www.roanoke.com

It's always cold when the Blackberries are in bloom!

It's Terrific Tuesday again-- how's everything in your neck of the woods?

This morning at my house at 6:22 a.m. it was a balmy 32 degrees and yes, on the 19th day of May we had frost. This is the latest I recall a frost. It has been cold for the past few days as I am sure you have noticed. My father, Jack Thomas who has been gone a little over two years, was a famous forecaster of the weather using signs and lore. He was especially accurate with Wooley Worm caterpillars and he could predict hail better than anyone I have ever known!

Every May when we had this cold spell, he would call it Blackberry Winter as the cold seemed to coincide with the blooming of the blackberry brambles and we had and still have tons of them on the farm. No doubt he learned this from the kinfolk in Bedford and Amherst Counties as he spent time as child with those good old farm people. Indeed as pictured above, this is once again the case. Cool temperatures and blooming berries. I took that picture a moment ago in Godwin Cemetery in Fincastle. My fields five miles west of the hamlet of Fincastle are full of blackberry blossoms. (Rabbits love our farm...we have lots of briar patches!)

These days it appears "Blackberries" apply more to fancy cell phone devices, but those of us out here in Botetourt County still know what the real deal is when we see it! I shall wax poetic about blooming vines and Blackberry Winter.

I have driven 138 miles in a day and half-- just around the county and well, I have time to ponder the great questions of the universe from Point A to Point B. Certainly if fall has an Indian Summer then the equal and opposite must be true for spring, thus Blackberry Winter. For if you believe the laws of  physics, then for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now I don't know if that applies to the seasons but I do know it gets cold every year when the blackberries bloom and last week it was in the 80s. Hot and humid as matter of fact. Now it isn't.

So what do the experts think? I have no clue, but I'll stick with Blackberry Winter. Daddy would be proud!

See ya next week!