Alberta Folklore - Farm Stories

Prepare for a hard winter when...

� Corn shucks are thicker and tougher than normal.

� There is an unusually large crop of nuts or acorns.

� Heavy moss appears on the north side of trees.

� Maple and sassafras sap goes down early in the fall.

� Grape leaves turn yellow early in the season.

� Hornets have triple insulated nests.

� Wasps are sealing large numbers of live spiders in their mud incubator tubes to feed their young when hatched.

� Cattle get rough coats and rabbits and squirrels have unusually heavy fur.

� Wooly bear caterpillars are dark from "stem to stern": if dark only in the middle, only the middle part of winter will be hard; if the ends are black, the beginning and the end of winter will be hard.

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Signs of Rain

� If, when standing on high ground, you have a clear view and the horizon is unobstructed from all quarters, you may expect rain within forty-eight hours.

� If it begins to rain after seven in the morning, it will continue to rain all day. This may also be and indication that it will rain for three days.

� When it is raining and the sky brightens and darkens alternately, it will rain all day, with a good chance of clearing at sundown.

� It is a sign of continued rain if smoke from the chimney hovers low over the housetops. When it is ascending straight into the air, there will be clearing weather.

� A foggy morning is usually the forerunner of a clear afternoon.

� Mushrooms and toadstools are numerous just before a rain.

� "If the down flyeth off the Dandelion when there is no wind, it is a sign of rain".

� When the flowers of the pimpernel close during the day, it is a sure sign of rain - thus this plant is known as the poor man’s weather glass.

� Bees are sensitive to the increased humidity that usually precedes a shower, and always return to the hive to escape a wetting.

� Old time weather prediction verse:

Mackerel sky,*
Five miles high
Lets the earth
Go three days dry.

*Mackerel sky is one covered with rows of clouds, resembling the patterns on a mackerel’s back.

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Folklore

� If a tree will not bear fruit, drive nails in it.

� Trees for building purposes should be felled in late November of in December.

� When transplanting a tree, make sure that it is facing the same direction as it was before it was removed from its original location.

� Wood from a tree struck by lightning should never be used in the construction of a house or barn, or they in turn may also be struck by lightning.

� If a pregnant woman helps plant a tree and takes hold of it with both hands, the tree will bear doubly well.

� You will become blind, so they say, if you look up into a tree while a woman is in it.

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Cold Remedies

� Put seven beans in your pocket. Each day throw one bean away, and at the end of the seven days your cold will be gone.

� Sore throat: Wear on of your long stockings around you neck with the foot under the chin. This is said to be good for head colds, too.

� Eating horseradish is said to cure a cold, as is rubbing goose berries on the chest and eating chicken soup.

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