Old wives' tales

In like a lion, out like a lamb. We’ve heard that old saying forever in reference to how the weather is going to be during the month of March.

With that in mind, it looks like we’ll be going out like a lion this year. Sure, it was cold last Friday as March arrived, but there was no storm to go with the freezing temps, so chances are we’ll get hit at the end of the month with a snowstorm.

Old wives' tales generally have a touch of the truth to them, like ‘snakes don’t come out until after the first thunderstorm.’

If you do a little research, it actually has a solid reason. Snakes live in burrows. Rain comes and floods their burrows, they have no choice but to come out. Of course science gives us a slightly different causality, but it all works pretty much the same.

“April Showers Bring May Flowers” is another one of those old phrases that makes perfect sense when you think about it. Generally we get a lot of moisture during the month of April, hence, the flowers bloom in May.

The old wives didn’t need to know about germination, they just knew flowers bloomed in May.

In this day and age, we have all of science at our fingertips and can look up just about any explanation for anything within a few seconds.

Our forefathers had something similar called the Old Farmer’s Almanac. You can still find it on bookstore shelves today and its used by farmers and gardeners across the country, and its still as accurate as ever.

So don’t laugh off your grandmother when she tells you how to take care of your plants, and don’t think grandpa doesn’t know the weather is changing when he tells you “Red skies at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”