Octever

In South Dakota, there’s really no autumn. There’s only
W I N T E R, spring, summer, and a brief interim from the end of summer to the beginning of full-on winter that I call Octever, a combination of October and whatever. September is still mostly summer. We’re still harvesting, canning, cutting flowers. And we haven’t turned on the heat yet. But from October on, it’s a different story. (One Halloween—no kidding—most South Dakota towns postponed trick-or-treating for several days to wait out a blinding blizzard.) So from October until Jack Blizzard settles down over us for the long haul, it could be in the 70’s one day, in the 30’s that night, in the mid-40’s and snowing the next day, and a balmy 55 that night. It could be pouring rain, or we could have sustained winds that blow laundry off the line. Octever keeps plains people on their toes.

At Uncannery Row, we got the last of the tomatoes cooked up into pasta sauce, got the last of the cukes salted & dressed, and brought in the houseplants that summered in the yard. And, in homage to our Mother Earth News roots, we finally put in a wood stove. I can hear my grandma’s mumbled, under-her-breath comment in my ear: Why on earth would you WANT something we couldn’t wait to get rid of? But seriously, Grandma, there’s nothing as cozy as a warm wood fire, the smell of burning wood, and a mug of Sumatran coffee warming on the iron stovetop. In my 20’s—my previous wood-stove life—our safety precautions included love and idiot optimism. Now they include a firebrick surround, a regulation fire extinguisher, chimney brush extensions, and two smoke alarms. Funny how age can make one so cautious in some ways and absolutely reckless in others (like eating dark chocolate truffles for breakfast or spending perfectly good money on glass finials).

We had a brief snow about a week ago. Then we had a week of steady drizzle and cloudy skies. Oh, Octever. By the time the sun peeked out yesterday, Ray and I were about ready to climb up on the barn roof and jump—a person can only take so much gloom. On the other hand, it’s decent of Jack to give us a little pre-winter taste; it forced us to drag ourselves around in the sleyn (sleet + grey + rain) preparing for the inevitable—shovels out, parkas aired, down quilt at the ready, snow boots by the door. We’ve stocked the larder (does anybody say larder anymore?) with half a lamb and a deer our friend found already neatly packaged out in his field (I have to believe that to ward off bad Bambi flashbacks), and our summer’s garden bounty is put up in jars or in one of two freezers.

I’d put the spinning wheel by the wood stove, don my flannel cap, and work on my stash of merino and camel hair, but I’m afraid the whole prairie life scene would cause a rift in the fabric of time…