Getting cooler, more colorful

Nights have been getting colder lately. We've seen temperatures down into the forties. The field in back has been hayed for the final time of 2012 (an activity our horse watched with great interest). It took awhile, but the eagerly anticipated Vermont autumn seems to be upon us. Two large sugar maples in our yard are leading the way to the colorful season. The "authorities" promise that this year will be especially colorful.

I've noticed quite a crowd over at the farm markets lately. Harvest is big business around these parts. It brings a smile to see the local farm stands, unmanned, with heaps of vegetables, a "Help Yourself" sign and a can for depositing your payment. Back in Connecticut, we did see such things from time to time (there was a farm down the road that invited you to help yourself to the eggs), but not with the same regularity. A generous neighbor recently brought over some excellent green peppers and a small basket of the best cherry tomatoes I've ever had. The tomatoes were firm but thin-skinned, so juicy they popped when you bit them and so sweet that, if you didn't know you were eating tomatoes, you might swear you were eating grapes.

Sadly, we have no harvest of our own to share this year. We will have to do something about that in 2013.