Winter Tales

Winter is coming early this year, as anyone who tuned into Game 3 of the World Series the other night saw. (My California sister, chatting on the phone with me during the game, saw a fan-cam shot of all the people at Busch Stadium bundled up in their heavy coats & scarves & asked me "How freakin cold is it there, anyway?") But we've known for some time that we're in for a long, cold one this year. Even the trusty Old Farmer's Almanac takes a back seat to old-timey weather folklore.

Ozark lore holds that splitting a persimmon seed lengthwise & examining the shape of the sprout-to-be will tell the coming winter's severity. If the sprout is shaped like a knife, winter will be icy with a cutting wind. If it's shaped like a spoon, winter will have a lot of heavy, wet snow & you'll be digging out. If it's shaped like a fork, winter will be mild with light, powdery snow. Well, an informal & unscientific survey (six persimmon seeds that someone brought in to work) yielded eight spoons, two seeds too mangled to read, and one cut finger. (Hey, science is sometimes dangerous.)

Another old weather rhyme: Onion skins paper-thin, Mild winter coming in; Onion skins thick & tough, Coming winter cold & rough. The last batch of onions I bought at the farmer's market before it closed for the season were tasty, but they had skins like cardboard.

Of course, everyone knows that animals can sense the coming winter & will act on it during the fall months. Squirrels will store nuts earlier than usual, cattle will grow a shaggier coat than normal, and so forth. Here at chez Imperatrix, the cats are heavier-coated & fatter than I have ever seen them in their six or so years. Just look at Friday's poochy little belly! I'm telling you, they know somehow.