While pondering the end of summer, Emily Dickinson once wrote: “a dissembling breeze, that hints without assuming — An innuendo sear, that makes the heart put up its fun, and turn philosopher.”
Labor Day, which marks the unofficial end of summer, is mere days away. We will enjoy the last barbeques and pool parties of the season. We will celebrate with family and friends, and watch as the fireworks are dimmed by August’s final breeze. But when our eyes open after summertime’s long kiss goodnight, we will awaken to the sight of fall’s beauty.
As the seductions of summer subside back within the depths of September, we find ourselves blanketed by the comforting embrace of the cool autumn air.
The glow of the summertime sunset signals a new dawn for the Hanna Farmstead in Lewisburg. Located at 382 James Stuart Road, the Hanna Farmstead is “a family-owned and Christian-oriented farm.”
While the Farmstead still has some summertime offerings for their visitors, preparations are underway for the upcoming fall season.
“We have the sunflowers right now and zinnias as well,” Hanna Farmstead’s Jade Napier told The West Virginia Daily News on Friday, August 27. “It’s mostly for picture-taking and enjoying the agriculture.”
Napier also said that family-friendly activities, such as corn hole, checkers, tic-tac-toe and a kid’s hay-maze are available, as are wagon rides and a barrel train.
“Right now we have roasted corn until the (under construction) food trailer is done,” Napier said. “Then we’ll have all kinds of fun fair-type food.”
But soon, those “summertime offerings” will be replaced with September’s baccalaureate of crickets, crows and retrospects…
“In the middle of September, we’ll open up with the pumpkins,” Napier said. “We have five acres that we planted off-site that we’ll bring in. And the corn maze is down behind the tree-line. It’s a four-acre corn maze.”
The Hanna Farmstead is open Fridays from 4 – 8 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. The corn maze will open on Friday, Sept. 10.
“We were in there starting to cut the maze out the other day,” Napier told The WV Daily News. “It was a little wet, and we got a little stuck,” she added, with a laugh. “But when it’s dry, we’ll be good.”
As we await the arrival of fall at the Hanna Farmstead, we will conclude our ponderings much the same as Emily Dickinson once did…
“And thus, without a wing, or service of a keel –
Our summer made her light escape into the beautiful.”
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