Predicting spring
Where the spring peeping comes from...
My old friend and neighbor, Milan Conklin, had a saying or proverb for every occasion, every season. He used to say that “you have to hear the peepers three times” to be sure spring was really here. So we heard the peepers a few weeks ago for a day or two, then it got cold, and of course we heard them again during the past week when the weather was unequivocally balmy. But wait! The weather is not settled yet–at least not according to Milan’s Law. One more cold stretch before we hear the peepers again and we’re firmly on that path to summer.
Want a more scientific explanation of peepers? (Mind you, Milan’s Law seems to be pretty reliable.) Here’s a story we aired a couple of years ago.
What “rules” or observations have helped you predict the arrival of spring? And are those rules holding up in light of weather irregularities in recent years?
I never bother to predict the arrival of any of the four seasons since they tend to trip and fall over each other.
My grandmother used to call the type of weather we have been having as “fools weather” and with good reason. A lot of people get sick in the spring because they go out and about as though it is summer.
As I have been the current resident in Milan Conklin’s old farm house since 2002 I can attest that the peepers have indeed been peeping.
Wayne Schmidt’s blog ” This and That” is the source of this very succinct and correct contention about the so called “common cold”:
In ancient times, most people caught colds in winter when it was cold, hence the name. They thought colds were caused by the cold weather. Numerous scientific studies have proven that being cold does not cause people to catch colds or make them more susceptible. The reason people caught more colds in winter was simply because they collected together for warmth and their close proximity increased the spread of the cold from one person to the next.
Best advice for avoiding colds and flu: stay away from other hominids during the cold and flu seasons, out and about is likely good as long as one keeps her/his distance.