Good Thursday morning.

We are smack in the middle of the fall harvest season, which generally stretches from mid-to-late September to early December.

It’s a very busy time of year for farmers, who generally have a backwards calendar from the rest of us. There is no summer vacation for farmers, who need to plant and till and weed and tend at that time, and then spend the following months reaping what they sow.

Winter tends to be a “down” time for farmers, who theoretically get some well deserved days off during these months. That’s provided that they aren’t mending equipment, planning for the coming year etc. (This, of course, also does not apply to farmers who deal with livestock and not crops, because animals don’t take vacations and require care 365, 24/7).

Farmers feed the world. Without them, well, I”m not sure what we would do. We certainly wouldn’t be enjoying the same standard of living or ease of sustaining ourselves.

The idea of returning to a time when we all grew our own food and raised our own livestock leaves me a little cold. Yes, I get the romance of it all, and I also fully appreciate the positive impact that would have not only on our health but on our tendency to waste far more than we should and our lack of appreciation of the work it takes to till the soil.

That said, I tried to grow a few thing this summer – tomatoes and cucumbers and herbs, mostly – and I would be generous in calling my efforts a fair-to-middling success. Weeding is just not my bag.

There are more than 2 million farms across this country, which seems like a lot (to me, anyway). But the approximately 2.6 million American farmers and ranchers now working actually account for a very small portion – about 1.3 percent of the U.S. labor force.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has some truly mind-blowing facts and statistics on its website. I don’t have the space to list all of them here, and urge you to go down the rabbit hole when you’ve got time. A few things that really struck me:

  • 40 percent of the food grown in the U.S. is never eaten.
  • 25 percent of the farm products produced in the U.S. (by value) are exported overseas
  • Women make up about 36 percent of all U.S. farm operators
  • A single farm in this country feeds about 166 people every year both here and abroad
  • The global population is expected to increase by 2.2 billion by 2050. That means farmers across the planet will have to grow about 70% more food just to keep everyone fed
  • 86 percent of U.S. agricultural products are produced on family farms or ranches.

Since the supply chain disturbances caused by the pandemic (remember the Grape Nuts shortage?), there’s a growing interest in eating local – or, at the very least, being more familiar with where the food we put into our bodies comes from and how it’s produced.

The so-called “locavore” movement isn’t new, of course, but there seems to be a growing (see what I did there?) awareness of and interest in the quality of products that are locally produced and procured – even if they might cost a little more.

Today is National Farmer’s Day, which apparently has been around for a very long time – as far back as the 1800s, there was something known as “Old Farmer’s Day“, which was held to coincide with the fall harvest.

Though every day is a good day for buying fresh, local food, perhaps make a special point of doing so today. And if you don’t have the opportunity to do that, never fear! There are many famers markets around that you can visit in the days to come.

We’re in for partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-60s today. A lovely fall day, more or less. The weekend, sadly, is not looking so fantastic, with a lot of rain in the forecast. There’s still time, though, and since this is upstate, everything weather-wise is subject to change on a dime.

In the headlines…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel formed an emergency government yesterday, adding two opposition lawmakers — both former army chiefs — to his cabinet. 

An Israeli defense official vowed that Gaza will be wiped out and reduced to a “city of tents” in a punishing “ground maneuver” after the unprecedented attack against the Jewish state — as a politician called for nuclear weapons to be used.

Families in the United States and Israel continued to pray for their loved ones who were missing in the wake of the brutal Hamas assault that killed more than 1,000 people in Israel over the weekend, including 22 American citizens, according to U.S. officials.

“This attack was a campaign of pure cruelty — not just hate, but pure cruelty — against the Jewish people,” President Joe Biden told Jewish leaders gathered at the White House.

Biden met with leaders from prominent U.S. Jewish groups at the White House to express solidarity and support after the Hamas attack on Israel, and pledge that his administration is doing what it can to ensure the safe release of hostages.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to Tel Aviv today and will go on to meet with other regional leaders, as the Israeli military said its troops were massed at the border with Gaza “making preparations for the next stage of the war.”

Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres ripped a socialist group as “despicable,” after it gave a half-hearted apology for promoting a virulent pro-Palestinian rally in Manhattan last weekend.

House Republicans selected Majority Leader Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, as their nominee for speaker after huddling behind closed doors for over two hours yesterday. GOP lawmakers voted via secret ballot. Scalise won 113 votes, Rep. Jim Jordan won 99. 

That gave Scalise a narrow majority of the Republicans’ 221 votes in the chamber, but he has yet to lock up the 217 votes necessary to win on the House floor.

The Republicans voted in a closed-door meeting with no cellphones allowed. The two candidates gave their formal pitches Tuesday night. 

Jordan said he would give a speech nominating Scalise, a signal of progress in uniting the caucus. “We have a lot of work to do,” he explained. “We need to make sure we are sending a message that the House is open for business.”

However, multiple other lawmakers refused to honor their party’s internal selection of Scalise, continuing the chaos over the speakership with no end in sight.

Biden unveiled new efforts to crack down on junk fees while announcing $2 billion in savings and $140 million in consumer refunds from previous crackdowns on junk fees from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“These junk fees may not matter to the wealthy, but they sure matter to working folks in homes like the one I grew up in,” Biden said in remarks at the White House Rose Garden.

The president added that junk fees also make it “harder for honest businesses who are trying to do the right thing.” 

A majority of Americans disapprove of how the government has handled border security and support the construction of a wall on the southern border, according to a Fox News poll released yesterday.

New York House Republicans will introduce a measure to expel Long Island GOP Rep. George Santos from the legislative body, fellow Long Island Rep. Anthony D’Esposito announced.

D’Esposito told reporters he considers his colleague “a stain” on the House and on New York state, adding: “It’s time that we move on from George Santos.”

As the House’s most extreme form of punishment, expulsion requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass, a barrier so high that it has only been cleared five times in the institution’s history.

A new bill proposed yesterday would force social media companies to limit New York children’s access to “addictive” social media feeds, ban middle-of-the-night notifications and kick kids offline if they spend too much time scrolling.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York lawmakers are trying to limit kids in the Empire State from being exposed to the “addictive” features of TikTok and other social sites without parental permission.

Hochul and AG Letitia James announced their support of new legislation to crack down on the often inscrutable algorithms, which they argue are used to keep young users on social media platforms for extended periods of time — sometimes to their detriment.

Hochul has formally sided in a court filing with Mayor Eric Adams in his attempt to roll back the city’s “right to shelter” rule in the face of the migrant surge overwhelming the Big Apple.

The state’s filing, which did not depart from the governor’s consistent position on the issue, came as advocates rallied yesterday outside Hochul’s Manhattan office, urging her to support a statewide right to shelter.

Adams and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch rolled out a new policy requiring 95% of the city’s residential building owners put out trash for street pick-up in containers — another new strategic offense in the administration’s war on rats.

Homeowners across the five boroughs will soon have to shell out at least $50 for new trash bins — as the Big Apple tries to crack down on rodents by standardizing garbage collections.

This is the first such mandate on city residences during Adams’ tenure. The approximately 765,000 properties governed by the policy will cover any residential building with nine or fewer units.

The City Council is threatening to take legal action against Adams’ administration over its refusal to disclose detailed data about illegal weed dispensaries, and a top City Hall aide recently told members of the legislative body to “by all means” have at it.

The Queens borough president said he will withhold a key approval for a planned $780 million soccer stadium in Willets Point unless the Adams administration reinstates a popular street vendor market in Corona Plaza.

The NYPD has ordered all cops to report in uniform starting tomorrow in anticipation of potential unrest stemming from a call by the former leader of Hamas to stage global demonstrations in support of Palestinians.

New York University’s student bar association voted to start the removal process of president Ryna Workman after she defended the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ deadly attack on Israeli civilians as “necessary” in a school-wide email.

A flurry of Harvard University students and groups are desperately trying to backtrack on their support of a letter blaming Israel for the mass slaughter of its own people by Hamas terrorists — as some business titans seek to blacklist them from future jobs.

Two men were arrested yesterday and charged with conspiring to defraud New York City of millions of dollars by channeling money from a nonprofit meant to house the homeless to companies that they secretly ran.

More than a dozen residents of a Bronx building owned by the same consortium as the Twin Parks North West development, which was the site of a deadly fire last year, were evacuated and hospitalized early this morning after a carbon monoxide leak.

Cutbacks in free preschool for 3-year-olds in New York City raise a question: As even middle-class families struggle to get by, should everyone have access to the program?

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was one of the most notorious fires in New York City history. Yesterday, a striking memorial was unveiled at the building that once housed the factory, at an event that drew descendants of the victims.

The developers of several major offshore wind projects are engaging in a last-minute push to convince state officials of the need for an enhanced public subsidy to cover increased costs for these ambitious energy projects.

A Long Island man was charged with smuggling $200,000 worth of deceased, protected butterflies, including exceptionally large ones known as birdwings, and other insects into and out of the United States.

Taxes on mobile sports betting in New York generated $727.4 million in the 2022-23 fiscal year and have continued to grow in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, according to a new report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.  

Existing non-native casinos and racinos in the Finger Lakes and Western New York and unions representing their employees launched a coalition to have a voice in the ongoing negotiations for a new Seneca Nation gaming compact.

Three City of Albany police officers were suspended last week, months after the police department launched an investigation into the pay of officers who worked a special security detail for the city’s housing authority.

Five people were arrested in connection to an alleged bank fraud conspiracy at a Bethlehem SEFCU, now Broadview Federal Credit Union, prosecutors said.

Salman Rushdie, the acclaimed novelist and free speech advocate who was viciously attacked at a public event in Western New York last year, will write a memoir about the experience, his publisher, Penguin Random House, announced.

One of the largest Powerball jackpots ever has been won, the lottery group said last night. At $1.765 billion, it was the second-largest jackpot ever in the United States. The winning numbers were: 22, 24, 40, 52, 64 and the Powerball 10.