The year’s hard work pays off as autumn envelops the bounty of the farm.

The days are still warm, yet the diminishing light shows its hand as the plantings start to reveal their scraggly, crispy edges that offer more brown tones than the vibrant greens of just weeks ago. The new pear trees that were planted in the spring are offering up their first gifts of fruit and a few leaves are tinged with bronze. The hyssop is thigh-high and the violaceous blooms sway in the quickening breezes that herald the change of the season.

The creatures at Olde Homestead Farm in Marstons Mills have also evolved. There are new turkey poults along with chicks which have transitioned from their indoor hatchery to a small coop outside, not far from the geodesic aviary that will ultimately be their home with all the other fowl. And the herd of alpacas, which now graze freely from one end of the farm to the next as long as the gate at the end of the drive is secure, have grown in their number. Levi who was born in July, now has an age-appropriate playmate due to another good deed farm owners Joan Spiegel and Russell Giammarco accomplished earlier this summer. A trip to Buck Brook Alpaca Farm in Roscoe, New York to breed one of their alpacas (Gigi) resulted in being in the right place for a difficult birth for one of the breeder’s females. Spiegel assisted in the delivery of little Benji who required some round-the-clock care, so the newborn and his mother, Notch made the trip to Marstons Mills for what was originally intended to be a recuperative respite. Now, permanent residents, the pair have settled into their new home, Benji is growing strong both...