More Weather Folklore

I'd like to begin by thanking all my family and friends who are Veterans and have or are serving our country to protect our right to be free.  I join in celebrating your courage, and honor each of you and your families today!

Yesterday, I told you about the Woolly Bear Caterpillar predicting how hard winter will be by how much of her body is brown.  I have a few other fun tidbits of folklore about predicting the winter weather...like the number of foggy days in August is the number of snows you will have (we counted...17 days of heavy fog in our holler, so we'll see if we have 17 snows...we've had 1 so far!).  My friend Patti who blogs on Osage Bluff Quilter posted several years ago about Mr. Woolly Worm and about persimmons...saying legend has it that the shape of the inside a persimmon will predict the winter weather...if shaped like a fork, a mild winter is in the outlook; if it's shaped like a knife, a bitterly-cold winter is coming; and if it's shaped like a spoon, there will be a lot of snow...I haven't seen any persimmon's yet, but now I'll keep my eyes peeled!

Today I bring you a guest post (my first one, I am excited about this) from Tipper at Blind Pig and The Acorn who has several posts about Appalachian weather folklore, and this is one of them.  I am sure you will enjoy it!

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Discerning Weather Signs - From: It's Not My Mountain Anymore

The excerpt I'm going to share from It's Not My Mountain Anymore written by Barbara Taylor Woodall today is one of the many parts of the book which made me laugh-and longingly wish I had known her mother.

One cold January afternoon Mama began to discern weather signs. The chimney smoke settled close to the ground and the fire was making "trompin" sounds like boots swishing deep snow. Raising a cup of water to her mouth, she said "I can taste snow in th' spring water. The stock was laying down this morning around the barn. Yes sir, a doozy of a snowstorm is a'comin. If we can't make it to the outhouse, we'll just have to pee in the gun barrel and shoot it out the window."

In the book Barbara goes on with the rest of the story-they did indeed get a big snow. I love that her Mother said she could taste snow in the spring water. Seems like somewhere back in the corner of my mind I recall someone saying the same thing-but maybe not. The Deer Hunter says he can smell snow coming and his nose has been right as long as I've known him.
Tipper

p.s. If you can't wait to read the book yourself-click on any of the links above (title of book in blue or Barbara's name in blue) to jump over and buy your own copy!

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I am looking forward to reading It's Not My Mountain Anymore...a book that "captures the rhythm of the mountains, our people, and our vanishing culture".  Sounds fascinating and fun!

I'm also excited to see how all this folklore pans out!  No sure my Woolly Bear shows we will have a hard winter or not, but if fog is an indicator, seems to me that 17 snows is a lot!  And I have seen the chimney smoke settling into the valley, though not too close to the ground yet. And I'm gonna look for persimmon trees!   And I'm gonna see if I can smell snow coming for the rest of the winter!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise