Sunday, October 25, 2009

If You Don't Like the Weather, Stick Around...


As the weather turns a bit cooler on the prairie, the talk amongst the natives turns to which of the five seasons we enjoy the least. Yes, I said five seasons. It’s a little known fact that while much of the earth celebrates four seasons, the heartland experiences five. They are: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall and Wind. But even our normal seasons are not quiet as normal.

In most of the northern hemisphere, Winter officially begins on December 22. In the Midwest, Winter bursts into town a month and a half earlier when the temperatures begin to plummet from a balmy fifty degrees to a very tepid thirty. Even the sun migrates south to enjoy warmer climates and the sky clouds to a permanent shade of grey. At this point, conventional wisdom recommends burrowing into the ground and hibernating until the thaw.

Pretty soon an uninvited guest, the Winter white snow, settles into the neighborhood and proceeds to wear out its welcome. Under cover of darkness Jack Frost puffs white flakes into barren fields. Then, as the night wears thin, the snow wafts into the roadways and gathers in great heaping mounds. Like disorderly sentries after a night on the town, the mounds collect here and there, disrupting the morning commute.

For those who persist in venturing forth, by January the mercury in the thermometers has frozen solid and the weather is so frigid that the snot in your nose will turn to icicles. In Illinois, we blow right past Groundhogs day as every sane marmot understands it dares not expose itself to the arctic chill.

Around mid-April Old Man Winter departs and Spring sproings. It’s welcomed in by the traditional gathering of the family to huddle in the basement to treasure the soothing sounds of the tornado sirens as they make their Spring migration to their nesting grounds. In Spring, almost all residents can enjoy a lake front view from their own back porches as great pools collect from the twenty two consecutive days of rain. By the end of Spring, even the ducks are weary or water.

June one marks the arrival of Summer, which is more often called by it’s common name – Drought. One year during Drought our lawn was so crisp I dreaded crossing it for fear that static electricity would ignite a spark and create an inferno. But please don’t get the idea that the prairie climate is devoid of dampness in Summer as I am certain that if we could harvest the humidity, with the same efficiency that we applied to corn and soy beans, we’d collect enough moisture to fill Lake Michigan.

When you are out here in the corn crib, Autumn arrives around the third Saturday in September and lasts for exactly twenty four hours. That is the day when the leaf drops off the tree. Admittedly, the colors of a Midwest Autumn don’t compare to what you might see in the Great Smokey Mountains. On the other hand, what could possibly beat the site of a New Holland Combine puffing through the fields, knocking down corn stalks and turning over the sod?

That brings us to our fifth, and most unique, season – Wind. Wind normally consumes most of the month of October. If you have ever stood on a run way and felt the power that bursts out of a jet engine just before take-off, you might (almost) begin to have a very slight appreciation for the force of Wind. Indeed, the landscape is littered with acres and acres of farms that attempt to tame and harvest the power of Wind. Taller than a house, the turbines can be seen for miles.
Wind starts gusting in Wyoming, picking up steam as it roars through the west. When it reaches the flat lands, it bellows and blasts and bites. Wind arrives with a howl and spends its time wrenching shingles off of rooftops and uprooting trees. In comparison to Wind, a New England Nor’easter might be described as a blustery day. Sometimes before Wind’s season is over, it invites Winter over for a late night party and they lash about together in the darkness rattling the windows and pelting the house with ice.

During my first year in Illinois, nobody warned me to be careful of Wind. So it came as a great surprise to me when I innocently stepped outside for a brisk walk on an October afternoon and was immediately accosted by Wind. After being tossed about like a rag doll, I turned tail and rushed for sanctuary. It was then that I learned what every sensible corn belter knows – it’s best to go to bed in October and stay there till April.

Our Midwest weather this year has been a bit out of character. Spring was not as wet as normal but Summer was twice as moist. Winter was comparatively mild and summer not too hot. Autumn has agreed to extend its visit and Wind has stayed away thus far. But there’s a common saying out here shared among the huskers that seems to apply – “If you don’t like the current weather, stick around a couple of hours as its bound to change.”

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