Right on schedule.

I don’t know how many people know it, but this hot spell that we are having is not only predictable it is right on schedule. We often have a hot spell in February.

The Old Timers could tell you that we almost always get a few seventy plus degree days in February. They used to depend on this warm dry spell to do the early plowing. They would use a turning plow to turn the weeds under to rot. Later on in the spring they would plow again and then harrow, then plant their oats for oat hay.

According to Laytonville folk-lore, at the end of summer there was a little bunch of showery weather, then it cleared up, then the weather would be dry and frosty, until about the end of October. Then there would be the “Fall Storm”. The fall storm brought heavy rains and it usually muddied the creeks for the first time. After the fall storm, the weather cleared and got cold again. Around Thanksgiving the river was low and fishable. Many years when I was young all of the men folks would spend the day fishing, then come home for Thanksgiving dinner. The fish were normally cured and smoked.

The Old Timers knew that they could almost always depend on a bad storm at the end of the year. About mid December the heavy rains would start again and they would have the “New Year Storm”. Mid-storm there was usually a few clear days around Christmas. Then the storm would set back in again. The two storms were thought of as one. And heavy rains would fall off and on all of January. The weather would clear in February and there would be more frost and dry weather, then the weather would turn warm, and it would dry the fields, then they would do the early plow.

In March the weather would turn back to showers and wind. March was known to have most of the snow that fell for the year. Around the end of march there would be what they called “The Equinoxual Storm”. It would be the last heavy rain of the year. All of spring would be cold and frosty, or cold and windy, with a few showers. When the wind stopped and the frost quit, they would plant the spring garden. That was usually some time in may.

They could tell by how fast and which direction the clouds were moving when the storms would happen. There were so many guesses about what the weather was going to do that almost always someone was right, and that made it appear to be very scientific. Most of the weather was predicted on the basis of their folklore. After all, they didn’t have Jim Bernard.

Strangely, My Gramma Ruby was almost always right with her weather predictions, she was far more accurate than the weatherman on the radio. I don’t think his life depended on knowing what the weather would do. My Gramma was raised in a time when it did.