The works of the farm roll themselves up like vines frozen on the crusted earth in October.  Twisted together and burgeoning all summer they climax now with a rush of things to tend to.  The word “holy” may sound a bit too sacrosanct for the farm in light of our modern vernacular, but on the farm we literally "set apart" or "put by" to a certain purpose many things at once before the winter.  This “making holy” can mean neither more nor less than the Creator intended.  The “first-fruits” of harvest were, in times past, more habitually set aside in accordance with His beautiful laws to reflect an awe-inspiring truth about Himself and what He has made.  In this way the commonalities of life, the everyday provisions, become sacred and holy; turning the eyes of our souls back to the divine Provider through the abundance of common gifts given to an uncommon purpose.

These are days when we can revel in the changeful rush of sky and earth towards year’s end.  I love noticing the way a leaf curls close together in helpless and impulsive protest of the frosty chill, or the way the sun rises ruddy and defiant on crisp mornings from his new place and casts a sultry glance down the frosty lawn to challenge the deepening cold of nights growing ever clearer.  I watch the crests of the hills in the rolling farm-land for the tell-tale clouds of dust thrown up from a combine reaping.  Long days of blustering rain and harsh wind out of doors promise warmth and busyness inside.  There are few joys greater than pulling up the drive in autumn dusk to the greeting window-lights of home or yanking stocking caps down over ears and long socks up to knees to tramp over hardened earth and under icy sky.  Here are the days when you can work up a good sweat and a great appetite on the last of the garden work and wear your short-sleeved shirt to dinner when the house is suddenly too close and warm for comfort. 

Our irons are so numerous they hardly fit in the fire, while the largest of them, the root cellar, is coming along well.  The hurry and scurry of our last minute wood chopping, window mopping, supply shopping, can-topping, project stopping, market hopping, brow-sopping, summer-dropping life is nothing short of exhilarating.  We sometimes take a breath just long enough to realize we are making our own heat and can attest to the old adage Daddy posts in his office… “He who cuts his own wood is twice warmed.”

Here’s hoping you are warmed just so every day!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

It was one of those warm ripe days, the kind where the heat of the sun soaks into the very marrow of you and makes you want to jump up and run for miles and be very still all at the same time.  Breathing the air was like drinking strong wine, so laden was it with the flavors of harvest.  Dappled light was dancing to the music of the lively trees.  Old patriarchs of the woods tossed their lofty arms in a cheery gale, casting leaves merrily into the breeze like clouds of confetti at a celebration.  A broad span of corn field mesmerized my eyes with the shimmering role and dip of the sea turned to gold and heralded the onslaught of the wind with voice of thundering waves. The whole world swayed and whispered with the roar of one mighty crowd in the midst of an overture, peering over the vast edge of a moment of expectation towards an indiscernible culmination.

I was driving home…yes plain-old-ordinary driving home…with these thoughts simmering in my mind.  I thought of what a nice beginning that would be for a really good sit-by-the-fire story; and then remembered how much easier it is to begin a tale than end it, even as “The end of a thing is better than its beginning.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8)  For all the books ever written, there must be a thousand that languish in closets in a perpetual state of infancy. 

Between the covers of a story, that stand out in ripples of poetry, lie the facts in lines of prose.  Here, while the colors of autumn flame and fade, the wood must be chopped and stacked, the last chickens processed, the last grass clinging to living green must be cut, the last fruit gathered.

Already the last of the apples, excluded from regimental rows of cans stored away, are just beginning to wrinkle with age in bushel baskets.  Our pumpkins sport wooden stems cured from once-juicy slips of vine.  The tomato plants are officially spent; resulting in a blending of emotions for those of us who reveled in the treat of fresh tomatoes all summer and survived the late nights and soggy hands of the sixty-quart canning season. The diminishing “side-table” in our family room is reestablished to its former height with new bags of wheat.  It probably comes as no surprise that we decorate with our bulk food-supplies.  In any case, once the stack is leveled with a board and draped with tanned deer-hides, it truly makes a lovely buffet...really.  The only drawback I can discover to edible furnishings is the perpetual fluctuation in size.

Our table groans under bounty of a different kind than heretofore.  Mountains of potato salads and fresh salsas, and heaping bowls of cherry tomatoes give place to pots of hearty chili and savory soup and steaming stacks of cornbread with vegetables from the frozen regions of the freezer.

Autumn is in the lane that leads home now. The bird-songs will trill on a chilled and shortened tune when the wind blows with ice on his breath. The door to the old year is just around the corner.  Very soon it will close, but the wonder of living is the privilege of leaving the old behind and walking on into the time on the other side of the door.

In this sense, a tale never really ends.  I am beginning to think the best “end” to a story must be a closed door, with mystery and promise of the nameless future behind it, since it tacitly forbids the mortal reader to look past the threshold of time into the awesome knowledge of eternity; a thing which none of us can really do…yet.