Our town has a marvelous farmers’ market. Every week, during the market season, farmers and vendors from all over the Hudson Valley come set up shop in the village square. The harvests are picking up the pace and more varied vegetables and fruits are on display. There are fresh herbs and salad greens, some early root vegetables and the beginning of the corn crop is coming in. A couple of local orchards have stands overflowing with peaches and plums. Freshly caught fish is available at one end of the market. Nearby is a farm selling grassfed meat. Between them there is a baker selling dozens of different breads, and a local vineyard with bottles of their wines for sale. You could easily buy a week’s worth of meals, including pickles, jams and desserts.
All summer I drive past farms as I go from one place to another. It’s remarkable how quickly a field of seedlings become lush and green with full grown plants. Cornfields seem to pop up from nowhere and the stalks, in their neat rows, are almost as tall as my car. As the summer goes on, and the harvesting begins in earnest, these same lush fields slowly become empty. The plants exist to produce their fruits and once those are ripe the plant dies back, no longer needed.
When I pulled cards for this month, the theme of the harvest was evident in each one. We understand the usefulness of a harvest when it comes to produce. It’s when it comes to portions of our own lives that we have a hard time seeing it for what it is. We resist letting things go because we took a long time making them. Sometimes we don’t realize that work we’ve been doing was actually the catalyst and support for something better.