Since before the advent of agriculture, there have been the harvests. My old Jamaican friend, Rupert, called it the “reaping.” “The reaping” was his favorite work on the farm. Of all of it -- field prep, planting, watering, weeding -- the reaping was the fun part, was the joy. Ever walk down a row of mature pepper plants and grab a big pepper and snap it off the plant, the crispness of the stem a sign of health? Nothing like it. Or feel a sun-warmed tomato in the palm of your hand?

But like Old Jack Hoeffner used to say, farming is nothing if you don’t have a market. You can have the best garlic, produce, honey, maple syrup, eggs, yet if you don’t have a path for selling them, the road to paradise ends in the ditch of composted profits.

The marketplace holds a special place in the human heart and consciousness, and market days were times of high energy. During the Middle Ages, markets were so important that in Portuguese the names of the days of the week were, and are still, actually the number days of rotating markets. For example, the Portugues word for Wednesday is “quarta-feira,” or 4th market, while Friday is called “sexta-feira,” or the 6th market etc., feira meaning fair. A farmer selling his produce at a fair is not capitalism; it is an attempt to get a reasonable return on his labor and investment. I love visiting markets, real markets; Hannafords and ShopRites do not cut it.

In addition to market days, there are festivals. Festivals usually come around only once a year. I will be attending a number of upcoming festivals. This weekend we are selling our honey and garlic at the Moon Festival in Port Jervis. They overbooked honey vendors with seven. Seven, yikes! Someone said it must be a good year for honey. We made out okay.

September 30 is a double banger: Walden Harvest Fest and the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival. The garlic festival runs into Sunday, October 1. I think my wife will cover for me at Walden Day, while I venture up to Saugerties for the garlic show. My wife is very popular in Walden, at least in some circles, and it is always a new collection of stories when she comes home from an event like this, like Walden Day, as she is not a native and carries a unique perspective on the village’s life and characters there within. Exciting. I will miss not seeing Kenny Valk Sr., who passed this year, occupying his place in the Baptists’ Tent, of which, you know, I will not comment on religion.

We have been spending a few of these nice warm days in the fields of bees and the honey has a great blossomy taste this year and we have a lot left to go out and get, shake off the bees, bring in the frames, decap the cells, spin out the honey in the extractor, drip it through a course strainer, bottle, wash and label. Phew! It is a precision job. A great reaping, as Rupert would put it.

The following weekend Woodside Farm will be in Bethlehem, Connecticut, at their garlic festival. Always a relaxing drive, I love traveling up US Route 6, part of the state’s “Antiques Trail.” Beautiful trees in color, historic homes, village squares right out of America’s founding myths. The timing of it all is like the rhythm of life. That’s October 7 and 8.

October 14 I will be at the Shawangunk Valley Fire Department Auxiliary’s “Vendor and Craft Fair” to benefit the rural fire department which does so much for the community, including rescuing climbers and hikers and bikers off the trails and cliffs of Shawangunk Mountain. That’s fun. The fair is at the firehouse, 2150 Bruynswick Turnpike, Wallkill. 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. No excuse not to be there!

Lastly, the Rosendale Pickle Festival is the next day, Sunday, October 15. The venue has changed this year and the pickle festival will be at the Ulster County Fairgrounds, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., 249 Libertyville Road, New Paltz. We will be selling our pickled hot peppers there and whatever is left of the garlic. We should have honey all winter. Just call the number on the bottle!

With all this, I hope I have made enough to pay the property taxes.

After that? It’s time to plant the 2024 garlic. Gosh, so soon?