As August turns to September, and September carries on swift and chilled, each gilded evening alludes to a shifting. Shifting of the seasons, the cycles, of the land’s slowing and preparation for rest. The trees seem to be quieting, and the animals preparing. The sun has migrated its long-stretched rays to another slice of the world, leaving us with rich evening light to glitter the world gold. Misty morning fog rolls out like a familiar carpet into this stretched valley, gifting each day’s beginning with a thin layer of dew. Crops hold the moisture with a full cup, suggesting the wise shift to rain boots and bibs each grateful grey morning on the farm. 

As we orient ourselves to this new point in time, we come to find a new place in ourselves. We collectively turn from our abundant fruitful playful giggling sun-shining-all-day summer to a cozy reflective grateful creative mud-stomping leaf-falling autumn. This turning of the world outside ourselves prompts us to look inward. How have we grown during these long summer months, collectively and individually? What gifts have come into our lives to help shape us and add joy to these swift shifting moments of now? We are offered a moment between the fleeting long days and the approaching long nights to reflect and be still. 

It is a time to take stock of our gratitude. The best time to count our blessings, whether it be a kind stranger, a familiar loved one, a friendly book, or the nourishing food that shares our same light and water and soil and love, seems to always be now. The funny thing about gratitude is that once you welcome it in, it seems to get rather comfortable, failing to cease its growing list of companions. Take a moment, this moment, each moment you remember, to invite gratitude into your world. To greet every little thing, every big thing, every person, every meal, every moment, with a thankful heart. Gratitude lifts the veil on each seemingly ordinary mundane regular-old facet of life and reveals them as whole.

At Red Dog Farm, we are grateful for this land, we are grateful for the people we get the privilege of working alongside, of the farm’s mission and our devoted leader Karyn, and of all our customers and CSA members who make it all possible. 

Thank you, endlessly. 

~Kyla