I'm starting this column a little out of breath. I just got back this evening from a four day trip to West Plains with my husband to see our new granddaughter. Her name is Chloe Autumn and she was born on September 8th. I really enjoyed getting to see my daughter Melina settling into being a new mom. She and Matt are getting the hang of parenthood quite fast. My son Andrew came over from McDonald County to visit, too. We also spent time with old friends in West Plains and paid a Sunday afternoon visit to East Wind Community, where Michael and I lived for several years.

We are at the beginning of the big event of our year, the sorghum harvest. There was a parade to the field Monday morning and we began stripping and cutting cane. It will be a little while before we crank the mill up and do our first cook, but we have made a start.

Sorghum harvest is also a big social event for us. We invite members of other communities, former interns, visitors and friends to come and help us out. Some come for the day and many stay for a week, two weeks or longer. Our first helpers are starting to arrive and we are expecting a large group from East Wind in two weeks. There's lots of work to be done, but there are also lots of good times.

We are getting ready for our Sorghum Festival on September 28. There's lots of spiffing up to do and things to get organized in preparation for the day. We will have demonstrations of sorghum milling and cooking, candle-dipping, farm and garden tours, and fun activities for children. There will also be hot sorghum, biscuits and ice cream available. We're looking forward to seeing lots of our friends and neighbors at the farm. Look for the festival sign on M two miles west of Rutledge.

There is a whirl of other activity going on here, too. I came home today to find the front porch piled high with peaches being cut up for processing. One of the living room lamps has been moved out there so the work can continue after dark.

Stan and Trillium went over to Blue Heron Orchards in Canton last week to help pick apples and came home with some for us. Trillium is drying some of them for winter and we have the rest in our cooler. We also harvested apples from our own trees this year.

Michael and other folks will be setting out our fall lettuce transplants tomorrow. We are also cutting and combining dried beans for kitchen use. And of course the tomatoes don't know when to quit.

We are in the middle of rebuilding the front steps on the white house. Cedar put his foot through a board one day and we realized we couldn't put off doing something about them any longer. Sue, who oversees our building maintenance and repairs, and an eager crew of helpers have been busy and the new and improved steps should be done shortly.

There has been lots of visitor energy on the farm this past week or so. As I mentioned in the last column, Jenny and her daughters are visiting now. Jon and Angelina, who visited Sandhill last summer, have come back with their daughter Zoe, who just turned one. It has been really enjoyable having more children here. Another visitor, Kevin, arrived from Illinois this evening.

Mark and Megan from Dancing Rabbit helped us out this last weekend by doing a couple of fairs for us. They went to the Kirksville Food Fest on Saturday and the Quincy River Fest on Sunday. Our crew did our set-up in Rutledge for Dog and Gun Saturday. We had to miss last month, so it was good to be able to do this time around. Michael and I were at the Edina Corn Fest last week and we enjoyed meeting everyone who stopped by to say hello. I really appreciated the nice comments about this column.

Even though we are running at full throttle this time of year, we plan to go to the Rutledge Fall Festival next weekend. We wouldn't miss it and we'll see you there.