Sunday Thoughts - Weather Lore

Yesterday, my brother Vernon and I were talking about how weird the weather has been this year. Eighty one day and forty the next. Rain, snow, tornadoes, and all the other anomalies.

That led us to memories of our grandfather who had an old saying about weather to fit every occasion.

You see, our grandfather was 100 years old when he passed. My mother was his only child, and she was born when her parents were in their forties.

They were from the 19th century, and she was from the Roaring Twenties. It's mind-boggling to think how my grandparents were born a decade after the Civil War ended. They saw 2 world wars, Korea, Vietnam, and from horse and buggy to astronauts.

My mother wrote about it all in her memoir, Memory Lane, which I helped her put together and publish in 2008. I included a chapter on Weather Lore in the book. Today, I thought I'd share a little from the book which is still available in print on Amazon.

EXCERPT, Memory Lane: My Sentimental Journey

"I greatly admired my father. I remember how he had pithy little sayings to fit every occasion, and they always sounded wise and wonderful. What really amazed me though was his wealth of weather lore. Remarkably, he seemed able to accurately predict what Mother Nature would do.

"This was back in the days before CNN and The Weather Channel so everyone was more in touch with the elements and the earth. People had to depend on their ability to predict weather so there were many imaginative ways to do so. Here are a few of my father’s sayings about weather."

(1) Thunder in February means there will be a cold spell or a frost the same number day in April.

(2) If the weather fairs off at night it won’t stay that way very long.

(3) Thunder before seven; rain before eleven.

(4) A ring around the moon means it will rain within twenty-four hours.

(5) Early Easter, late spring. Late Easter, early spring.

(6) Rain the first three days of the beginning of the month means there will be more rainy days than clear days in that month.

(7) If you see lightning in the north, look for rain within forty-eight hours.

(8) Dandelions blooming in April means a wet July.

(9) Rain on June 1 means pecan trees won’t bear.

(10) Big wooly caterpillars appearing in late summer means a hard winter ahead.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

By the way, that's a photograph of my mother, age 3, on the cover of the book. Her right foot is blurry because she was tapping it impatiently, hating that she had to sit still instead of being allowed to go play.

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