Well, in the spring we’d planned for The Pumpkin Pick on October 27. We even planted a bumper crop of squash and pumpkins in various locations around the farm so we’d have a fun hunt to host in the fall. But as we’re learning, you’ve got to be flexible in farming. Most of our pumpkins succumbed to the late summer flood and early killing frost, so we’ll be focusing on some of the many other joys of homestead life in autumn. Plan on colorful kids’ horse rides along cultivated fields and old oak forests; playful goat combing and gentle horse grooming; chicken chasing; bonfires all day and into the night; leaf piles for jumping in; lively old-time bluegrass music and lots of time to explore the cozy, cool-weather pursuits of wool dyeing, hand spinning, needle felting and knitting. There will be a pick-up Soccer Game running most of the day in the sheep paddock. continued »

Tonight I’m sipping wine in front of the wood stove and enjoying the company of four teensy day-old chicks cheerfully peeping in a cardboard box next to me. These are the sort of moments that make autumn here at Circle M Market Farm so blissfully wonderful.

With less light to work by every day, we not only find ourselves inside earlier, we find that we’ve lost the frantic energy of summer. Just this past week, I’ve sat on my front porch swing and read a book, made dinner several nights in a row and watched my horses eat. I hadn’t done any of those things since spring! I think the last time I had wine by the fire was February. But as the gardens slow down, we gradually find more time available to stop and smell the sheep, as well as take care of those things we wish we’d kept on top of all summer. Like chicks. continued »

Whoa! We almost got blown off the planet trying to bring in the harvest this morning. What a send-off for the last box of the season! continued »

Last box of the season! This year, our first as a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm, has absolutely flown by and we’ve been almost too busy to notice. Busy in the best possible way, that is. We feel rich in good work, good food, good partners, even if we often feel desperate for more time in every day. And now the hours of light are shrinking on us at a frightening pace! I suppose that’s our cue to get inside and enjoy the woodstove and all the hearty dinners the year-end garden offers up. Here’s what’s in the box… continued »

I’m beginning to get excited about Thanksgiving. We’ve got over a month until the celebration proper, but of course we’re already planning our menu, cutting clippings out of magazines and making lists on our messy wall-sized kitchen blackboard. We’re warmly anticipating the annual visit from our Chicago “urban family” of special friends who trek out every November to share a weekend of food and catching up. Certainly the advertising media have been focused on the holiday for weeks already, though by the time November 22 rolls around, everything will have already transitioned to Christmas. As a nation, we’ve got lots of mixed feelings about a holiday that puts our colonial empirialism into such sharp focus. And as individuals, we’ve each got a stew pot of family and food memories to digest every year. But as a fledgling market farmer, I’ve got a very new, or perhaps a very old, perspective on the harvest festival this time around. continued »