Squeezing in Summer Fun

By this time of year, I usually remember one of the reasons I teach for a living—summer. South Dakota summer is an annual celebration of sunlight & nature, a brief release from Jack Blizzard’s deepfreeze and the perpetual browns and greys of winter. Prairie folk can squeeze an amazing amount of temperate joy (both literally and philosophically, ‘cause we don’t cotton to that loud, wild kind) out of a relatively short season, maybe because the winters here make us so grateful for warmth & color.

Over the past couple of weeks, Ray and I have finally been getting the flower gardens cleaned up and mulched, deciding to settle for the “wild prairie gardens” look, since lambsquarter sprouts up instantly behind us as we go along pulling and hacking at weeds.

The peaflock is in summer mode, too. Our three adult males (Ramon, Francoise, and Junior) have split the farmyard into small kingdoms, and all three are parading, dancing, and fluttering for all they’re worth, in spite of the fact that the hens too young to nest would rather eat bugs than pitch woo. The big boys occasionally take time out from strutting to run at breakneck speed after the three young males (Zorro, Zarathustra, and Zachariah), who evade by flying up on the pyramid roof. It’s not unlike college kids on a Friday night at Carey’s (our favorite hometown bar).

Two of the older hens (Wanda and Mitzi) have been skirting the farmyard with three new chicks each. Ike, who is either sexually flexible or is really Izetta, made a nest this year but soon abandoned the responsibility in favor of sticking closer to She Who Gives Corn (me). Ike’s the tamest of the bunch and she follows me when I mow or ambles around the patio when I sit outside. At least one hen is still nesting, although a loud pea-ruckus yesterday makes me think her eggs were hatching—often a hen will give a certain honk when eggs are hatching, then the flock will raise cain as if to draw predatory attention away from the nest. If we end up with 18 surviving peas this summer, we will have tripled the pea-population in the three years we’ve been here. We may have to buy up a few more acres and plant them in corn.

A summer favorite on the prairie is the potluck. I’ve been to several so far, including our semi-monthly Sisters of Perpetual Disorder women’s dinners, a wedding shower at Carey’s, a wedding dance, and going-away gatherings for Little Town U. faculty. At potlucks, one can sample a variety of traditional SD foods: “loose meat sandwiches” or “barbecues” (any meat-on-bun combo), “bars” (we called them “brownies” growing up in NE, regardless of color/flavor), and hot dishes (we called these “casseroles”). I know...it took me a while to learn South Dakotanese, too.

My friend Millie and I head for the beach when we can work it into our busy summer schedules. We go to Lewis & Clark state park, an impressive recreation area on a dammed section of the Missouri River in Yankton, SD. The river & river bluffs, dam, lake, aquarium, and campgrounds always surprise people who picture eastern SD as merely a waterless expanse of flat cornfields. Millie and I are casual beachgoers, mostly laying out (although with red hair and freckles, I’m usually slathered in SPF 9000—not sure you can really call that laying out). When we get too hot, we laze in the water on our floaties.

Another SD summer favorite is the street dance. Small town downtown streets are roped off, someone hauls in a flatbed for a stage, the street is lined with picnic tables, and a great time is had by all. We went to our first summer street dance last night to hear two Norfolk, NE bands (pronounced “nor-fork” for reasons as mysterious as the SD pronunciation of state capital Pierre as “peer”). Jim Casey and the Lightning Band played old rock and country, and Smoke Ring, a horn band, played old R & B. We danced, a special treat for me since my dance partner is usually the band’s drummer (for those old enough to remember, I believe the woman in the white shirt was a former Shindig dancer).

In Little Town, Fridays mean Happy Hour at Carey’s. Two or three of Ray’s band mates play old standards, and in the summer, they’re out on the patio. It’s a great time, and the 5-7-ish time slot gets us midlife partiers home in plenty of time to doze peacefully in our Lazygirls after all the sun, wind, dark beer, singing along, visiting and laughing.

Today, summer is cranking up the heat again, and the recent rains left swirling clouds of newly-hatched mosquitoes, driving us inside. So this will be a knitting day (I’m knitting a lace scarf out of soy silk), grocery shopping later, something on the grill for dinner, and a nice wine, one that complements Deep Woods Off.