It's five o'clock in the morning of the most important day of the year. Upstairs the coffee is perking and already I've stepped outside three times - just to bear witness, to feel what is taking place, to be touched in the same way as every other object and organism on this ranch. Last night the temperature slid below the magic bearer of freezing. The first frost. There is no adept metaphor. When I first stepped outside this morning the world was irredeemably different than it was when I went to bed.

We've been expecting it, hoping for it, longing for an end to an abnormally hot summer. But for weeks now it just wouldn't happen, the anticipation for change was dulled, and the malaise of a season-less climate lay over this ranch like a blanket of fur. For a month our world has been listless and somehow frightening to think that the cottonwood leaves would simply dry out and fall brown this year from draught instead of golden from the frosty tong of winter.

Typing into the Internet late last night I found no encouragement for our hope of frost. Low of forty-three, it said. No relief from the freeze-frame of lingering summer. No chance of moving forward toward a winter of lush, life-giving snow. But what do satellites know of this snaking river bottom in the center of North America? Clear, the weather report said. It always says, clear, because that is our land. But last night the clearness went all the way to distant galaxies and I knew at 4:30 by the rhythm of dog tails coming to wake me just before Steve Inskeep woke me with more trivial news, that something important had happened in the night.

I stepped out onto the deck, under the explosion of stars and leaned with the dogs into the bracing air. I felt what they felt: a new contract with the world. I tried to imagine what those crystalline scents must feel like to them after a summer of dusty muddle. I closed my eyes and strained with them into the born-again olfactory world of the Northern Great Plains. On this unique morning I could smell the wild things: the grouse, rabbits, deer, and coyotes. They were thickening their coats, evolving strategies for the winter that was suddenly insured. For one brief instant the dimension of scent was given to me like a gift from that brittle sky. I looked up to see Orion and knew that, in many ways, what spring is to the rest of the world, this turning point of frost is to us on the Great Plains.

by Gervase Hittle

August and September are months in which we make preparations for the months to come. The operation here at the ranch ordinarily moves at a fairly regular and steady pace. Of course we take care of all the usual maintenance of fences and machinery, of the household repairs and remodeling, of the injuries to horses and dogs as they come along. But this ranch is not exactly the same as those of our neighbors. We are building a new corral for "working" the buffalo. Our "working" the animals consists mostly of ear tagging those that will go into the U.S. Forest Service grasslands in November. Each animal that goes on to the grasslands must be identifiable, and as we don't brand the calves, the ear tags are the acceptable identification. This "working" also allows us to sort out the ones we will keep here on the private ground. So the new corral will have to be completed in time for us to prepare the herd for moving into the grasslands for the winter.

We are preparing also for the falconry season. Everyone knows that Dan is an internationally known and respected falconer. If you don't know that, pick up a copy of his book Rites of Autumn (it's a great read) or pick up a copy of his video: A Falconer's Memoir, which aired on National Public TV several years ago after a premier showing in Rapid City. Erney and I are both licensed falconers; so we assist Dan in preparing the hawks and dogs for the bird hunting seasons. We anticipate quite a lot of activity this Fall and Winter.

One hunt we always look forward to is our annual pheasant hunt with Dan's brothers, Mike and Scott, and our very longtime friend, Jerry Pier, who lives in Pierre. We plan and prepare all year for this exciting three day hunt: getting the dogs ready, reserving accommodations, figuring transportation for the other friends and associates who join us for the hunt.

In this late summer period we also schedule a regimen for producing the buffalo meat that most of you who read this column enjoy on your table. Almost everything else is planned around that; so our Fall and Winter is packed pretty tightly. All of the vehicles, including the tractors, have to be winterized, as do the animals' watering systems. It is no fun to fix broken water pipes in the winter. And we check all of the fence line on the grasslands before it is time for the buffalo to go into them.

Sometimes we tend to think that Summer is the busy time on the ranch, but since we don't help with calving, nor do we dehorn, castrate and vaccinate the calves, nor do we sort cow/calf pairs or bulls off the herd and put them into special pastures; nor do we keep them in feedlots and feed them grain laced with antibiotics, our summers trend to be spent mostly on construction, remodeling, fence mending, and concerns regarding water supply for the herds. We also go to and assist with our neighbors' roundups and brandings; we fight grass fires with the Folsom Volunteer Fire Department, and we host quite a few visitors to the ranch.

This past summer at different times we housed three college students, who came to us from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota to work on the ranch as interns. They are all involved with Environmental Studies and were Dan's students last winter. They do ranch work with us and gather research material for a presentation after they return to class. The internship, while not for everybody, adds both academic credit and a world of experience to the pursuit of the goals in their lives.

So now we have rounded the corner of Summer and are moving rapidly down the road to Fall with only the final small preparations to make as we look through the changing landscape toward Winter-for which we wish an abundance of snow to break the drought, giving the land a deep and welcome drink and filling the dams, all the while wishing for a minimum of super-cold. But whatever happens rest assured that we are well prepared to keep that buffalo meat coming to you.