Sometime in crazy July, a vegetable farmer gets to thinking about how free and easy she will be in September, conveniently forgetting that September is all about harvesting, and still means weeding and a little transplanting. In July, September seems like an excellent time to take a little break from farming, so much so that we bought tickets to the Common Ground Fair in Maine.
The fair is run by the Maine Organic Farming and Gardening Association, and is pretty groovy, with draft horse and oxen and sheepdog and sled dog demonstrations. It has interesting talks all day long, about pack goats and permaculture and identifying apples. My fellow farmer and I had been wanting to go for years.
We made various efforts to plan ahead, chiefly consisting of telling people we were excited about going. One of our CSA members grew up near the fair, and she laughed a little when we said how nice it would be with no noisy mid-way and rides. She answered, “Well, when I was a kid, we wanted the midway and the rides! But my parents, who were homesteaders, loved it. You probably will too.”
As the date came closer, we remembered just how much there was to do on a vegetable farm in late September. We got a little nervous about how we were going to pull off both a CSA harvest day and a farmer's market day. Luckily, our faithful long-time volunteer, who hadn't been feeling well, got better, and said yes to staffing our market booth. That was on Wednesday.
On Thursday, our daughter, who was planning to carpool from Boston and meet us at the fair, called with a dreadful weather report: a nor'easter with drenching rain on Saturday and Sunday. Friday was still supposed to be sunny; any chance we could come on Friday?
We groaned. But we were determined, and made plans to bring two complete sets of wool clothes. We would be warm even if wet. We would also have a dry house at night, as we were staying with friends. We decided to try to leave at ten a.m. on Friday, instead of four p.m., so that we could get a few hours of clement weather at the fair.
We harvested everything we could on Thursday, from digging carrots to counting out the onions. It was a long day. “I sure hope all this is worth it!” we gasped to each other as we scrambled around the farm.
We set our alarm for 5:30 on Friday morning. It's pretty dark at 5:30 at the end of September, and it's even darker at 4:45, which is when I woke up worrying about the alarm. I got up quietly and crept downstairs. It was dark and it was cold. I put on my snow pants, giggling a little. Snow pants in September!
I was setting out vegetables in the CSA shed when my fellow farmer staggered out, shivering. “It's kind of dark to pick the kale and chard,” he said, by way of greeting. “Hey, nice snow pants.”
“Thanks! Let's make the cider first. We don't need much light for that.”
“Wow,” he yawned, “Look at the stars. We don't usually get to see Orion this time of year.”
“We don't usually get up this early this time of year.” In July we are often working by five, but September is more of a seven o'clock luxury.
Then we were treated to an owl concert, the who-cooks-for-you kind of owl. It was pretty nice out there in the dark making cider with my fellow and the stars, listening to the owls call back and forth. Plus we got to the wonderful fair on time, and there wasn't a drop of rain the whole weekend. We were two lucky farmers.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Oct 14 - Oct 20, 2026