Bramblings: Laboring on Labor Day

By Becky Nelson
Bramblings
Every year, one of us at the farm notes the coming and going of the Cornish Fair as the end of summer, quickly followed by Labor Day…the unofficial beginning of fall. Cornish Fair has come and gone, and our single high school employee has already spent his first day in classes. This year, with temperatures forecast to be in the summery 80s and a stretch of sunny weather coming, it will feel anything but like fall, even though some leaves are already turning color as daylight hours shorten.

According to the calendar, there is still some summery time left, and according to the growing season here at the farm, summer is still in full swing, but the end August is an absolute change in atmosphere as kids head back to school, pools are closed up, summertime neighbors head for warmer climes and close up their summer homes, and business slows at our farm store. We were hoping to take a few post-summer days off ourselves, but with the hard times of this rainy summer, we need to turn our efforts to making as much hay as we can. There isn’t much hay in the barn as I write. Even with a few short stretches of non-rainy days, some of the fields we mow have remained so wet we can’t get on them to harvest. I’m afraid we will be laboring on Labor Day, which isn’t unusual in a farm life, and is actually expected.

With the weather giving us a little harbinger of fall last week with some sweatshirt mornings, we know that daylight hours will shorten and plants will give up. The summer-fall season transition is interesting. With several of our crops under hoop houses that provide protection from weather ups and downs, we continue growing and picking much later into autumn than we did in the past. Outdoor crops like corn and beans, squash and cucumbers are much more vulnerable to cold snaps and water issues, but the “under cover” crops keep us hopping for several weeks to come. One of our young student workers has committed to coming and working after school to help us start pruning in the raspberry patch, but for the rest of true summer, we old folks are on our own to get things done.

More than likely, we will forget to take time for ourselves and summer will melt into fall which will melt into winter and we will have another year pass with little time off taken by the farmers. We have friends who have been urging us to cut back and slow down, taking time to stop and smell the roses a bit, but we are very bad at heeding advice. We owe them an evening barbecue, and haven’t even taken the time to do so. We are not good at being friends or at taking care of ourselves.

As we do almost every year, we will have to shrug and promise ourselves to schedule better next year and take time off when more folks are around to cover for us. As most small business owners and emergency workers around the region and beyond know, commitment to the lifestyle is an all-consuming commitment and time can be a rarity. We need to get better at taking time to recharge and relax, however, and start thinking about cutting back so we can enjoy life a little more as we have entered the “retirement age” and tasks seem to take longer and we seem to get more tired as the days stretch on. We need to heed the message of Labor Day which was established to celebrate the worker, and celebrate ourselves.

I am not very good at scheduling, and my spouse is even worse at planning or wanting to take time away from the farm. We need to remember what we hope for the kids who work for us, though…that time off with family is equally or more important than time at the desk or the hoe or the berry patch. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” as the old adage says. For the rest of us workaholics out there, try to take some time. Take a trip. Take a fishing pole off the shelf and take a time out. Life is too short. Don’t waste it always working. Maybe we will get finished with the hay long enough to take a trip to a fair or at least a couple hours sitting in the shade eating a piece of watermelon and enjoying the first hot days of fall. Maybe. Maybe I will get better at scheduling and maybe we will get better at not laboring on Labor Day.