Yesterday afternoon, a monarch opened her wings on a stand of New England asters, sun catching her orange-and-black wing like stained glass. She's fueling up for a trip most of us will never make: up to 3,000 miles, all the way to the forests of central Mexico. The monarchs we're seeing right now belong to what scientists call the "super generation." They are the only monarchs in the whole yearly cycle that live eight months instead of five or six weeks, just enough time to make the entire journey south.
She felt like the perfect welcome to today's autumnal equinox, the one day a year when daylight and darkness split almost exactly evenly. We've pointed this shift out to students all month: the way the fields smell different in the morning, the way the light shines lower and longer. Today was just the official marker for something we're living.
The crops are shifting, too. Our zucchini and cucumber plants, the backbone of summer meals, are spent and put to bed. Tomatoes and peppers are giving us their final harvests. Last Friday and into this week, the crew pulled crops out of fields prone to flooding as the rain came. Celery root and winter squash were the focus, which store beautifully once washed and cured, and will soon be headed for your fall shares.
Wildlife feels the shift, too. Deer and coyote sightings are back to being routine. Sandhill cranes are staging in the fields around us, fueling up on leftover grain before their own migration south. The native plants still hold their blossoms, serving as hosts for bees and monarchs to stock up on nourishment before the real cold.
Our early morning farm planning meetings have a different tenor now, too. The quiet, dark, coffee-fueled energy of a team figuring out how to send you the best of fall. We took a break from that yesterday to celebrate a batch of fall birthdays with the crew: cake, a little friendly competition, and stories and laughter as we sat outside together, enjoying the crisp air after a long, warm summer.
Autumn is the season we love most, even with its challenges. It's the season that asks us to slow down and notice what we have. We hope you'll come feel it with us. Join us at the Fall Farm Festival for Good, walk the fields, and watch the monarchs work the late season blooms before signs of early winter arrive.
