Frost
(This article first appeared in the Leader Vindicator Newspaper.)
Frost has already visited the farm. Was it not too hot just a day ago? Or was that a month ago?
I remember the extremes, but the weeks of in-between sail by with barely an acknowledgement. According to my mental timeline, summer’s heat puts one day to bed and fall’s chill wakes up the next.
A glorious rebirthing of routines accompanies the changing seasons. As I walk the meadows, building fence and tending my herd of cattle, the looming adjustments make themselves known first as subtle hints, Nature’s way of reminding me that soon enough I won’t be doing what I always do. Described here are some of the markers.
Grass gets sweeter. Regular readers understand that a significant portion of my grazing plan involves no cattle at all. Their absence enables pasture vegetation to fully re-grow before the next bite, so at any given time I have a lot of re-growing grass. Nothing can sweeten a blade of young grass like frost; the scent of the vegetation changes as sugars are locked into the stems. Cattle get fat grazing through sweetened forages. Morning frost is a certain sign that soon enough we’ll be sending another batch of plump grassfed steers to the butcher.
Flies. Everyone who is seriously annoyed by flies should spend the first frosty night with a herd of cattle. Those swarming, buzzing, biting, incessant buggers don’t stand a chance in the cold, and it’s a most gratifying experience to linger in the early morning surrounded by a cloud of exhaled vapor instead of a cloud of face flies. I realize the fly has no idea what happened to it, which, perhaps, makes revenge a little less satisfying, but by such a time in the year my mind is ripe with memories involving the blasted things, so the extermination feels pretty good. I know the cattle are happier.
Shadows. Certainly I am aware that the days are getting shorter; the date is after June 22, so we’re losing a minute or two daily. Yet, I’m not consciously calculating the creeping darkness every day. Something about frost triggers my mind, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of a shadow where no shadow existed before. I feel like I’m in a slideshow of ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs: one day it’s bright daylight from 5am-9pm, the next I’m running to beat sunset at seven. My lack of attention to every day in between is mildly disconcerting. Secretly I am excited for early evenings, chilly nights, and a book by the fire. Summer is a long sprint. Fall steps in to change the pace.
Corn. For the past week my herd has been migrating alongside a cornfield. Before frost, a mature field of corn smells earthy, green, and a touch dusty; it’s a pleasant smell that I associate with summertime. Frost completely changes the aroma radiating from a patch. As sun warms the field, rows of pithy stalks give off a sharp, tangy-sour scent that I for some reason associate with soap. I suspect that I would buy a bar of soap that smelled like frosted cornstalks. I suspect it would not be a great seller to anyone other than me. So I’ll simply enjoy the smell while it lasts.
Apples. This one is so obvious it’s barely worth mentioning, but I enjoy it so much that it made the cut. Apples are ripening, and I practically live off of them this time of year. Old trees are scattered across the landscape, so I never have to walk far from my duties in order to grab a snack. If I’m ever injured while working, the wound will not be bovine related; I’ll have fallen out of a tree trying to snag an apple.
Sweatshirts. A visitor from outer space, upon studying our farm this time of year, would conclude that sweatshirts and button-downs are an integral part of the environment. He would likely buy out the big box stores of such articles in order to ship them home, complete with instructions to leave them on branches, fence posts, shovel handles, and every flat surface. Alas, his recommendation would be for not. There is nothing quite as perplexing as sweating under layers of insulation one moment, and then freezing again after a distance of three paces when a shadow removes the sun’s warming light. Of course, we never know what to wear out of the house, so our miscalculations are discarded at whatever location they become too uncomfortable. There they remain until someone, usually shivering in a t-shirt, gets desperate enough to remember where the shirt was dropped.
When I stop to think about it, the changes our landscape endures in a year are profound. It’s hard to imagine how Nature can move forward while constantly upending itself with radically different situations. I believe there is a lesson to be learned from this perfect rhythm: We’re not built to grind through life, stubbornly subduing ebbs and flows of activity in favor of uninterrupted ‘progress’; the result will be a stagnant existence. Adjustments are opportunities for destruction to clear a path for something new. Like Nature, we can continually reinvent ourselves to match the season, while still maintaining the core identity we were born with.
I take comfort in that thought. May we all be as adaptable as the seasons.