Change in the Air

There’s something about the shift to September that shakes away the muggy summer air and brings crisp coolness in the morning. Flowers shift from clovers and daisies to wild asters and golden rod, and the breeze even smells different as it tugs at your hair. A change of season is coming, whether we’re ready for it or not.

The Saturday morning drive to farmer’s market is always an indicator. Each week I watch for changes as a splash of red or a thrust of orange or yellow appears like teasers of what’s to come. Already, one of the old spreading maples in the barnyard is showing ever so slightly a hint of hue, while the others stubbornly hold on to green as long as they can.

In the garden, the zucchinis and cucumbers seem to know that the end is coming—sending forth their fruits faster than can be picked. One inch today, one foot tomorrow! But the pigs don’t mind the occasional garden shark as a crunchy snack. The potato plants are withering, done with their task of growing red and gold nuggets underground for the year. And even the winter squashes are spreading their leaves wide, allowing the sun to penetrate to their orbed labors below for aid in ripening. Really, there won’t be much time left before harvest.

Elsewhere, there are also signs of change. Fewer and fewer hummingbirds appear at the feeders each morning, with only a couple teenaged stragglers left before migration. We keep the feeders full, though, hoping that a passer-by from parts further north will still find a safe place to tank up for the long flight south.

The call of Canada Geese haunts the morning sky, along with the Sandhill Cranes. At first, we were afraid that they had lost their chick this summer, as the wailing and flying from pasture to pasture seemed to last for an entire week in July. But then in August, here came the family with not one but two tall fuzzies in toe! Now those fuzzies are almost as big as their parents, and this last weekend on the farm tour, we watched as the foursome all ascended from the pasture, with the sunlight glinting off their broad wings.

The teenaged turkeys love this time of year, in large part because it’s grasshopper season. They line up at the front of their tractor pen, ready to devour them ALL as I tug and pull it forward to their next patch of clovers and grasses. The crickets fare no better, nor the occasional frog. Hop away fellows, or face the consequences!

The chickens are grumpy and frumpy as they execute their late summer molt. Feathers are strewn everywhere, while their necks or backs sport prickly pins like hedgehogs. As the nights grow chilly, they puff up their pins and short growing feathers in protest, but it seems to do little good. But there are smug faces indeed from the ladies who had an early start, all sleek and shining with their new feather coats, roosting placidly, clucking to themselves.

Perhaps the hardest part of the change to autumn is the reduction in daylight. In a couple of weeks, we’ll be passing the Equinox. Each farmer’s market morning, the sky is dimmer and dimmer, which doesn’t help the bright-eye, bushy-tail index. By end of season, Kelli (my farmer’s market co-pilot) and I will be packing in the dark with coats and hats and gloves. One year, we even packed for the end-of-September market in a skiff of snow! Let’s hope we can skip that experience this year.

There’s always waaaaay too much to do in September on the farm than can ever be accomplished. All the harvesting, wishing we had time to go pick the blackberries in the woods, washing chicken dishes and putting away equipment for the winter, cleaning up the piles and finishing projects. There’s barn mucking, chicken plucking, and if there’s a second crop, even hay baling to squeeze in as well, let alone mulching and ripping out the garden. It’s a bugger the interns have to leave us this time of year. Just look at all the vegetables coming out of the garden right now they could enjoy!

On the flip side, the reward is the slackening of the onslaught of biting insects, the crisp air in the morning that brings its own sense of vitality, the kaleidoscopic change of colors all around, and the bountiful harvest of yumminess from the garden. I just hope that my tomatoes pick up the pace and get around to ripening! I mean, really, 150 plants worth of fried green tomatoes sounds a bit intense, even if I do try putting them on a wood-fired pizza.

The kids are heading back to school, which means that the nights of family crowds with half-pints running freely in the parking lot are coming to a close. Already, one of the nearby campsites has closed down for the season. Our Labor Day Saturday Pizza Farm Night with Duck for the Oyster playing old time fiddle and dance was really the last hurrah to summer. With over 100 folks to join us that night, it was quite a hurrah indeed!

I’m hoping for a long, enjoyable fall, with the frosts waiting until the bitter end. The squashes need ripening, the apples fattening, and there’s still plenty of potatoes to dig. With this year’s late and cold spring, we’re owed a lovely fall, though Mother Nature will surely do whatever it is she plans to do, regardless of our hopefulness. Still, seeing the cranes fly together in the evening and the last hummingbirds buzz the feeder in the morning, watching the twinge of reds and gold appear on the trees and waking to the cool, crispness in the air, we all know that the changes are coming. See you down on the farm sometime.