Why the Coming Months are the Best Time of Year in Idaho

I went looking for apple cider over the weekend.  I guess it’s still too early to find any.  I like the unfiltered, and I buy gallons at a time.  You can buy something more akin to apple juice year-round, but it’s a poor substitute.  It won’t be long before we have cider, pumpkin everything, and more produce at work.  From our friends who’ve had a bumper crop of cucumbers and zucchini.

There's a Bounty at the Office and Beyond

There’s an old joke about the congregation at a church being warned to lock their doors.  Because if they didn’t, fellow congregants would fill your car with squash.

Harvest supper season is approaching.  My mom grew up in a small unincorporated community with no traffic lights.  The local volunteer fire company had two trucks.  The gas station was the post office and general store.  On one weekend every October, the fire engines are moved outside, tables are set up in the barn, and hundreds of people show up.  Mom has been gone 20 years next month.  I haven’t been back since, and I suspect the old schoolteachers I saw may be gone as well, but it was home.

Harvest Supper is a Community Effort

The farm women baked the pies and cakes.  The vegetables and turkey were in huge portions, and there were prayers and thanks to God, more than a month before the actual Thanksgiving Day.

Some traditions make us who we are as a people.  I remember being a boy and bobbing for apples.  It sounds quaint, but my folks did it before me, and my grandparents before my parents came along.

For many of us, the coming months are clearly the most special time of year.  Yes, the weather gets colder, the snow flies, and the sun rises late and sets early, but I believe it’s the time of year when we’re at our best.