The Edge of Autumn

I am happy to report - as promised - BACON is back. Yaaaahoo.

It's only one half a pig so apologies in advance - it will go quick.

Speaking of bacon - Dorothy welcomed a litter of piglets in the wee hours last night! The stinker hides her pregnancies so well we never know for sure she's about to pop until a few days before the big event. (Unlike Pearl of Daisy whose bellies get so big they nearly touch the ground by the end - I can relate!)

Everyone is doing well.

Another stormy day and now that the tarp is off the greenhouse and the garlic is (finally) in the ground, I feel like I can once again turn my attention inward, toward the hearth and the rituals of the season of hibernation here on the farm.

There is long fermented bread to bake in the woodstove, the heaving mending basket to attend to, seed catalogues to peruse by the fire.

There is something about life on a farm, even in our modern, relatively urban context that is soothing and grounding in it's seasonality, in it's rhythms.

By the time the winter is over I'll be eager to see the end of frosty mornings waiting for the fire to roar to life . . . But for now, that ritual, the moment of pause, the lighting of candles, the dark mornings, the smell of woodsmoke and crusty bread in the air . . . I am ready.

Fall on the farm is a perennial reminder to pause, to remember that nothing in nature blooms all year. To learn to celebrate not only the harvest, but the sweet, musky scent of decay as the riot of summer returns to the ground to sleep and to begin anew.

As always.

Best,

Stacey