[Moreta]

The woolly worm festival is this weekend in the mountains here in NC. Soon we will know the winter forecast. lol.

There's a bunch of winter folklore. What have y'all heard?

I know about the forecasting by using the bands on a woolly worm, forecasting from persimmon seeds, depending on the amount of acorns dropped from trees will how bad the winter will be, and the number of times you had fog in august is the amount of times you're going to get snow.

I love weather and it's amazing how people in the old days used to correlate things.

I really want to go to the woolly worm festival. They race them and the winner is the one they use to forecast with. LMAO. It's 2 hrs away though and my car won't make it.

[*Laurie*]

What a cool post, Moreta. I can't think of a single bit of winter folklore here. There's the spring one - when the gopher's shadow appears foretells when spring will arrive.

I feel for you about your car. I'm grateful to have a car...but it would be a huge extra if I could drive some distances in it without it breaking down.

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for sharing this. I vaguely recall the wooly worm forecasting method from many years ago when I was growing up in the country. I can't think of anything comparable here where I live nowadays... in the middle of a large metropolitan area. Around here they say we have two seasons... winter & road construction.

Here's a poem on the subject of winter by the Chinese poetess Lin Huiyin, (1904-1955) of which I am fond:

"Sitting in Quietude"

"Winter has a message of its own
"When the cold is like a flower--
"Flowers have their fragrance, winter has its handful of memories.
"The shadow of a withered branch, like lean blue smoke,
"Paints a stroke across the afternoon window.
"In the cold the sunlight grows pale and slanted,
"It is just like this.
"I sip the tea quietly
"As if waiting for a guest to speak."

[Moreta]

I found this Farmer's Almanac list about things that could mean a hard winter. It's pretty interesting.

20 Signs of a Hard Winter - Farmers’ Almanac

[Moreta]

This article is interesting and has a video that explains things. I didn't know how they did the whole forecasting with persimmon seeds so that was cool to see how it was done.

Walnuts and woolly worms predicting your winter.

[eskielover]

Well hopefully going to gether some persimmons off a friend's farm that has wild persimmon trees. I love to make yummy desserts with them. We haven't had any locally for a couple of years.

Our wooly worms are big & black this year here in Ky & our black walnuts are huge & so our our hedge apples. All supposedly signs on a cold winter. We will see.

Temps have dropped to just above freezing from in the mid 80's last week....so the indications might be right on.

[Moreta]

The woolly worm festival was this weekend but it was cancelled for today because apparently everything got destroyed last night. The winds in the mountains were 50-60 mph last night. I feel sorry for the vendors. I know when I used to be a vendor and did outside shows I hated the wind. Never had to deal with wind that bad though.

[eskielover]

Oh my. Would have hated to have been a vendor in that wind too. Even enclosed tents would have suffered with winds like that.

We had bad windd here in Ky last night too. Weather wind advisory. Went out on my front deck & one plant was knocked over & the pillow off my chair was on the deck floor & some other stuff blown around. At first I thought raccoon but must have just been the wind. Lol....the wind prunes dead branches out of my silver maple tree too. I was picking up good size branches all over my front yard area. It hasn't been this bad in awhile

[Moreta]

It seems like we can't win here in NC. The wind was around 30-35 mph last night here in the piedmont. Was still whipping when i went out this morning to get the sheets off my plants because I wasn't sure if it was going to frost last night. We're under a frost advisory tonight so will have to put the sheets back out tonight. I am not a fan of this colder weather. The dogs love it though. I have a bad feeling this winter will be bad.

[eskielover]

I have been procrastinating about bring in my plants on my front deck....I haven't de-wolf spidered them yet & don't want to bring those spiders into my house. I get enough of those spiders in my house through my basement. My light colored sweet potato vine got frosted last night but it was out on my front steps & not under the deck roof. I was so not ready for this cold so soon after the heat. I need some fall temps to get a little more clearing done on my farm. It went from too hot & humid to too cold without any inbetween....but we still have now leaf color change either. My red maples are still green.

Like you, I think this winter will be bad because we have had several mild ones the past few years. Just hoping for no ice storm or -20 temps

[ptangptang]

Winter folklore?. In these less innocent , more switched on, more urban days 'country ways and folklore ' don't have much place in most peoples thinking.
In the uk there are several newspapers, one in particular, that loves an extreme weather story. It's either going to be the hottest summer on record or the coldest winter for 100 years. Currently it's going to be '4 months 0f snow and sub zero temperatures'. Their so called 'expert' is much a much derided 'amateur' weather forecaster with no qualifications . Maybe he reads the pine cones and throws twigs in the air. I think he works on the principle that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The paper has about 10 headlines that they shuffle between. I'm waitng for the one. ' Coldest winter since Diana murdered will see Queen abdicate causing house price crash and massive tax hikes'

[eskielover]

What gets me is that when a huge winter storm becomes forcast everyone runs to the store & buys bread & milk.....like I have enough food in my house to take care of myself if the huge winter storm lasted all winter instead if a few days like they always do. Camelot snow here in Ky. We may get a few days of snow but no need to shovel it because within 5 days it is all melted & gone except the piles snow plows made. I don't waste my energy.

Oh, I am going to collect some wild persimmons tomorrow so I can forcast our local weather & make some persimmon pudding & cookies (& a cushaw pie too (which has nothing to do with weather it us just a southern fall thing to do)