The Time of Daffodils

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout

Daffodils are such happy flowers. I can't imagine anyone not liking them. They're easy to grow and mix in beautifully with crocus, hyacinths, and other early blooms. Daffodils have always been on the farm. My mother-in-law had them, and the families who lived here before her. I've divided old clumps, spread them around, and planted new varieties over the years. The waving yellow and white blooms are a spirit lifting sight. When I'm outside working among the flowers, I feel more peaceful and not as freaked out about the pandemic. Like countless others, I'm at home for the duration and especially grateful for the garden. Having an early spring in the valley is a boon. I wish I could share the beauty with everyone. This is the best I can do.

Spring forever appears
      the soothing music part
      of lyrics unspoken.
It thaws the frozen fears,
      mends the wounded heart
      that Winter has broken.
~Aarno Davidson

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~Henry Van Dyke

The sun has come out... and the air is vivid with spring light. ~Byron Caldwell Smith, letter to Kate Stephens

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
~Emily Dickinson

Winter sprouts springtime wings and flies off into the budding year. ~Terri Guillemets

Daffodils, so bright and yellow,
      Hyacinths of varied hues,
      As they nod their heads, in gladness,
      Telling us they bring good news...
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "Springtime" (1940s)

I sure hope spring brings good news to us all

Chronicling Spring in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

I am a gardener, animal lover, author... Fortunately, I haven't had to choose a single focus and incorporate my loves into my writing. Among my greatest passions is the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in general, and our farm in particular. The meadows are covered in a wash of green and looking far more hopeful than the brown hue we've lived with since November A blanket of snow is pretty but we haven't had much snowfall this year. Thank heavens the rain has returned after months of drought.

Our drained and dug out farm pond is finally beginning to fill back up again. It was a dry crater all fall and winter like something on the moon. The barnyard geese were suspicious at first, but now go for swims. We are watching for the migrating waterfowl and birds who were once regular visitors here. Sadly, our place was off their radar last spring. Having an alive pond again is exciting. We're consulting experts about what to do regarding fish, and I'm toying with getting ducks. The original pond had filled with silt over the decades and had to be redone. It's located in a marshy spot in the meadow fed by wet water springs and is the head waters of Cooks Creek, which ultimately feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. Fencing keeps the cows out. We have planted some trees and shrubs around it and will plant more.

(Geese enjoying the new grass. Ruins of an old barn visible back behind our farm)

I'm in my 'giddy about the earth awakening mode', or was, until the wind storm hit. My spirits are a little battered, and the crocus are kind of sad after the roaring bluster. But I trust the blossoms will revive and new ones will open when this gale finishes with us and sweeps away. March really roared in this year. Inclement weather is a trial to gardeners everywhere. We hopeful souls go on. We must. I'm chronicling spring as it unfolds in my bit of earth.

Early crocus and snowdrops below.

I saved a lot of seeds last year, ordered many others, and started some early varieties of flowers, herbs, and vegetables in my little greenhouse. One late February day was so balmy, it felt like May. I planted my early salad greens in the garden during the warm spell. Then the lion returned, and the seeds will slumber until the warmth comes back.

"Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps;
Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvest reaps."
~A. Bronson Alcott, "The Garden," Tablets, 1868

"It was such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth, to feel at one's fingertips the possibilities of the new season." ~Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden

(Miniature iris return faithfully each year)

(Yellow crocus)

***For more on me follow my Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Trissel/e/B002BLLAJ6/

Old-Time Dandelion Salad Recipe!

Socked full of nutrients, dandelions should probably be eaten more often than zapped with herbicides. We've been taught to look upon this humble wildflower/weed/herb as a plague in our lawns and flower beds, but perhaps we should have more respect for the much maligned dandelion. 

To further that end, I've searched out an old Mennonite recipe for a tasty hot dressing to pour over the tender greens. It's essential to gather the leaves quite young or they will be entirely too bitter. I'm sure you can also use this dressing for other greens, too, like watercress and endive.  My mother in law used to make it for dandelion salad and then forgot her recipe. But I found it, at least this sounds like what I remember more or less. I gathered new greens and prepared the salad this week. Very good, though not quite as delicious as hers.

For The Salad itself:

4 cups chopped dandelion leaves

3 hard-boiled eggs

3 slices of bacon

For The Hot Dressing:

1 1/2 Tablespoons flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 egg, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 2 cups milk or water

Wash and chop dandelion leaves. Cut bacon in pieces and fry. Remove bacon from drippings. In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients, add egg, vinegar and water or milk. Stir until well blended.

Cook this mixture  in the bacon drippings until thickened and cool slightly.  Pour over dandelions and mix lightly. Garnish with sliced eggs and bacon.

For those of you who are reluctant to use all that bacon fat in the dressing, I suggest substituting butter which is better for you than margarine. You could probably even leave the bacon out if you're vegetarian, but bacon makes everything taste better.

#Ghostly #Christmas #Romance Somewhere the Bells Ring on Audible!

Woot! A favorite novella of mine is now available in Audio at Amazon. Narrator Tom Jordan did a terrific job.  He says Somewhere the Bells Ring is, 'The most touching romantic ghost story since Demi Moore made pottery with Patrick Swayze.' 
  
Somewhere the Bells Ring was an engrossing story to write, and yes, very moving. The old house in the story is based on the family homeplace in the Shenandoah Valley where my father grew up and that I often visited as a child. The story opens in 1968, an era I have a lot of nostalgia about, with time slips back to 1918 and the end of WWI.

Story Blurb:

Caught with pot in her dorm room, Bailey Randolph is exiled to a relative's ancestral home in Virginia to straighten herself out. Banishment to Maple Hill is dismal, until a ghost appears requesting her help. Bailey is frightened but intrigued. Then her girlhood crush, Eric Burke, arrives and suddenly Maple Hill isn't so bad.

To Eric, wounded in Vietnam, his military career shattered, this homecoming feels no less like exile. But when he finds Bailey at Maple Hill, her fairy-like beauty gives him reason to hope - until she tells him about the ghost haunting the house. Then he wonders if her one experiment with pot has made her crazy.

As Bailey and Eric draw closer, he agrees to help her find a long-forgotten Christmas gift the ghost wants. But will the magic of Christmas be enough to make Eric believe - in Bailey and the ghost - before the Christmas bells ring?

"An intriguing, gripping ghost story with a focus on romance rather than terror." ~Reviewed by Stephanie E with Fallen Angels Reviews

Listen to Somewhere the Bells Ring at: https://www.amazon.com/Somewhere-Bells-Ring-Time-Book/dp/B075GWRZ1G

Geese Have Quite A Lot to Say, Actually

Here are the geese having a clandestine meeting. They do that a lot, with secretive quacks and goosey murmurs which change to alarmed scrambles when I'm spotted. Bad me, spying on the Goose Alliance.

But I feel compelled to stay abreast of their plots. Even more furtive, are these gatherings at dusk with the cows. I suspect they're planning an uprising and trying to take over the farm.

Again, all appears innocent in this early morning shot of them grouped beyond the flowers, but beware. Geese For All and All for Geese.  I'm suspiciously absent from their mantra.  I could be wrong, though, and the gaggle are exchanging knitting patterns. In case I'm right on, I will continue my surveillance. Does anybody truly know the mind of a goose?

"The goose that lays the golden eggs likes to lay where there are eggs already." Charles Spurgeon (No idea what this means, but I'll keep a lookout for it).

Ever Schnellisched Anybody?

To schnellisch someone, say a naughty child, means to give them a quick flick using your thumb and forefinger--a mild, but attention grabbing reprimand. I learned this Pennsylvania Dutch expression from my Mennonite mother-in-law. My husband, Dennis, suggested I give Puppy Cooper a schnellisch when he vociferously refused to stop chewing on my hand while I crawled around wiping the kitchen floor. I didn't, but that's how common this term is in our household. 

(Up the road from our farm) 

My mother-In-Law has dementia but remembers old expressions and ways of doing things, like boiling up her wash in a big kettle before they got a washing machine, and it would have been a primitive model. I'm researching early Mennonites for a ghostly time travel romance back to the Civil War era in the Shenandoah Valley. Dennis comes from a long line of German/Swiss Mennonites who settled in our lush valley about the time my Scots-Irish ancestors did, the early-mid 1700's, but at opposite ends. The two groups didn't intermingle much until our generation. We were high school sweethearts, and I joined the New Order Mennonite church when we were engaged soon after my graduation. We married young. I've learned there are MANY orders of Mennonites and he's related to them all, but my Presbyterian roots are strong. I'm a part of this community, and yet apart. Many of our neighbors are Old Orders and buggies frequently trot past our farm. They are good people. 

 (Buggies going past our farm)

One of Dennis' Shank ancestors had a house and barn burned during Sheridan's infamous march into the valley, the autumn of 1864, when he burned and plundered 'the breadbasket of the Confederacy.' Most Mennonites were Union sympathizers, considering secession to be treason. Not a popular view in the south. They didn't own slaves, against their beliefs, plus they were pacifists, so refused to fight in the war, but they suffered along with everyone else when Sheridan laid waste to the land. A lot of barns, mills, and some homes went up in flames. Sheridan said a crow would have to pack his lunch to fly from one end of the valley to the other, as little food as the Union army left in its fiery wake. Sheridan didn't care what side folk were on.The suffering that followed his visitation was terrible. The valley was already hard hit by the war. No one who lives here and knows our history would ever name their son Sheridan. I can't imagine how people survived except to hunt and gather from what was left and what they'd managed to hide. My ancestors were here then, too. They left letters and journals about the horrors of war on their doorstep, 'the enemy in our land', and the challenges of daily life. My Virginia forebears fought vigorously for the Confederacy, but that's another story. Back to the Mennonites.

 (Old Order Mennonite Church up the road from us)

While doing my research, I learned many Mennonites and other plain people, such as the Dunkard Brethren and Quakers, ran what they called the Unionist Underground Railroad (separate from the famous one for helping slaves escape). This operation was kept hush hush as they were at constant risk of incurring the wrath of their Confederate supporting neighbors. Sadly, some did. There were murders, burnings, robberies... But Mennonite men who couldn't afford to buy their way out of service in the Confederate Army, or when that was no longer an option, and didn't believe in sending someone to fight in their place, had no choice other than to flee. The Unionist Underground Railroad offered shelter and food in sympathetic homes, called depots, to dissenters until they were guided to mountain hideouts. If the escapees made it to Keyser, West Virginia, they took a train north. If they wanted to remain near their valley families, they hid in the mountains, with furtive trips home, for the duration of the war. They had to hide and hunt or await whatever food family members brought them while watching for Confederate scouts. These guys were ever on the lookout for deserters and draft dodgers and shot them on sight. Several groups of fugitive men were captured and put in Castle Thunder Prison in Richmond where many died. Not a great war to be a conscientious objector. Union sympathizers from some of the non pacifistic denominations also took part in this Underground Railroad but it was mostly Mennonites and similar faiths. No one knows for certain how many men they helped escape, likely hundreds, maybe more, and not only from the valley but also farther south.

 (More buggies at the church)

Stonewall Jackson was willing to allow dissenters to serve in a non-military capacity. However, Mennonite men refused to support the Confederate war effort period. Jackson then suggested farming and feeding people might qualify as service, but he left the valley after his brilliant campaign in the spring of 1862. Tragically, he was killed in May, 1863.

Until fairly recently, few knew about the existence of the Unionist Underground Railroad. Evidence came to light after the discovery of petitions the federal government allowed citizens to file for compensation of goods, cattle, horses, barns, etc, lost during the conflict. Two conditions must first be met in order to qualify, and most folk didn't. They had to have lost their possessions due to Union not Confederate troops, and prove they were loyal to the Union. This was tough to do when men were threatened with hanging if they didn't vote for secession 'out loud' (no secret ballot) when the vote was taken to determine Virginia's fate. Few men dared to vote no. Of the handful who did, some were hauled back and forced to change their votes. Many Union sympathizers hid and didn't vote at all. Because petitions for compensation were confidential, thousands of Mennonites recounted their plights and pleaded their cases. Hints of the existence of these petitions led to their unearthing in Washington, DC where the records were kept. This find revealed much about the happenings during the war. Otherwise, the Union Underground R.R. wasn't ever spoken of after the war ended, not even with family, for fear of reprisals from resentful neighbors. The descendants of these Civil War Mennonites were unaware of what took place. No doubt, Dennis has ancestors who were part of this secretive operation. He's related to everybody.  

(Old Order Outing In the woods)

***Husband Dennis took all the images.

For more on me, follow my Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Trissel/e/B002BLLAJ6/

Geese Are Grazing In My Yard

(Image from last summer but you get the idea)

Barnyard geese grow fussy and restless this time of year. The gaggle are in search of nesting sites and busy bringing about the goslings who will soon scuttle behind their parents. I read our variety of geese are called Pilgrim, because their coloring resembles the drab garb of those early folk to America's shores, not because they date back that far. I used to think they did. Duh on me. This American breed was developed in the early 1900's. They are termed friendly and called good parents by one site who sells the fuzzy goslings. I beg to differ. While it's true these are not 'attack geese' I must point out that they hate me and run fast and far, so I must sneak up in them to get pics or use a telephoto lens.

(Nesting Geese in the barn)

As for their parenting, I would add, 'When they remember.' They tend to misplace their offspring and forget where they put them. It's not unusual to discover a peeping gosling in great distress because it was left behind. I've retrieved and returned these babies more than once. But the adults lose a certain number every year. If they didn't, the gaggle would be far larger. They roam about the farm, my yard, and the meadow. While they love swimming on the pond--now empty as it will soon be dug out and deepened--they are content with puddles, the cow's watering trough, and ample grass. They also glean corn from grain the cows spill as they eat. We never feed the geese anything. They are free ranging. I've tried tossing grain their way to make friends with the 'Beth haters' but they just think I'm throwing stuff at them and run faster.

Sigh. I continue to try and befriend them but they are a ornery suspicious lot. Still, I'm fond of the cantankerous critters and protect them more than they know. So don't ask if you can buy some to eat, and people do. The answer is NO! I am their defender whether they like me or not.

The Poltergeist In Our Old Farm House

Years ago, my son moved into the big white Victorian house on our other farm. We have two farms quite near each other in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and both homes are well over one hundred years old. Some of his guy friends moved in and everything was fine, then he and his fiancée (now wife) began remodeling the house. At first, no one thought much about the noises. Neither of them mentioned a thing to me. Then one night my son called, alone and uneasy. He was hunkered downstairs with the cat. His opening question was, had I said cats ward off ghosts?

No, I'd said they have a heightened awareness of them.

Oh. He informed me about the footsteps he couldn’t account for and an upstairs bedroom with a door that wouldn’t stay shut. No matter how many times he closed it, come morning it was always open. Earlier that week, his fiancé had been distressed when the bathroom doorknob turned and the door opened on her. No one was there. It freaked the cat out. Didn’t do her much good either. She was promptly converted from a disbeliever in ghosts to one strongly considering their reality.

Now, she’d gone away on a trip with her church and none of my son’s other friends were around. The last of his roomies had moved out. I suspected all the remodeling they’d done to the house had stirred something up. So, I went over.

Here, I’ll digress to say I’d dreamed earlier of a small grave plot way back in the fields behind the house and of a restless spirit associated with both. As it turned out there is just such a cemetery, an antiquated one. After I arrived that evening, my son and I went upstairs to the suspect bedroom and shut the door. I wanted to scream, and not just because I’m claustrophobic.

We held hands and I repeated the Exorcism prayer sent to my mother from an Episcopalian woman in England. She’d written my mother about visiting her church manse at the invitation of the new priest who was plagued by a poltergeist–one so violent, it had flung portraits down from the hall and hurled a saucepan lid across the kitchen. But the congregants, along with the priest, had prayed it out. As this was a Christian prayer, my son and I did the same. Never again did he or his fiancé hear footsteps or have any more trouble with doorknobs turning. That bedroom door remained as they left it and the chill feeling I had in the room dissipated.

Now, what do you think of that?

Here’s the Anglican prayer. Do not try this alone if the presence you sense is evil, only with a strong group of Christians, the more, the better. And join hands. Even if you think I’m nuts.

“In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, may this distressed soul be relieved of his obsession with this world and sent to where he belongs.”

I added, ‘go to the light,’ although a truly evil presence won’t, but a troubled, restless one may. Seems only right to offer that as an option.

This is one of the experiences that influenced the writing of my ghostly time travel romance novel Somewhere My Love.

Story Blurb for Somewhere My Love (Somewhere in Time series): 

Fated lovers have a rare chance to reclaim the love cruelly denied them in the past, but can they grasp this brief window in time before it’s too late?

Two hundred years ago Captain Cole Wentworth, the master of an elegant Virginian home, was murdered in his chamber where his portrait still hangs. Presently the estate is a family owned museum run by Will Wentworth, a man so uncannily identical to his ancestor that spirit-sensitive tour guide Julia Morrow has trouble recognizing Cole and Will as separate. 

As Julia begins to remember the events of Cole’s death, she must convince Will that history is repeating, and this time he has the starring role in the tragedy. The blade is about to fall.

"A beautiful love story with plenty of suspense and mystery. With a murderer on the loose and a house haunted by the ghosts of the past, can William and Julia figure everything out and survive? Visit Foxleigh Hall and find out." ~Night Owl Romance, a Night Owl Top Pick

"As I read Somewhere My Love, I recalled the feelings I experienced the first time I read Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca long ago. Using the same deliciously eerie elements similar to that gothic romance, Beth Trissel has captured the haunting dangers, thrilling suspense and innocent passions that evoke the same tingly anticipation and heartfelt romance I so enjoyed then, and still do now." ~joysann for Publisher's Weekly

Our July Garden in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

We’ve been blessed with a milder summer here in the valley and enough rain to keep our all too frequent droughts at bay. Daughter Elise took her camera outside the other day and snapped a lot of great pics.

 

(Cosmos, poppies, zinnias)
I say, if your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

I’ve worn out so many pants in the garden. And shirts, gloves, boots…
Gardening requires lots of water — most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson
That is so true.

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown


(Heirloom poppies from Monticello and larkspur)

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler
Or talking to herself. I do that lot while I weed.

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ~George Bernard Shaw, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, 1932

Amen.

  (Tuberous begonia)

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~Abram L. Urban
Oh, yes.

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans. ~Marcelene Cox



Or whatever is growing. I love a soft soaking rain.

Gardens are a form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. ~Lindley Karstens, noproblemgarden.com

 
(Coreopsis Tinctoria)

How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence. ~Benjamin Disraeli

You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. ~Author Unknown

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897 (Thanks, Jessica)

No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden. ~Hugh Johnson

 

***Shirley poppies, larkspur, coreopsis, cosmos, forget-me-nots, and a lot of other herbs and heirloom flowers.

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. ~May Sarton
I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day. ~F. Frankfort Moore, A Garden of Peace

I fully agree.

 
(Chinese Forget-Me-Nots)

Gardening and Country Life in Glorious Color!

I’ve labored away adding lovely images to Shenandoah Watercolors, my nonfiction book about life on our small family farm in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Given my love of gardening, this includes a strong focus on my gardens and love of nature. The book is already out in print with images, but now that kindle and nook E-Readers support colored photographs, I’ve added heaps more. Shenandoah Watercolors in available in  eBook and print format at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  I will also get it up on Kobo soon. If someone is dying for me to have it somewhere else, let me know.

Book description: Author/farm wife Beth Trissel shares the joys and challenges of rural life on her family’s small farm in the scenic Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Journey with her through the seasons on the farm, owned by the family since the 1930′s, and savor the richness of her cherished gardens and beloved valley. This journal, with images of her farm and valley, is a poignant, often humorous, sometimes sad glimpse into country life. Recommended for anyone who loves the country, and even those who don’t. ***Shenandoah Watercolors is a 2012 EPPIC eBOOK FINALIST.

Excerpt:  The heavy rain has given way to a misting drizzle, but streams of water pour down from the hills and make new ponds and creeks. It’s chilly with that raw wet feel. This spring is awash in moisture and amazing after last summer’s searing drought. I’m struck by the intense beauty around me, and I thought I was already seeing it, but it’s so much more somehow. The grass seems to shimmer, yet there’s no sun out today, and the meadow is so richly green it’s like seeing heaven. Our barnyard geese are enraptured, as much as geese can be, with all the grass. If there’s a lovelier place to revel in spring than the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains, I don’t know it. Narnia, maybe.I’ve been thinking about my favorite places.

The pool I like best lies in the woods near a place called Rip Rap Hollow in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A splendid falls cascades up above, but I like the pool far more. We always meant to go back, but never have. The cold water ripped through me like liquid ice and is as clear as melted crystal. I could see the rocks on the bottom, some slick with moss, others brown-gold in the light where the sun broke through the leafy canopy overhead. Trout hid beneath big rounded stones or ones that formed a cleft, but the men tickled them out to flash over the flat rocks strewn across the bottom like a path. Drifts of hay-scented fern rose around the edges of the pool, warming the air with the fragrance of new mown hay, and made the shady places a rich green.Now, that’s a good place to go in my mind when I’m troubled. The problem with cities is that people don’t learn what really matters. Don’t really feel or know the rhythms of the earth. When we are separated from that vital center place, we grow lost. Sadly, most people will never know what they are lost from, or where they can be found.~

***Images of the Shenandoah Valley in early spring and Dark Hollow Falls in the Blue Ridge.

Sayings and Superstitions From the Shenandoah Valley

(The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by my mother Pat Churchman)

These sayings are taken from Shenandoah Voices:  Folklore, Legends, and Traditions of the Valley by late historian and author John Heatwole. I also threw in some cures. Images of the Shenandoah Valley and Mountains were taken by my talented family.

I knew and greatly respected John Heatwole.  He even helped me with some of the initial research for my first historical novels. The wealth of knowledge he amassed is just one of the rich legacies John left behind.

Shenandoah Voices is my favorite book by him.  I recommend it to anyone interested in the old ways and days of rural Virginia, especially the valley and surrounding mountains. I was also privileged to hear John speak on this fascinating subject. He’s best known for his vast knowledge and books about the Civil War. He was also an amazing wood carver/artist, a man of many talents.  Much missed.

(Image of log hog/chicken barn by my husband Dennis.)

****

Many early valley settlers were Scots-Irish, my ancestors among them.  People from the British Isles tended to be superstitious.  Also prevalent in the valley were Germans bringing the influence of the Pennsylvania-Dutch, another superstitious group.  To quote Michael Scott, boss from NBC’s hit show, The Office, “I’m not superstitious, just a little stitious.”

****

It’s bad luck to lay a hat on the bed.~

An itching nose means a visitor is coming. ~

A cardinal bumping against the window pane is an indication of an early death~

*To this I have to add ‘or an insanely jealous bird regarding his reflection as another male which tends to happen with cardinals.’

Peel an apple all in one piece and throw the peel over your shoulder.  When you turn around and look at it lying on the ground, whatever letter it reminds you of will be the first letter of your future husband’s last name.~ (This is an ancient Celtic Custom)

It’s bad luck to point at a rainbow. ~ *I suspect we are all guilty of this one.  Who knew?

It’s bad luck to bring a shovel into the house ‘because it is a grave tool.’ Some also think a hoe in the house bodes no good.~ (Image of old smokehouse from the outside and from the inside below. The smokehouse is at our favorite Christmas tree farm outside the tiny hamlet of Singers Glen. Images by daughter Elise.)

If you enter a house and leave it without sitting down it is bad luck.  Particularly if you leave by a different door than the one you entered.~

If a bird flies into your house there will soon be a death in the family~Within six months if a whippoorwill comes to your treetop and sings at night. ~ *How many of you have even heard a whippoorwill?  I have.

If a baby smiles in its sleep, the child is talking to the angels. ~ *My personal favorite.

Rain isn’t far behind when a tree shows the underside of its leaves.~

Count the number of foggy mornings in August and that is how many winter snows there will be.~ I heard this one not long ago and suspect it may be true.  I’m also a believer in wooley bears predicting winter…

A new moon with the points up means dry weather, and a moon with the points down means rain will soon fall. ~

If a full moon has a ring around it there will be snow by morning. ~ If the ring is large, the number of stars you count in it will be the number of inches that fall.~ *We say a ring around the moon means rain, or snow, within a few days.

(Creepy old barn up behind our house taken by Daughter Elise.)

Sheep shearing takes place around the first of May.  A cold rain will follow within a few days of shearing called a sheep rain. ~

On Ash Wednesday people made pancakes or the chickens wouldn’t lay.~ *We still have pancake suppers in the valley on that day.

Horse chestnuts carried in the pocket are thought to ward off rheumatism. ~

Sassafras tea is good to thin the blood. ~

Broth made from the hind legs of mice is good for kidney ailments.~ *Not tried this one. ‘Swamp root’ tea is also recommended for kidney disorders.~ I’ll have to research exactly what swamp root is.

(The Alleghenies by my mother)

For someone who is weak and recovering from long illness, make them sparrow broth tea. ~ *This supposedly saved my grandmother’s life when she was sick as a child.

Before taking a new baby out for its first ride (this probably applied to a wagon or buggy) the ‘herb lady’ rubbed warm bear grease on one of the infant’s palms and the bottom of the opposite foot thus insuring that the baby was protected from the rigors of the journey.

A hog’s tooth carried in your right pocket will ward off toothache.~ *Maybe I should take up this one.

Catnip tea was made for children with colic.~ Tea from peppermint leaves will stop a stomachache.~ *These are still practiced.

Sage tea will keep a woman’s hair from turning gray prematurely.~

(old bridge in the valley, bordering the Alleghenies by my husband)

Treat measles with sheep manure that has been boiled, strained, and diluted with moonshine.~ *I assume with enough moonshine the patient didn’t notice the manure so much.

For a bad cold put lard on your chest sprinkled with salt. Another remedy is a mustard plaster made with mustard, lard, and egg whites and laid on the chest~

Freckles on the face can be washed away on the first of May. If they are washed in morning dew, they will be transferred to the hands which can be dried on another less visible part of the body like the arms or legs and left there permanently.  It’s recommended that this practice be repeated for three years in a row to work. ~

Quite an investment in time.

(Image of river in the mist by my mother)

When mumps invade your house put hog manure on the throat as a relief or cure. ~ *Considering the stench of hog manure, I doubt the sufferer would find much relief.

To get rid of warts, tie a knot in a string for each wart you have and bury it under rock.  When the string rots the wart will be gone. ~

                                 (Old house in the Blue Ridge Mountains by my husband)

If you are sitting up with an ill person and a spark flies from the fireplace in the room, it is a sign of impending death. (From Hardy County, West Virginia).

It would be a terrible mistake for you to kill a lightning bug because lightning might kill you during the next electrical storm. (From Wise County, Virginia)

In the Blue Ridge Mountains it was believed that if a glass fell from a table after midnight and rolled across the floor, a coffin would have to be made the next day.

And I could go on, but this is enough for now.  Well, maybe one more.

When springtime rolls around again, and if you are fortunate enough to make a wish on the first toad you see hopping by, you will have abundant good luck. (From Wise County)

(The Alleghenies by my husband)