If you’ve been around a little while, you know I like to make note of certain folklore weather predictors. Most consistently: persimmon seeds and goldenrod blooms. The seeds give an indication of the weather to come in Winter, the goldenrod a forecast of the first frost.

This year’s persimmon seeds consisted of a multitude of spoons {heavy snowfall to shovel}, and more knives than I care to see {cold that cuts like a knife, or sometimes “ice”}. I’m hoping for the snow and not the ice, nobody wants ice.

Last year, their forecast was the same and it actually came true. We had multiple snow events, including a freak event in early November and a gorgeous 8-10 inch fall the end of January. We also had a stretch of extremely cold days, including a day that never made it warmer than 18. {The chickens did not leave their coop at all during the worst of it: they decided to hibernate!}

The goldenrod has been teasing, with outliers starting to bloom ahead of the larger clumps, but enough of it is in full bloom now that I feel safe counting out the weeks. Tradition says that once the goldenrod is in bloom, there’s 6 weeks until the first frost – which puts us at October 28th this year. This predictor has been a little more hit or miss, but it’s a fun one.

We also have an enormous population of Cloudless Sulphur butterflies this year. They arrived the end of July {or maybe very early August?}, and have been increasing exponentially since then. There’s something rather enchanting about walking to check the mail, with a cloud of these tiny pretties flying around your feet.

While I cannot locate any sort of folklore surrounding their prognostication abilities, Mr and I both feel like it’s got to mean something. {Of course, it could simply be that we’ve created a perfect habitat for them to stop and refuel mid-migration}.

There’s no question the seasons are shifting; I’ve even seen a few maples starting to pop into a riot of color. With the official start of Fall next week, the time for cozy has {finally} arrived.

Are you seeing signs of the upcoming Fall?
Have you checked your folklore for a Winter forecast?