Harvest Home

photo: Eric Diesel

In the northeast, we are in the midst of one of the most glorious Indian summers of recent memory. Days are golden with that telltale chill in the air, while delectably cool evenings are even more so when we are wrapped in a camphor-scented comforter that we have just taken out of summer storage. It's too soon for coats but just right for jackets; too soon for sweaters but just right for flannel. This year's bottlings of pumpkin ale have appeared on pub menu and grocery shelf. While waiting for John to ship my Uinta Punk'n from California, I am drinking Weyerbacher's heady, molasses-tinged brew and Blue Moon's fulsome, spicy one. Summertime laziness already seems a distant memory as autumn activity has swung into full swing. Kids, teachers and parents are entrenched in school work, while workers of a more adult variety have resigned themselves to the disappearance of leisurely hunch hours and casual Fridays. Everyone seems to be gearing up for autumn activities from switching the closets to football games, from touring cider mills to Homecoming Weekend. These presage deeper activities still to come : corn mazes and haunted houses, séances and hayrides. For now, the anticipation of autumn's glories is as delicious as the first bite of an autumn apple, as embracing as the first nip of that crisp breeze.

As I write this in New York City, it's hard to believe that less than one month ago I lost a weekend to the Los Angeles County Fair. An hour on the freeway in any direction takes you from the bustle and grift of Hollywood Boulevard to the outskirts of desert, shore, hillside or platte, and reminds you that the glamour and hustle of its big cities notwithstanding, California is the wild west. We pulled into a parking lot larger than many fair sites proper and ringed on all sides by a tribunal of mountains that has watched over that valley longer than it has been inhabited. The day was sunny and hot, but telltale snowcaps were visible atop those guardians, recalling the snow-capped pate of a tribal elder. Once through the turnstiles, the sensory overload than everyone associates with the county fair hit immediately: hot popcorn, sugary sweets, deep fryer fat, cold beer, pattering barkers, clanging machinery, flashing lights. We took a breath, made sure we knew where our wallets were, and dove in.

A county fair is about putting the best of the community on exhibit, and so was the Los Angeles County Fair about the big arm-sweep of the California experience. With so much space and such community pride of ownership, every aspect of California living that I can think of got fair play. The redwood north was represented by a rugged logger's camp and a glittering Barbary Coast midway, while wine country was represented in the agricultural exhibits, in the domestic halls and by the glass. The sea coast was represented by everything from a surfing exhibition to a Kahuna bar set upon a ridge overlooking the vast midway. Mission culture was represented by the very architecture of the fairgrounds. There was a western border town and a Central American plaza. There were Hollywood hipsters. And commune hippies. And valley girls. And peace-out vintners. And rope-twirling gauchos. And denim and diamond ladies ladling out barbecue and cole slaw.

And there were farmers. In this most agricultural of agricultural states, everything from beef cattle to work horses, from cheese- and winemaking to a working farm of California produce, was on display for teaching and for learning, for photo ops but never for tips, and always hard at work. A billy goat trotted up to John and demanded to be patted on the head, while roosters welcomed visitors at every gate with a strut and a pompadour that was having the intended effect on the hens swooning in the presence of these rock stars. Lest you think that males were entirely in charge of the proceedings, there was a free jar of honey in it for anyone who could identify the queen bee at the beekeeping exhibit - a task that was impossible for human eyes as there were so many males buzzing around Her in hopes of earning her attention. There was an apiary of homing pigeons and another of peacocks. And incubators of chicks and ducklings. And snuffling piglets. And sheep shearings. And llamas.

Whether a county fair is of grand scale or modest, every homemaker's ground zero are the Halls of Domesticity. In an area the size of an airplane hanger, California homesteaders displayed a year's worth of labor from within the homestead. Stretches of glass shelves glistening with home canning greeted visitors at the entrance. Blue ribbon entries included pickled okra, rosemary-wine jelly, and chow-chow. Just across from the canning were cases of homekeepers' best pies, cakes, breads, cookies and other baked goods -- displayed in front of a working kitchen where live demos of the winning entries were hosted. I was touched and pleased to note that, while the judges gave due respect to bakery-quality fancies of fondant and buttercream, the blue ribbon winners were invariably reflective of grandma's kitchen rather than a professional one. The showstopper was a towering carrot layer cake that I would have been honored to meet the baker of. Hats off to this homekeeper, and to every homekeeper who takes pride in the vital work that we do.

In the crafts and home projects area, a live sewing room struck a nostalgic note with me as a veteran of both the professional costume shops with which I helped pay my way through college and my grandmother's back porch sewing room where those skills were learned. There were categories for fashion-, historical- and home sewing as well as other needle arts including knitting, crocheting, needlepoint and cross-stitch, and quilting. My favorite of the needle competitions was the apron competition, and I was delighted to see that the winner had submitted her entries in miniature. There were original painting and photography exhibits, and in the spirit of California, competitions for Indian arts including gourdwork and Spanish arts including luminarias. At the LA County Fair as at the county fairs of my youth, my favorite competition was tablescaping, in which homekeepers designed and presented a table service. The judging had just been completed on this competition when I went through, and though my favorite, whose theme was Captain's dinner service aboard the Nautilus, didn't win, place or show, one supposes it was inevitable that the winning entry would be wine-country themed. For what exemplifies California homesteading better than a wine and cheese tasting at the vineyard?

Rows of Christmas trees struck a cognitively dissonant note as decorators of the same finished up their efforts in time for that evening's judging. Trees had to be themed, and the decorations had to be handmade. It was hard to think of Christmas when we were just at the cusp of Labor Day, but all of the autumn holidays were there, from the bustle of late summer and early fall that heralds the county fair to begin with straight through to Thanksgiving, even beyond to New Year's. As you'd expect and as gladdened my black little heart, entries in the Halloween design competition were especially imaginative. There was an original oil painting of Jack Skellington taking a bloody bubble bath and wooden tombstones patterned after Revolutionary war grave markers. A quilt patterned with famous movie monsters was such a good idea so well executed that I wished I'd thought of it, though I couldn't have approached the skill that this quilter brought to their art form. As I regarded the pilgrims and cornucopias of the Thanksgiving competition, it occurred to me that, sun and palm trees notwithstanding, we were celebrating the grandest autumn holiday of them all: Harvest Home. Hardly anybody thinks about Harvest Home anymore under that name, but it is a great-grandparent of all Western harvest celebrations.

Harvest Home, also known as Ingathering, complimented the timing of the autumn equinox and in some instances probably coincided with it. It's hard to pin down an exact date because Harvest Home was simply the last day of the harvest. In the ancient world, the last day of the harvest was cause for great celebration. The last sheaf of grain left standing in the fields was accorded great significance, often representing the spirit of the field that had produced during summer and that would rest during winter. Depending upon the local custom, the last sheaf was left standing, ritually cut and returned to the field, or ritually cut and returned to a central location. In any of these, it is easy to see the correspondence with the modern scarecrow, who guards the fields as they lie fallow and who whose sentinel is often brought to homesteads during fall landscaping. And anyone who's been to that other autumn festival -- the Renaissance Faire -- will recognize a corn dolly.

The field rites were serious, even somber, as exemplified by the sickle used to cut grain crops. Not atypically for religious rites, the focus of great solemnity is followed by the release of great play. After the spirit of the field had been honored, every home in the village decorated its doors with boughs of autumn leaves, and opened the doors to their neighbors. A village-wide open house ensued where each home offered a taste of the house specialty -- a spooning of conserve, a bite of corn, a sip of cider. This communal hospitality was an act of community-wide celebration. The harvest had been good, food was preserved against winter's want. If the gods were willing the homesteads would be sustained, so that come spring, planting could commence. The ancient rhythm of fallowness through fulsomeness, of planting to harvesting, was honored, and in being honored, it was hoped, this ancient rhythm would in turn sustain the lives and well-being of its celebrants.

I always thought that, in the event of a full-time move to southern California, I would miss the four seasons. Regular readers of Urban Home Blog know how much I love autumn, and how much I associate the joys of the season with the northeastern experience of it. Southern California may not have chill middle Atlantic nights, but if I'm honest, I know that, as much as I like winter, the first time I find myself huddled into my coat and bent double against the mistral, I will be thinking of nothing so much as endless summer. But that is part of the ebb and flow of life, and if there is any lesson to living seasonally, that is it. Home is where we make it, from a cabin in the New England woods to a hacienda in southern California hill country or anywhere else, from an apartment complex in Astoria, Queens to one in West Hollywood or both. Hospitality and connection are just as surely lessons of the autumn equinox as are honoring the willingness of grains to be felled and of orchard crops announcing their readiness to be picked. During the harvest, everyone's home is your home. Celebrate, and enjoy the warmth through the chill.