It’s officially fall in the Faber house.
How would I know, may you ask? Is it the milk line reaching full levels on my corn kernels and the sound of choppers firing up? Is it the last cuttings of grass coming in? A few more calves fighting lung issues with more foggy mornings? No, it’s because I live in a house full of girls and my front door is more camouflaged than the duck blind in the back 40.
We have cornstalks leaning in every direction, a few straw bales blocking the entrance and types of pumpkins and gourds that scientists have long thought to be extinct. It took me 40 minutes to get in the house the other day.
The madness doesn’t stop there. The inside of the house is an homage to all things pumpkin. There are even pumpkin, leaf, cinnamon, cornstalk candles burning brightly in every window sill. The picture would not be complete without a Starbucks cup on the counter with the remnants of what was a pumpkin spice latte. Interestingly, Starbucks released this drink earlier than ever, for the stock price was struggling as people realized they are more of a sugar company than coffee or milk purveyor.
All of this leads up to one of the more oddly celebrated holidays, Halloween.
For me growing up, dressing up for Halloween was frowned upon and was the slippery slope to devil worship. There was, however, one year where we were allowed to dress up and stop by a few friends' houses. Your author was ahead of his time and went through several options while being hyper-aware of cultural appropriation. Plus, my sister already took the Sacagawea costume. So this 12-year-old boy went around the farm looking to make the best pirate costume he could source. Nothing says progress in modern society like banning the celebration of an important cultural figure like Sacagawea and celebrating pirates who assaulted and pillaged. No more politics, I promise.
The farm is the perfect place to come up with a pirate costume. A milk filter and baling twine makes for the perfect scabbard for the wooden sword that was crafted all year long. The yellow and red cow leg bands make for the perfect intimidating armbands. A bull nose ring was custom-fitted to make the world's biggest hoop earring and the old barn shirts had the perfect number of tears and stains to look legit. Much to the consternation of the female population in the house, the final piece of the outfit would have been a bra stolen from a drawer that was cut and reshaped to resemble an eye patch. The final product would have been the envy of every hook-armed villain roaming the seas.
After two years of going through Halloween with my own three daughters, the prospect of knocking on strangers' doors and begging for candy seems a little odd. Our Halloween today consists of dressing up as Martin Luther and attending the local Catholic church's trunk or treat and pretending to nail The Ninety-Five Theses on the front door.
In a lot of ways, fall is not just a fun time for the pumpkin spice lovers in my house. It is also a fun time on the dairy. We get to see the hard work of planting and caring for the corn crop finally be harvested and made into silage. The changing of the seasons also signifies a new beginning and a God who provides in all seasons.
But I digress. I need to break the bad news to Mrs. Faber that the corn crop on her porch has absolutely no moisture left, and we are going to have to make it into earlage or combine it.
