INDIAN SUMMER REMAINS A DELIGHTFUL TIME OF YEAR

At this time of year when gardeners, oldsters or those who enjoy the out-of-doors get together they are apt to discuss the wonderful fall and Indian Summer our area has enjoyed, and the winter which will follow.

Indian Summer is one of the most delightful times of the year.

Indian Summer is that delightfully warm spell of about a week to 10 days that comes in late October or sometimes in the early days of November. Preceded by a cold spell when it is necessary to have the furnace on in the mornings, this warm spell may have cool nights, but the days are clear, with deep blue skies and stillness.

Gardeners are most thankful for this season as it gives them time to take in the remaining house plants from outside, tidy up the beds, mulch azaleas and gather the remaining tomatoes on the vines as they are pulled up, to make delectable fried green tomatoes.

At this time of year many persons are discussing the winter which follows. Some are saying that since there was such a pleasant summer when the temperature rarely rose into the 90's, we may pay for it with a long, cold winter.

In a recent column by Clarissa Start in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, she quoted some of the predictions of a colder than average winter, as given by members of the St. Louis Horticulture Society at their meeting. Here are some of the findings:

The large influx of starlings (similar to those in Scott City) indicates colder weather coming.

Air currents and other conditions have been identical to those of the bad winter of 1977.

At another gathering of gardeners, they reported there is an unusually large crop of acorns and oak leaves, and there was a relationship between the number of thunderstorm in February and the number of snows the following winter.

Many persons have commented on the number of leaves on deciduous trees this year, and believe this indicates a cold winter.

It has been reported that geese have begun their flight south. They fly in a v-formation and we have been told the leader is a wise old female. When she tires, she drops back and another female takes her place.

With autumn here and winter not far behind, homespun weather forecasts are as plentiful as acorns. The following are from Louise Riotte's book, "Sleeping With a Sunflower":

If corn shucks are thicker and tougher than ordinary, there's a tough winter ahead.

When rabbits have thick coats and chipmunks carry their tails high above their bodies--

When squirrels store up unusually early--

When maple and sassafras sap goes down early in the fall--

If holly trees are laden with red berries--

If cattle and squirrels have unusually heavy fur--

If squirrels are hiding nuts unusually early--

If grape leaves have turned yellow early in the season--

If carrots in the garden have grown deeper than usual--

When heavy moss appears on the north side of the trees

And when woolly caterpillars are dark from "stem to stern", it will be a long hard winter. If dark only in the middle, only the middle part of the winter will be cold. If both ends of the woolly worm are black, the beginning and the end of the winter will be hard.

Here is another old proverb about chickens, the clucking kind, not the cooking kind--

"If the cock moults before the hen, We will have winter thick and thin. If the hen moults before the cock, We will have winter hard as a rock."

Louise Riotte also has folklore remedies for curing a cold. She suggests putting seven beans in your pocket. Each day throw one bean away and at the end of the seven days the cold will be gone.

Eating horse radish is said to cure a cold, she says, also the eating of chicken soup. She also advocates eating garlic as a remedy for the common cold. "If the odor is a problem," she says, "eat or chew parsley, and brushing teeth before and after eating the garlic will rid you of that."

Isn't the garlic theory one that has come back to everyday usage in the form of garlic pills?