BRRRRRR

Oh fall, so beautiful and so full of reckoning. Sunsets here are like stage lights, upside-down funnels streaming gold on the fields, lavender on the hills, and that pink grapefruit color in the evening sky. The chickens huddle up earlier each night and the eggs are slowing down. Fennel is molting–she’s looking plucked and puny– but Paprika just grew back her fluffy coat and healthy appetite.

It’s been four years now since October meant a farm to get in shape for fall. Around this time, most flowers had long since succumbed to the August bug blitz. But the hot weather heroes–zinnias, gomphrena, centaurea–would still be in bloom, and the cooler temperatures would revive  snapdragons, scabiosa, and nigella for a final flush.  A few–amaranth,  statice–would keep their color if we hung them on the sunporch. We’d thread chiles on strings to dry beside them. Peppers always got off to a slow, stubborn start but they’d finally be reddening full blast. We’d smoke the bell peppers and anchos and bag them for the freezer.  The tomatoes were still coming on, but the fruit was misshapen and the vines were shriveled. Sweet corn, okra, and sunflowers would have left thick jungles of toppled and tangled stalks to level.  Herbs and spring-planted greens were parched, woody, or gone to seed.

It was hard to face clearing the summer beds, even to transplant cabbages and seed lettuce and beets and carrots again. I would look around and see everything that dried up, fed the cucumber beetles, or couldn’t outgrow the weeds. I’d think about how I meant to run drip tape out to the furthest rows of flowers, and hang shade cloth over some, and plant field peas in the clay-iest beds. I’d curse myself for letting another season go by without learning this or remembering that. I’d wonder how I could possibly want to do it all over again next spring. I’d sit down in the field and let another year’s worth of regrets roll in.

moral support and liquid courage

And then I’d get over it. If I could handle Kentucky winters, I can handle Winters winters, right? Especially without rows of dying plants to turn under. And with no T-tape to roll up, and no trellises to dismantle and no stakes to dig out. And no killing frost.

Plus, here there’s new olive oil and the freshest, butteriest, alpha-linoleic-iest walnuts. And we’re surrounded by walnut orchards, so there’s also an insanely loud tree-shaker thing and an insanely loud blower thing they use to harvest. Starting rather early in the morning for some people.

This year I’ll miss the beginning of that noisy/productive fall ritual. Even better, I’ll miss the dreary day they make you turn the clocks ahead.  I’ll be eating bún bò giò heo (spicy beef soup) and bahn xeo (rice flour crepes with shrimp and pork) in a balmier place. See you in a few weeks, on the other (colder, darker, nuttier) side.

A few from Burnt Ridge Road, circa 2004.

heavy mulch plus layered low tunnels of spun-bonded fabric and UV plastic can keep hardy veggies alive through a Kentucky winter

oops--the collards and arugula got a little too warm that afternoon

fall means sweeter carrots and beets

and redder lettuce, because there's more sunshine

and mustard with a softer bite

and tender salad greens

that would "cut and come again"

and heads that weren't milky

and hardly any cabbage loopers!

and flowers that snap back

in fiery fall colors

like a final spree

before a last goodbye