Calendar and celestial autumn arrived on schedule last Saturday evening. The moment when summer becomes fall is that precise moment when the sun touches the halfway point on its annual journey south. This is called the autumnal equinox, or the first day of fall. It’s a mirror image of the vernal equinox, or first day of spring, which happens half a year earlier. On both occasions day and night are very nearly equal in duration.

The first day of fall is also the last day of summer, and despite a widespread “mediatainment” narrative to the contrary, it’s been a very good summer indeed. At Kimball and across most of the tri-state region of Nebraska Panhandle/northeast Colorado/southeast Wyoming, summer temperatures were mild, precipitation was timely and abundant, and nature arranged for crops, grasslands, livestock, and an entire ecosystem to produce abundant food and life.

As summer fades and harvest time arrives it’s a good opportunity to reflect upon and give thanks for a delightful growing season. It wasn’t perfect -- it never is. But it’s been very, very good. As my Grandpa Wilbur often said, you have to endure the bad years and enjoy the good years.

The beginning of fall also marks Kimball’s Farmers’ Day Celebration.

Way back at the dawn of prehistory, in 1923, a group of Kimball businessmen came up with the idea of honoring the farmers of the county.

They knew that production agriculture was the economic engine driving Kimball’s economy, and that their own livelihoods depended on farming and ranching.

In those days, more than 96 cents of every dollar circulating in Kimball came from farming and ranching. The cash that farmers and ranchers earned for their crops was the capital town folk relied on to grow, prosper, raise families, and look to the future.

And so, the invitations went out to all the farmers and ranchers in the county. They and their families were invited to Kimball to be wined, dined, entertained and honored.

Well, they weren’t actually wined. Prohibition was the law in Nebraska, and Kimball County was dry.

Nevertheless, the farmers and ranchers came. They streamed into town on a late-autumn afternoon, some conveyed by automobiles but many more by animal power. When they arrived, they were directed to more than a dozen hotels and boarding houses where they were feted, fed and entertained. By all accounts the “Farmers’ Day” was a great success and before the last agriculturalist headed for home plans were coming together for a bigger, better celebration in 1924.

With the exception of three years during the war, Farmers’ Day has been an annual event in Kimball. Held on the last weekend in September, Farmers’ Day still aims to honor local farmers and ranchers. A lot has changed since 1923. Back then, more than half of the county’s residents were farmers and/or ranchers. Today it’s less than five percent (which is about 4.5 times higher than the national average). Agriculture is still the driving economic force in the county, though federal and state government run a close second these days. Still, the jingle in the pockets of town folk mostly starts at the farm and ranch, and the Farmers’ Day Committee aims to keep that reality at the forefront of the celebration.

These days Farmers’ Day activities are centered around the Saturday morning parade which wraps up with a free hamburger feed. Other events include bands, dancing, car shows, craft fairs, cooking contests and demonstrations, lawnmower races, Ugly baby and pretty pickup contests, and a big RC airshow on Sunday (weather permitting, of course).

Farmers’ Day is real, live, small town Americana, which, contrary to the national propaganda narrative, is alive and well.

It also marks production agriculture, which is worth thinking about, because whether you like it or not, as long as we must eat to survive, we are all of us, every single one, farmers and ranchers.

Tomorrow is the big day. Stop by if you’re so inclined. The parade begins at 9:30 a.m. with a free hamburger feed following. Enjoy, celebrate, and give thanks.