Grasshopper Weather

My daughter and I are reading the Little House on the Prairie books (well, I've been reading them aloud and she's been correcting my occasional misread.) In the fourth book, On the Banks of Plum Creek is a chapter entitled "Grasshopper Weather," which describes how their summer lasted an unusually long time into the fall. Kinda like how I felt on my commute today, except that the Ingals family had winter weather by Thanksgiving. Not so much around here. I don't think the ground is frozen—or maybe it's thawed...