The Labor Day weekend always puts the button on the end of summer. The next 60 days are actually the best time of year around here. The mosquitos are gone, it’s not quite as hot, and the changing colors are hard to beat even in a year as parched as this has been.

My list of urgent ranch things to get done in May still haunts the refrigerator door. But what never makes it on the list are the daily surprises that pre-empt the scheduled projects. As farmers say, there’s always next year. No point in doing a lot of fence repair now — the snow will just undo it before spring.

My family marks the end of the season with a big barbecue and bonfire. And the ceremonial burning of the hat.

The hat burning goes back at least 60 years, when we (an almost completely different “we,” given the passage

See Full Page