliage reports or my business twitter name Vistaphotos. At this time I’m doing very little regular photography which is unusual since I would think most folks would want to update their family photos with a beautiful fall portrait. But this allows me more time to travel about New England.
Jeff Folger (AKA. Jeff Foliage)
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