For a long time, I thought Lancaster County didn’t have a rush hour. It turns out that before six, before dawn, the roads were filled with people rushing off to work. In November, sunup came around seven and by then, the traffic was almost down to zero. Too late to go to work and too early for the school buses.

It was stick season; the leaves were gone and the first flurries hadn’t fallen yet. All you saw in the woods were sticks. The light was different. Suddenly, without shoulder-high cornfields and before the snow, the farmland of Lancaster County was changed. Nothing blocked my view. There was clarity in the cold and dozens of barns and silos in the distance. The corn tunnel I had been driving through was gone. A sign in front of a favorite shop read “Closed for a wedding.” A farm stand I stopped at had become self-service and the cakes and pies that had been left out for errant customers were eaten by squirrels instead. I couldn’t recognize anything.

Many of my favorite vendors were shutting down for the season. Even if all I wanted was a few apples or a dozen eggs, they couldn’t be had without visiting a middleman. Parking in a huge lot and wandering aisle after aisle while old rock standards played in the background didn’t seem like the best way to buy a head of broccoli.

Just a few days before, a pumpkin of any size would have set you back at least ten bucks, and those big ones; the kind you photograph small children sitting on, might go for thirty or more. After Halloween, they’re a clearance item. A few lonely examples sat waiting to become Thanksgiving pies and the rest were kept from rotting only by the winter chill.

The sun came up in front of me, pastures glowing, and the beeps, whooshes, and clomps of my cameras became a personal soundtrack in this very photographed place. I drifted from scene to scene. Sometimes farms, sometimes their stands. At one, I found heaps of dollar pumpkins and spent a good twenty minutes taking pictures. Behind them was a bit of a startle; a field of cabbages that wasn’t even ready to be picked.

Back downtown, the last pumpkins had been cleared from the Central Market and broccoli and cauliflower took their place. I asked a vendor about cabbages, and he took a deep breath. As we both looked over his displays – his leeks, onions, cherry tomatoes, and more – his dour face told me he wasn’t psychologically ready for cabbage. Leeks and Brussels sprouts bring a price, and cabbage existed only as a barrier between cold weather and starvation.

Brussels sprouts were coming into their own. Fresh ones have their moment at the exact time most stands are closing. Stalks of them are the headstone of the Lancaster produce season. Anything else fresh had either been grown indoors or far away. You found indoors only in fancy places, and supermarkets had the far away and frozen. I wouldn’t have taken any of them if there was a tiny bit of local.

Cabbages still grew. You can say one thing; they’re practical. When everything else is over, you can still have them. Heads could be bought fresh all through the winter and everybody will eat them. Even though broccoli and Brussels sprouts require a bit of acquired vegetable love, very few people will pass up cole slaw.

When I brought a couple of cabbages home, I sliced them into thin strips, smashed a few -okay maybe many more than a few – cloves of garlic, and cooked them in a splash of olive oil. Those last two ingredients were pretty Pennsylvanian, just not Pennsylvania Dutch. At the end, I finished my cabbage with salt, pepper, and vinegar and realized I’d made haluski; the cabbage and noodle dish, only without the noodles. I told myself it was a low-carb re-invention of a classic. I wasn’t convincing.

I really love Brussels sprouts, but I don’t wish for them. When they’ve shown up, especially still attached to their stalks, it meant the end of the fresh vegetable season. Winter was coming.