One of the best things about autumn is the way the colors invade the house, overflowing the countertops, sparkling in hot jars and bringing the summer sunshine in.

Most of my tomatoes were grown from Baker Creek and Thresh seeds, and I was impressed with the germination rate and now the vitality of the tomato vines and how well they set fruit. Essentially no disease, either, which was a pleasant surprise. Beautiful colors, great flavor and texture.

What a harvest!

What a beautiful end-of-summer it has been. After a struggle with the yearly grasshopper infestation early on, and a number of summer storms that threatened hail and definitely left their mark, after weeks of witheringly hot weather, the end-of-summer sweetened through September and into this beginning-of-fall. And now it is October, and the first of the real fall weather happened as suddenly as that turn of the calendar page. We know it is coming, but it always happens more suddenly than we expect, even when we’re anticipating it.

And with that sweet end-of-summer and beginning-of-fall comes all the work and the reward that is the harvest season.

The simple bounty of fresh-picked fruits, plums and apples and wonderful-ripe tomatoes, flame-colored pumpkins and whimsical blue Jarrahdales, and of course baskets of fresh eggs – It is humbling and enlivening and fosters a sense of connectedness to the past. To a simpler time. To, in many ways, a more challenging time, but a time of reliance upon and deep appreciation for God’s earth, and the bounty that can be cultivated from it, through the work of our hands and sweat of our brow. The experience, the work, the flavors and colors and textures, give me a greater understanding of the Dominion Mandate of Genesis, to fill the earth and subdue it, to cultivate and steward all the bounty and beauty that God lovingly placed here for our good and for His glory.

I think it happens every year, but this year was…more so. Just like that, summer wraps to a close. The first day of autumn is imminently approaching. The fall cow work is well underway. The garden is producing like there is no tomorrow, but every tomorrow arrives with more produce than I can keep up with.

Soon I’ll wean Posey’s calves and start milking again, a slow rhythm I am looking forward to. I’ve missed the hour in the morning with my head leaned against her warm flank, listening to the milk singing into the pail, taking in the sweet smells of cow and milk and hay.

Soon, though maybe not for another month or so, the garden will take a frost and officially come to an end for the year. But planning next year has already begun and the anticipation will only grow. It is a sweet occupation for the middle of winter!

But for now, there is more than enough to do, more than enough to occupy. The summer isn’t completely gone and what time is left is precious.

When I walked down this evening to close the greenhouse and lock up my chickens, the moon, huge and red, was just clearing the horizon and losing itself in a bank of clouds from an incoming thunderstorm. Lightning flickered in the south and a little thunder rolled in the distance. Rain is just now starting to plink musically against the windows. Summer is almost gone. But not quite.

It hints at fall for weeks, with subtly changing light and softly lengthening shadows, with the changing colors of the grasses and the golden palette of the wildflowers. The rosehips are suddenly scarlet, the pumpkins just wait to be picked. The meadowlark no longer sings, but the doves do, sweetly and quietly.

And then the apples! Over the next few weeks they’ll get sweeter, but they are blushing and weighing heavy on the boughs. The house smells heavenly, with the wonderful aromas of autumn.

This is probably my favorite time of the year. I love the change in rhythms and routines, the fall work, and seeing springtime and summertime work finally come to fruition. Whether it was something I nurtured from seed or a wild thicker of fruit I kept my eye on or the plum trees planted by previous owners of the ranch, it is delightful to finally find ripening fruit, and to begin to metaphorically water at the mouth imagining what lovely delicacies will result, when summertime is a memory.

So, plums. Usually I am just chomping at the bit to start canning, but I’m being a little more moderate this year, partly because it was a weird growing season so harvest is a little low, but partly because I actually really enjoy having fresh-frozen fruits to make into pies and purée for things later. Thus, the three sacks of plums I picked yesterday are now chopped and pitted in the freezer, right 5-cup bags. Plums make the most succulent pies and crisps!

And I can’t help but reflect on the fact that someone else’s foresight is why I am now enjoying (and sharing with others) a harvest. It is rather poignant, isn’t it? What a blessing.

Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on August 21, 2024

A few days ago, my husband and I and my father-in-law were helping a neighbor precondition calves, the first of the fall cow work. The creaking of the saddle leather, the soft tinkling of spur rowels, the sound of hooves on ground surprisingly soft for August, with the sun just getting hot on our shoulders as we rode west to gather the cows – familiar sounds, familiar sights, familiar faces. It is just plain fun to listen as the conversations and commentary fly, punctuating the rhythm of the work.

“How’s that horse working out for you?”

“Did you get that hay bought?”

“My dog knows three commands: ‘get down,’ ‘come,’ and ‘dang it, get in the trailer!’”

But this time, the conversation turned quickly to one subject, and settled there: a local ranching family that is currently up against the Forest Service in a court case that could cost them their livelihood. The details of the case are still coming out, but it is shocking and concerning situation that has really galvanized the ranching community.

Farm and ranch families make up less than 2% of the American population, down from 80% in the 1700s. to about 40% in the early 1900s. With numbers like that, it goes without saying that even the percentage of those with a more rural lifestyle, who are more familiar with the community mechanics and dynamics, who know where our food comes from and how family-run agriculture works, has also dwindled. Politics and culture have shifted in favor of urbanization and industrialization, and social media and climate alarmists have helped to shape our culture’s overall negative view of the agricultural industry. People in positions of federal authority with no true knowledge of agriculture pass laws and initiatives that are not based in the reality that is America’s rural families and farming and ranching families, but based in politics heavily steeped in ideology, policies that have crippled the agriculture industry over the decades.

And this local issue has brought all of that to the forefront. A typically-reserved group of people are speaking up a little louder.

When you are part of an industry with rapidly dwindling numbers, you care. But more than that, when you are part of a community that depends on other members of the community and they depend on you, you care. When you work shoulder-to-shoulder, when you break a sweat and eat dust and tell stories and share life and sit down over a meal together, you are family. And family cares. And family stands up for its own. Because we know that what happens to one of us could happen to any of us, and what happens to one matters to all. We know, and we care.

In the few short years of being a rancher’s wife, I have seen what a unique and beautiful picture of family and community is demonstrated by the ranchers we are privileged to call friends and neighbors. Frankly, I haven’t seen that level of community anywhere else. I have seen how people rally around one another, in times of need but also in times of joy. I caught a glimpse of it before we got married, when this community rallied in support of the grieving family of a pillar of this community, who had died suddenly. I saw it during our wedding, with the number of neighbors who stepped in to help with food and setup, among other things. And roughly two years ago it was amazing to me to see how friends and neighbors leapt to action when my father-in-law had an ATV wreck in a remote pasture, and the number of folks who dropped what they were doing to help find him, help get him to the ambulance, and to help us get our fall cow work done in the absence of a fully-functioning Dave.

And why? Because that’s what community does.

So, when a family in this community is facing an unprecedented criminal suit, and a family, no less, who is loved and respected and known to be law-abiding, the broader ranching community takes notice.

We aren’t designed for a life lived in isolation from others. We were made for partnerships with people, face-to-face interactions, collaboration, commiseration. Now, I don’t for a moment assume that everyone who reads this column shares my faith. But if you’ll humor me and take the dusty Bible off your shelf (you probably have one) and look at the first few chapters of the Bible in the book of Genesis, where God saw the beauty of the world He had just made, and the Man Adam in the Garden of Eden, in spite of how good everything was, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

I’ll confess, I use that line of Biblical insight on my husband occasionally when he annoys me, which is extremely, extremely, extremely rare. But we – people – were not meant to be alone. We were not meant to face life’s challenges alone. We weren’t meant to face life’s joys alone. We weren’t meant to live without thought of a bigger picture.

God doesn’t give marriage to everyone. He doesn’t put everyone in a community that is innately close-knit. He doesn’t give families to everyone. But to everyone He gives the capacity and frankly the need for fellowship and community. And, dare I say it, the responsibility to engage. It is just a responsibility that a lot of people don’t uphold.  

We weren’t meant to be alone, to selfishly pursue our interests, our desires, our wants and needs, apart from the needs of family and community. We were made for something so much better.