You probably have wondered where Eternity calls home.
My home is the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
To stand on these mountains in any season is to see Heaven.
To walk their trails is to experience Eden.
I have seen hemlock trees that three men could not reach around.
To be among these giants is to feel reverence.
Cathedral columns supporting the sky.

These mountains are my home, because my heart tells me so.
The South is my home because I was born here,
I cannot imagine living anywhere else.
I shall die here.
My heart tells me this also.
As we enter into the changing of the seasons,
harvest time, fall and Thanksgiving,
I am especially thankful
for NC, my beautiful home.

~Eternity~

North Carolina Traditional Weather Lore

Back in the early days, when plants and animals were first made,
they were told to fast and stay awake for seven days to gain spirit power.
All were anxious to gain power so they tried to do as instructed
and most were able to stay awake through the first night.
The next night some started to fall asleep,
and by the third night many of them were asleep.
By the seventh night, only a few of the animals were awake.
The panther, the owl and one or two others managed to stay awake
and as their reward they were given the power
to see and go about in the dark.
Many of the plants also fell asleep and of the trees,
only the cedar, the spruce, the pine, the holly, and the laurel
were able to stay awake.
As their reward, these were allowed to be always green,
while the others must lose their leaves in the fall.

James Mooney, in his important work,
History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee,
relates the Cherokee's explanation for fall.

"This waterfall is less than thirty minutes from my home."

These are some of the more popular North Carolina
folk sayings about autumn and the weather.
Many variations exist and have been reported
in numerous sources, including the Old Farmer's Almanac,
the Foxfire series, and the collections of
the NC Folklore Society.
All of them are guaranteed to be true (sometimes).

A warm November is the sign of a bad winter.

Thunder in the fall foretells a cold winter.

If animals have an especially thick coat of fur, it will be a cold winter.

When squirrels bury their nuts early, it will be a hard winter.

If the woolly worms head is more black than colored,
the coldest part of the winter will come
in the first months of winter.

The more black than brown a wooly worm has,
and/or the wider the black stripe, the worse the winter.

If fruit trees bloom in the fall,
the weather will be severe the following winter.

If berries or nuts are plentiful, it will be a hard winter.

A cold winter is succeeded by a warm winter and vice versa.

If the first snow falls on unfrozen ground, expect a mild winter.

It will be a bad winter if trees keep their leaves until late in the fall.

Hornets nest built in the tops of trees point to a mild winter.

The first twelve days of the year are thought to foretell
the weather for each of the next twelve months.
The variant is the 12 days from new Christmas (Dec. 25)
to old Christmas (Jan. 5) determine the weather.

If an owl hoots on the east side of a mountain it denotes bad weather.

Fall Foliage Facts
Beech
Dogwood
Sassafras
Poplar
Leaves of some trees such as birches, tulip poplars, redbud and hickory,
are always yellow in the fall, never red.

The fall leaves of a few trees, including sugar maple, dogwood, sweet gum, black gum
and sourwood, are usually red but may also be yellow.

Unlike the bright colors of flowers, which attract pollinators,
or the bright "Warning Colors" of many kinds of animals,
the bright colors of fall foliage are a byproduct of chemical
changes as the trees start to go dormant.
These colors have no apparent biological function or significance.


The most intense of fall color occurs in in areas such as New England,
with almost pure stands of a few types of trees, such as maples and birches, that all turn color at the same time during the short fall season.

The most varied fall color, as well as the longest lasting,
occurs in areas such as the southern Appalachians,
where a dozen or more kinds of trees may change color
at slightly different times over the long fall season.

The change in day length (photoperiod) that causes the chemical changes
in the trees leading to the bright colors starts June 21, the longest day of the year,
as the sun starts to move south and the days become shorter.

Leaves have just as much yellow pigment (xanthophyll) in July
when they are green as they do in October when they are yellow.
In July the darker green pigment (chlorophyll) masks the yellow color.

Evergreen trees may shed their older leaves,
which often turn bright yellow, in spring rather than fall,
but they never drop all their leaves at one time,
thus staying green all year.


The leathery evergreen leaves of rhododendron are shed individually
from time to time over several years; it is not uncommon to find individual
rhododendron leaves that have been on a plant for five or six years
that are still green, healthy and functional.
Bright sunlight is essential for the production of the red (anthocyanin)
pigment in the fall leaves: if a black mask is placed on part of a leaf
before it turns red, the part of the leaf under the mask will turn yellow
while the exposed part will turn red.
From Fall Colors & Woodland Harvests
Laurel Hill Press
PO Box 16516, Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Millions of trees in the eastern deciduous forests respond to the shorter days
and cooler nights by beginning preparations for their dormant winter period.
It is just business as usual for the trees, but for us, it is a spectacular display
of the beauty and diversity of nature. Used with permission 9/30/98.
Copyright protected.



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