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Looking back on my childhood, leaves are my favorite memory of fall.

I don’t remember the raking as being fun, but I did help my dad when I had to.

The fun would begin when my brothers and I would gather the smaller piles into one huge pile and jump into it. We would even jump off a swing to land on top of the pile.

Leaves on the ground now are more for looking at and less for play. When the time comes to rake them out of my yard, I can’t rake them into a huge pile on the curb anymore.

I live in Roanoke,  where residents must place them into plastic or biodegradable paper bags. The bagged leaves will be picked up by the city and later be turned into compost.

The best alternative, though, is to use a special mulching blade for your mower so the leaves are chopped up small enough to be used as fertilizer for your grass.

-- Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

The smell of autumn rises from Ann DeMaury's basement.

It's the scent of cinnamon, cloves, sugar, apples and a little something special cooking in DeMaury's 40-gallon copper kettle during apple butter season at Ann's Apple Butter in Botetourt County.

"Of course you have to wait until the apples are ripe, so usually about mid-September we'll get started and I'll stay busy, six days a week, right up through January," she said. "Well, I'll finish by January if I'm lucky," she added.

An apple butter-making day starts with labeling jars from the previous day's canning, then a pallet of apples is brought in by tractor and the chopping, ricing (making apple sauce), cooking and spicing begins.

At 4 p.m., the apple butter has been cooking for hours and is ready for canning. Family members and kids from DeMaury's church form an assembly line to pour, top, wash, dry and assemble jar after jar of apple butter in a spicy steam cloud.

"It gets a little warm in there early on," said DeMaury, "but by January you're thankful for the warmth.

She'll eventually can around 13,000 quarts, many of which will go to local restaurants and food shops.

DeMaury is a second-generation commercial apple butter producer. Her father engineered machine-powered apple peelers and sauce churners when he began in the early 1970s. She took over in 1997 and has vendors from Northern Virginia to Georgia.

She has had desperate customers from as far away as Arizona call trying to find her apple butter.

"If they'll pay the shipping, I'll box it and send it to them."

Video and story by Sam Dean/The Roanoke Times

Some days it seems to me that we have all had our lives impacted by cancer in someway. Before I was even born, my paternal grandmother Irene Duerscherl passed away from breast cancer. In honor of breast cancer awareness month I wanted to do a project looking at how relationships are changed, shaped and formed through breast cancer survivors, their families and friends.  The series is running every Tuesday in October. Click on the link to view the two completed stories and watch for the next two stories to come. http://www.roanoke.com/multimedia/221450

Photography and story by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times.

See an audio slideshow of the hawk watchers.

The air is getting cooler and the sky is a deep blue.

You can feel autumn in the air.

The birds feel it, too. And a dramatic natural event is happening. Birds and insects are flying south along the Appalachian mountain chain to warmer climates and more abundant food sources.

Broad-wing Hawks are the most common winged migrant and can number into the thousands in a single day. Red-tail Hawks often fly overhead as well as migrating Sharp Shined and Cooper's hawks. Then there are the falcons, a rare peregrine, kestrel and merlin, some of the fastest flying birds in the world can sometimes be spotted. Of course it’s always a thrill to see an American bald eagle, majestically flying above the mountain tops.

Birdwatchers come to see the annual autumn bird migration pass through Southwest Virginia. That is what a group of about 20 birdwatchers from the New River Valley Bird Club and Ferrum Nature Society did on a Saturday in early September.

Local birdwatcher and mountaintop host Clyde Kessler has been watching the fall migration from atop Rocky Knob off the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 168 in Floyd County since the 1970s. He has the records to prove it. Not only does he watch and identify birds, he counts them, too.

It’s not only the hawks that catch the eye of birdwatchers at Rocky Knob. They are also watching migrating song birds, hummingbirds, butterflies and dragonflies. What ever flies by usually gets noticed. Hawks are cataloged and reported to the Hawk Migration Association of North America. Birdwatchers, experienced and beginners, are welcome to join in the fun most every weekend through October. Kessler recommends bringing binoculars, a chair, food and water -- and a warm jacket.

The air is getting cooler.

Don't be surprised to see a car carrying skis or a snowboard, even when it's warm. It may be headed to Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre  in Lynchburg.

The year-round snowboarding, skiing and tubing park was built by Liberty University for use by its students and the public as part of Ultimate LU, a program to make outdoor recreational opportunities more accessible for students and funded by university benefactors.

"It's pretty good to come here during the week and shred a little bit," said Aaron Derr, a Liberty University student. "It's a little weird to get used to at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty fun."

Snowflex is a synthetic material designed to simulate snow, including layers of cushioning underneath, making it softer than groomed snow.

This is the first slope in the United States to use the technology. Users of the slope must wear long-sleeved shirts and pants for protection, preferably water-resistant since the surface is misted to keep  it conditioned for use.

Evan Graybill, 14, of Lynchburg summed it up: "It's the summer, and you can ski anytime. It's really fun, and you don't have to go far from home just to ski."

Online: www.liberty.edu/snowflex