Adventures in farm life: common sayings

My mother's mother used to say that if the snow stays on the ground for more than three days,
it will snow again.

You know, the numbers of fogs we have in August will be the number of times it snows in the winter.

Don't go plantin' your garden until after the blackberry winter.

These are all sayings that people in this area believe in with ferver. So much so that the local tv show who's host is 70 years old, actually counted the fogs this past August. There was one according to him. He lives quite a piece south from me and I can see why he would have only one fog. We here in the northern end of the world didn't count our fogs. I did one year when I lived in Sautee, there were four, however I remember there only being one snow. Although, I tend to wonder does the snow being on the ground for three days override the fogs in August? How does it effect the blackberry winter? A blackberry winter, btw, is a winter snap just as the blackberry bushes bloom and is the last frost of the year. Never fails to be the last frost. Everytime. I think it is God's way of seeing if we pay attention.

Now people have been saying since Sunday at church the three day rule. The local 70 year old tv host predicted Monday morning that it was going to snow on Friday. WHY would a guy who is not a meteorologist do such a thing? Because he knows! He's 70! So each day I am checking the weather on the dot com and nowhere does it even say precipitation of any kind! Until today. Today it decides that it is going to be 30 degrees on Thursday with a 51% chance of rain. Rain...at thirty degrees? Isn't that snow? Or sleet? Or the newest DQ treat--a wintery mix? Ok so maybe it is not a new DQ flavor, but it should be. THEN on Friday it is going to be 24 degrees and raining. Yeah, the 70 year old pegged it. The snow has been on the ground since last Thursday. Look out for a blizzard and not from DQ.