I know I’m not the only bloke who’s fond of the harvest season. Four years ago, writer Matt Winters penned a robust tribal toast to these “prized weeks of plenty” (“We all have dirt under our fingernails,” Daily Astorian, 9/21/07). His ode to the bond of harvest is worth rereading at this time every year.

“After painfully scraping past the starvation gap, the warm but barren months between the depletion of winter stores and arrival of a new summer’s crops, at last this was the time of frenetic gathering, of reaping whatever rewards could be had from strong-hearted prayer and soul-bending labor.”

Way back when, this season marked a time of relative abundance in which our agrarian ancestors could kick up their heels. “At our core, we all are peasants,” writes Winters, and it’s true that humanity is rooted to an earthy cycle of subsistence.