October Surprise

By Judith

This has been a November kind of October. Gray skies, blustery winds, snow showers and temps a good 12 - 15 degrees below normal. Whenever the sun does pop out, it tires quickly and soon fades away. I'm ready to start stuffing the turkey now.

We are entering that limbo-time of year between peak color and Christmas lights. The trees have few, if any leaves; the prairie grasses are tossed in the breeze, shushing everyone who passes; and the vestiges of summer blooms are dried and brown. The mums are huddled together, still putting on a bright front, knowing that they'll never make it past the next hard frost.

And then, to add insult to injury, just before Halloween, we pull the plug on daylight. Suddenly, we get up in the dark, spend most of the day indoors, and go home in the dark. Our souls cry out for light. It’s as though we experience a physical kind of Advent before we come to the spiritual one.

And what do I do? Leave a wake-up call for May.