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FALL UPDATE FROM REMEMBRANCE FARM As I write this morning it is another soggy, muddy day in a season full of them, but I'm trying to remember the glorious fall weather we had over the last few weeks. We tend to think of autumn as the culmination of the farming year, as we bring in the bounty of the season. But farming has a circular, not a linear rhythm, so just as we bring some processes to completion we are preparing for the next. Here at Remembrance Farm we have been busy bringing in storage crops in preparation for the long Finger Lakes winter. The root cellar is slowly filling up with carrots, beets, radishes, cabbage, and other good things to nourish us through the winter. As fields are harvested they are replanted to cover crops to prepare for next year. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers in our high tunnels have given way to spinach, lettuce, and other greens we will harvest in the deep winter. The cows enjoy the lush fall growth of clovers and grasses, and they will graze our pastures as long as the weather will allow, but they too, will eventually have to survive on stored feed. The barns are full of hay and now is the time for final repairs to snug up the buildings before winter. I love the image of the annual cycle as the breathing rhythm of Nature. In this metaphor the growing season is Nature's great out-breath, and the Thanksgiving holiday is like the pause before her in-breath. We look forward now to rest, reflection, and regeneration as Nature breathes in. -Nathaniel
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