Don’t know many folks who farm or live close to the bone who don’t find the notion of Labor Day profoundly ironic.

Pigs still gotta eat.

Chickens still gotta eat.

Sheep still need to move to fresh pasture.

And, of course, there are all the farm-direct sales.  There are a lot of parties and guests and tourists in the area for the last official weekend of summer, so it’s a great opportunity to try to pad the farm bank accounts in preparation for the grim reality of the school taxes we face Tuesday morning.

None of it would be that bad were it not for the tomatoes.

Everyone is dealing with tomatoes right now:  Stewed tomatoes, dehydrated tomatoes, marinara sauce, pizza sauce.  If anyone does take days off over Labor Day weekend, it’s usually because they’re putting up tomatoes for winter.

Bob and I just have to squeeze the canning in with everything else.  A few hurricanes that wiped out the tomato crop one mid-September back in 2011 taught most folks around here to finish canning tomatoes by Labor Day.  So a giant cauldron simmers on the back burner in the cafe while we prep for the weekend.

Happily gone are those days when I thought we needed enough tomatoes canned to survive an apocalypse.  Depending on our use the year prior, somewhere between a half and whole bushel should cover our needs just fine.  Getting too far ahead makes our feet hurt and our backs ache, and our brows sweat while it adds to the clutter down on the basement shelves.  So we reduce the amount we process and squeeze it in with everything else, bringing the jarred sauce home Friday evening after we’re done prepping the salad greens and muffins and bread doughs for Sap Bush Saturday.  Bob lifts down the pressure cooker and I fill it up with the jars, one ear tending to the rattle of the petcock while the rest of my body fixes soup for supper.

 

We’re tired, for certain.  Between the start of college classes, the coming and going of guests, the increase in traffic at the cafe, and all the other projects jamming the schedule before the first frost, it’s hard to know when we will next have a chance to lie about and stare at the autumn clouds.

But it will happen.  And while the tomatoes signify laboring on Labor Day, they are also a reminder that we’re over the hump.  The tomatoes are the last thing we can for the season.  The firewood is already stacked.  There’s only one more batch of chickens and the Thanksgiving turkeys on the ground.

And then, when the rest of the country is truly laboring, we’ll be putting our feet up at last.

I hope.