November is a strange month. It has a lot of good things going for it, such as Thanksgiving, but it also has some things going against it, such as the first taste of winter. This is not a bad thing if you are a skier, but it stinks if you are still racing to get crops in before snow flies.

November also celebrates a lot of different things. Some things are serious, like Diabetes Month, Epilepsy Awareness month or Family Literacy Month. Some are ludicrous, like Banana Pudding Lovers Month. Okay, maybe it’s not ludicrous if you love banana pudding, but still…

For farmers, November can be either a lion or a lamb. If you are struggling to get all the crops in and the snow flies and the temperature drops and the equipment can’t roll, November is a fierce, roaring lion. But if the weather is balmy and every piece of equipment is working and the crops are flying out of the fields, November is a soft, gentle, sweet little lamb. We like lamb Novembers.

I did a little research about Nebraska Novembers and found that the coldest one was in 1985, when the average temperature was only 29 degrees! That was a lion. And it probably produced a whole bunch of little lions trying to harvest their crops. 

The hottest November in Nebraska was in 2001 when the average temperature was 48 degrees. This is perfect. Cool enough not to need the air conditioning, but not cold enough that you have to break the water on the horse tank before you leave every morning. 

The thing about November is that you just never know what you’re going to get. It might be a lovely, balmy harvest time, and it might be a month-long pain in the neck. 

But maybe that’s why it’s a good thing to celebrate Thanksgiving in November. Family, friends, homes, health, even repair jobs that turn out to be not so bad…you can always find something to be thankful for, even if it’s not the weather.