The Signs

We’re past the halfway point of March now, the grass is greening and trees are budding.  Despite the cold rain that’s pecking at my window today, spring is surely at hand.  And when I begin to think about springtime, thoughts of garden-fresh vegetables and summer projects are never far behind. 

Spring weather on the mountain is predictable only in its unpredictable-ness.  We’ll get a warm spell and there’s a whole bunch of us that will rush out and start planting only to have a cold snap (one of the many “winters” we yet have to weather) that freezes any little shoots we’ve coaxed out of the ground.  When to plant and what to plant when are timeless questions and questions that have been answered for ages by The Farmer’s Almanac.

Almanacs have been published since the twelfth century – Gutenberg saw fit to publish an almanac even before he printed his famous Bible.  Can you even imagine what a valuable resource for a subsistence farmer to have even a weather forecast in the days before the five o’clock news gave a scientific ten day weather prediction?  Even having a chart of sunrise times would be extremely useful as timekeeping became increasingly more accurate. Today’s almanac predicts weather based on sunspot activity, moon phases, tidal activity and other factors, which according to www.farmersalmanac.com are a closely guarded secret, and these predictions are credited with 80 – 85 percent accuracy.

But the almanac tells so much more.  Based on the astrological alignment of the planets, “best days” are determined.  These can suggest when you do anything from cutting wood to killing pests or even planning a wedding.  Now, historically, folks have relied on these suggestions with greatly varying dependence.  There is even some question among Christian believers whether it is right or wrong to consult them.  Certainly there is a fine line between relying on the stars (or familiar spirits) or turning to God’s guidance (either from the indwelling Holy Spirit or from His published Word) and I frankly am not in either camp.  However, looking at it from an historical perspective, considering how many hours of daylight to expect and what the weather did on a given day for the last five or ten years would surely be relevant if you were planning an outdoor wedding, building a new house or planting a big crop.

Of course the best days and the signs predict how well your crops will bear or how long produce will keep.  And it seems pretty reasonable that moon phase as well as temperatures would affect how well the fish are biting.  However, I can’t quite understand the effect on dieting, dental care or breaking a bad habit.  Yet you don’t have to look too far to find people with strong testimonies of success or failure based one the signs.  Law enforcement officers will often tell you that their jails are fuller and their nights harder during certain signs of the moon.  And I’ve heard both nurses and farmers say that babies are born in greater numbers on the full moon.

The Bible certainly tells us that God placed the stars in the sky, and surely He purposely put them in their specific spots in the night sky.  He created the moon and its phases.  Jesus referred to weather prediction by the color of the sunset but warns that it is a “wicked and adulterous generation” that seeks a sign – would these signs qualify?  I have certainly known some very strong Christians who wouldn’t plant a thing without first consulting the almanac, was that simply ignorance of the occult?  I am very eager to hear your thoughts on this subject!

Is anyone game to conduct a little experiment this summer and plant half your garden by the signs and the other half by your own whim?  I’d love to hear the results.  In the meantime, please let me know your experiences farming by the signs.

Obeying the Speed Limit

I have a very brief anecdote to share with you today.  Short though it is, it was such a cute story, I was sure you would enjoy it.

Down toward Deer Lodge, at a typical country store about 1900, a bunch of men both young and old were sitting on the porch when along came a road crew and posted a sign saying “15 mph”.

The gentlemen sat in quiet contemplation of this notice until another neighbor happened along and asked the question on everyone’s mind, “1 5 m p h, what’s that mean?”

An expert in the group sits a little taller and shares his vast knowledge, “That’s the speed.  If you don’t go fifteen miles per hour you go to jail.”

After just a moment one man in the group began to shake his head as he slowly stood, stepped off the porch and untied his mule.  “Fifteen miles an hour, I’ll make it if I can.”  He swung onto the bare back, still shaking his head.   Slapping reins and kicking heels he hit the road still saying, “I’ll make it if I can, I’ll make it if I can.”

Millard Stepp told the story, he was there and this was the first speed limit sign he’d ever seen.  He would have been about fourteen years old at that time.

Elbert Hall with his own mules.  He is about 16 years old and had bought them himself.
Picture courtesy of Terry Hall.

This story, while anecdotal, was told for fact.  It made me think about our early use of and dependence upon mules.  I remembered the picture above of a young Elbert Hall with a pair of mules he'd bought when he was sixteen years old.  How many boys now longing for their first car or pickup truck could even appreciate the value of the team that's pictured here?  Elbert Hall is a whole other story and we'll talk about him in detail in the coming weeks.

Ice Storm 2015

Ice Storm 2015

1960 Ice Storm, Dayton, TN
From http://daytontn.net/history_60ice.php

It won’t be news to anyone that the mountain saw an historic ice storm last week; in fact many of you reading this will still be working to clean up yards and farms.  In fact, all of the Southeast struggled with winter weather last week and we needed all hands on board to effect the necessary cleanup.  You know that I’m always contrasting the things we face today, and how we handle them, with those faced a century ago.  Well, Tennessee has always faced these sporadic winter storms and then tried to clear it all away and get back to a normal life.  How would last week’s storm have been different in 1915 or 1815?

1960 Ice Storm, Dayton, TN
From http://daytontn.net/history_60ice.php

The ice and wind took down entire trees as well as plenty of all sizes of limbs.  These have to be removed, roads have to be cleared whether you’re driving cars or mule teams.  Of course, we have chain saws that make quick (or at least quicker) work than standing opposite a partner on a crosscut saw.  In winter’s chill you want to get the cutting done as quickly as possible.  But even with the most modern saw, it’s still hard work.

Once cut, all the wood has to be dragged out of the way, piled and disposed of.  What a blessing is a tractor to snag heavy logs and pull them away.  Yet, chaining a tree is just as cold whether you’re hooking it to a 100 horsepower, cabbed tractor or a four-up team of horses.

Let’s face it, the number of trees, the thick and yucky mud, and the bone-chilling wind does not change regardless of the date on the calendar or modern tools.

While our contemporary society may be immobilized by the ice, life just moves right along. We have cows ready to calve and they don’t generally wait for warm, sunny days.  In fact, it’s been my humble observation that they usually choose the very worst of conditions especially if they are going to need human intervention in the birthing.  Do you think that has changed over time?  I doubt it. I’m thinking beef cattle were every bit as ornery two centuries ago as they are today.  One calf refused to eat and you can’t just ignore the little creature because conditions are inconvenient.  So, in the mud and the cold we were milking that mean ole’ Angus and bottle-feeding her baby. 

Still, my feet were dry – you can really withstand a lot with dry feet - and I was praising The Lord for good boots.  And my hands were warm in water-proof gloves, at least until I had to milk the cow and I just never have figured out how to milk in gloves!  People were dying across the south due to exposure and traffic accidents and it’s just hard to really complain about the little troubles when you realize how much worse others have it.  And then I remember our ancestors who faced all these things just as we have and their lights never did come back on for they lived with coal-oil lamps and wood-burning stoves.  The weatherman is saying there’ll be another round of winter weather this week so maybe we can keep our perspective and remember that spring really is just around the corner when we will turn soil, plant seeds and grow crops just as our people have been doing for generations on the mountain. 

Isn’t the constancy of life a beautiful thing?  

Etymology

It was just about a year ago that I wrote about our mountain dialect in “What do y’uns say?” and I certainly don’t want to sound like a broken record here.  However, this week I happened upon a great website hosted by the Tennessee State Library at www.tn4me and it made me laugh at myself.  I believe if you can’t laugh at yourself then you aren’t going to have much fun so I wanted to share this with you.

In an article entitled “How They Lived”, the site explores the changing way of life during the period from 1875 to 1930.  That was an incredible time in history and it is always fascinating to study.  At the end, there’s a little game with sayings from the 1870’s.  What made me smile was that I not only understood and recognized most of the terms, but in fact I regularly use them! 

When I’m writing period pieces, I spend a lot of time researching the etymology of words in an effort to keep the dialog and the characters as realistic as possible.  Sometimes I’m shocked when I read the origins of some of our common terms; this time, I was shocked by the age of some of them.

With my strong opinions, I often mention things I don’t “cotton to” and never bothered to wonder how long people have been saying that.  According to the “Online Etymology Dictionary”, using cotton as an agreement verb originated in the 1560’s and is probably from a Welsh word.   

Having been raised on a strong work ethic, to be called ‘no-account’ is among the worst of insults.  After all, no one wants to feel they are worthless.  It’s a label that’s been used since 1845 but comes from the French “of non acompte” that dates to the fourteenth century. 

Power has always been greatly desired, but “powerful” is an adjective we often use for unusual nouns – like a powerful hot day or powerful bad odor.  This use of the word is from the 1820’s. 

The TN4me website noted “vamoose” as an 1870’s word, and the etymology dictionary dates it only back to 1834.  Silly me, I always thought that was a foreign word that we’d just borrowed.  And in fact, we’ve used it since about 1834 and it is from the Spanish vamos although I think we use it with a little more force for the Spanish version means “let’s go”.  I think I first learned that word from my junior high science teacher and I’m pretty sure she was saying something more like “be off with you”.

So, we set a great store by our words and we use a right smart of them.  But I suppose we don’t check the expiration date when we turn a phrase and I think I’m glad we don’t.  Perhaps these old terms connect us by the nigh way to our history.

Wintertime Inconveniences

One of our readers commented last week that she agreed with me that she wouldn’t trade modern medical care for the good ‘ole days, and she really liked indoor plumbing too.  Diana, I completely agree, and your thought along with this week’s weather got me to thinking…

Photo courtesy of GHGraham.com

We got a little snow and ice this week and as the beautiful winter-scape developed, I kept one eye out the window and the other on a light bulb.  Tree limbs weighted by ice, slick roads and unskilled drivers all spell power outages for us.  We think we are prepared with bottled water, a stack of wood and extra food in the house.  Still, when things actually go dark, I can’t help but feel a little lost; it seems like everything that I need or want to do requires electricity. 

So at a time when we might be temporarily without some of our modern conveniences, let’s ask ourselves which one do you value most?  If you could only have one modern convenience, which one would it be?

There are a bunch of teenagers as well as several simply-agers that are running around these days with a cell phone permanently attached to their palm. Those folks might say they simply couldn’t live without that connection to the digital world.  Now, those of us who never heard of a cell phone for a good portion of our lives probably wouldn’t choose that first.  However, I must confess, I do feel a little safer on the road knowing I can call for help, I enjoy being able to reach out to friends and family whenever I think of something rather than waiting till I’m near a landline, and I won’t even tell you all the junk I have stored digitally that I truly enjoy carrying with me from to-do lists to photos.

Most of my generation would probably say they really need their television.  To those, I’d like to gently remind you of the day not too long ago when you only got three channels and maybe one of those was pretty fuzzy.  Pretty soon you’d seen all the shows so only the news was really new and most of that was bad.  Given those factors, do you really think the TV would be the one thing you would choose?  Not me.

I’m really spoiled by my car and frankly it would be hard to give up that level of freedom.  We are used to running out for a gallon of milk or to pop in on a friend; we can be at church or any appointment in just a few minutes and can make a trip to town and back and have plenty of day left to do something else.  But do you know that there are lots of places, even in the US, that don’t have two cars per household and they manage just fine?  Of course, it’s harder in the country because we can’t catch a bus to go to the mall or walk to the corner for a few groceries.  Back in the day, no one ever expected to go to town every week and buy their groceries.  However, everyone had a cow so there was always fresh milk and they prepared all summer to have food through the cold winter months.

And then there is electricity.  Okay, lights are good.  I like my computer – after all, that’s where I write my little stories and I guess I can’t really imagine doing it all on paper.  Heat is fine and it’s nice not to have to mind the fire sometimes.  The fridge is the kicker for me with electricity, think about summertime and frozen meat.  Do any of you remember salt-cured pork?  I know some folks consider it a delicacy but I never did acquire a taste for that stuff.

When I turned on my faucet this morning to prepare my morning coffee, I found it dry and right then and there I realized indoor plumbing would be the single modern convenience that I would choose if I could have only one.  Now, I’ve visited an outdoor privy just a few times in my life and that would have convinced me in one degree temps this morning even before the dry faucet.  I would love indoor plumbing in the summertime when the creek would be surrounded by flying bugs hounding efforts to do laundry.  From bathing to canning, opening that faucet with a plentiful, ready supply of fresh clean water is a blessing I can hardly even count.  Thankfully, the hiccup in my plumbing this morning was a simply mechanical issue at the pump and lasted only till my husband could drag himself down to the well house and then I was once again praising The Lord for running water.

It may be hard to think objectively about these conveniences, especially if you are without any one of them right now.  But I would love to hear from ya’ll which one convenience you would choose if you could only have one.

photo courtesy of ghgraham.com