“You Can Observe a Lot Just By Looking”
My grandfather was an excellent teacher. He thought it was important for me to learn some important lessons. By the time I reached my teenage years I knew how to put “gears” on a plow mule, to “spud” tobacco, to dehorn cattle, to put rings in a pig’s nose, to use burnt-oil and sulfur to get rid of the manes, and how to nurse a cow and her calf through milk-fever. You know, all those real important lessons that continue to be of great value today. I learned these and many other lessons from a master teacher.
Among the many things he taught me were lessons about the use of the “signs”, based on the phases of the moon and the almanac calendar. From him, I learned when to plant (or not to plant) certain types of plants, when to build (or not to build) fence, when to spray (or not to spray) herbicide, and when to get (or not to get) a haircut or visit the dentist. Now all of these things matter, right? Sure they do!
Recently, with the coming of Spring, I have been remembering some of the lessons he taught me about the weather. Granddad would say, “Now Lowry (His way of saying “Larry”), you can predict the weather in the Spring just by looking at what’s blooming, and how heavy the bloom is”. I think Yogi Berra (Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees, former Major League manager, unique philosopher famous for his “Yogism’s”) once said, “You can observe a lot just by looking “. Anyway, that was what my grandfather was trying to teach me about the weather in Spring. (By now, you are probably wondering where I am heading with this. Well, try to stay with me a little bit longer and we’ll get there. I hope.)
Once the weather begins to turn from the Winter to Spring there a several periods where the temperatures will be warm, followed by cooler temperatures, followed by warmer temperatures, followed by cooler temperatures. That is a pretty regular pattern for us, here in the southern part of the Appalachian Mountains, is it not? My grandfather called the warm weather periods “thaws” and the cooler spells “winters”. Rather than go into a great deal of detail (as my grandfather did with me), I want to just give a list of the various names he had for the “winters” we have during Spring. Each “winter” is based on the things (flowers, shrubs, trees) that happen to be blooming at the time when the weather turns cool after a period of warmth. An additional note of explanation, the length and severity of the “winters” vary, as does the “kill” factor in the event of a freeze or frost. Ok, here they are in the order he taught me: daffodil, March Bell (forsythia), Red Bud, Dogwood, Sarvis (Service Berry), and Blackberry. He also taught that in the month of May we would have Whippoorwill, followed by Catbird (Of course, neither of these are based on blooming things but on things that happen to be present at the time.). The good news is that once “Catbird Winter” is over the heat of Summer is at hand. Now again, all of this is based on the rule of “observing by looking”.
Given all of the indicators we seem to have of that which the scientist label “climate change” which is the apparent result of “global warming” there is no telling what we will be “observing by just looking” in the future.