My life in appalachia cold in july

Brasstown was a chilly 49 degrees yesterday morning. We also had a chilly morning or two during the week of my cooking class (July 13-19). The Deer Hunter is loving the coolest July either of us can ever remember. Chitter-not so much. She drove me in to work and was sorely wishing she had more than a t-shirt, pair of shorts, and flip flops on.

The Deer Hunter and I are wondering if the below normal temps portend anything for the coming winter. One cool morning, as I woke up I was dreaming I was standing at a window watching it snow when someone said “Just wait, by tomorrow we’re supposed to get 12 inches.” I’m hoping that dream comes true at least one time this winter.

I doubt the veggies would like for the cool temps to continue-but the cooler weather sure does make harvesting those veggies easier.

Cool at your place?

Tipper

Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.

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28 Comments

  1. Hi Tipper, yes, we love the cooler weather! I am not from these parts and I was wondering about all the acorns, are there so many because the critters will need extra this winter? Our pastor said there is a local man that measures the fog in August & September and predicts the severity of the winter that way. He said we are going to have lot’s of snow! Yay! ( we can sled from our front door to the road below, almost a mile!). Oh yeah, funny the comment about global warming! I love to hear your girls sing! Maybe I can hear them one day! Thanks for all the mountain education! ( I am from Alabama & Florida, now living in Black mt. N.C.)

  2. Tipper: well,it was 86 in the great pacific northwest.the “Dillsboro Darter” says he is going to get me a visa so i can return to the beautiful smokey mountains. he says i left many broken hearts,when i left in 57, i don’t think there was even one. enough of that nonsense. blessings to all the piggys. k.o.h

  3. It’s been a very cool July here in Michigan. I think that our high temperature reached 80 on only three days. Tomorrow we have the possibility of reaching 80 once again before some more arctic air comes down from Canada, reaching all the way to NC. Ain’t it great!

  4. There has been record lows broke all over Alabama this week and I noticed as far South as Florida, this is amazing weather,, I’m loving every bit of it..

  5. I am enjoying the cool mornings. Maybe the veggies are also enjoying it for a short snap. It takes away some of the intense heat that makes them wilt and feel droopy. I remember one week in July, somewhere around 2009, 2010 when we first build the house I was up here trying to get things settled in the house and I only brought warm weather clothes and one pair of long pants for working outside. I froze the week and wore those pants day in and day out. I wore a blanket when I had to wash and dry them.

  6. I’m enjoying the cool weather. As far as cucumbers-Hogs really won’t eat them. I give all my scraps from making pickles and relish to the chickens. My Daddy won’t eat cucumbers either and he always has used the excuse of even a hog won’t eat a cucumber. Jim’s post today made me think of a story my Granny told me not too long ago. She grew up at the end of Hwy 2 in Fannin County. She said when she was a girl a Mathis man from the community went a missing. The last anybody knew, he had went hunting and not made it back home. The men folk went out looking for him. They found him way back in Cohutta, but unfortunately he wasn’t alive and the hogs had found him. Granny said everybody pretty much just figured his heart had gave out on him while he was hunting because their wasn’t no reason to suspect foul play in the matter. Like Jim said not a cheery thought, but reality.

  7. I’m just thankful for Global Warming. Imagine how cold it would have been without it! Probably would have been scrapping frost off the windshield this morning.

  8. I’m loving this cool July weather. I have had the winders all open and the AC off for going on three days. It is supposed to be cooler tomorrow. The down side is there is a flash flood watch here til Friday morning. There is a cold front coming in from the west and a lot of soggy air coming off the Atlantic and it looks like they are going to come together right over our heads.
    I have a question for Pap. Does he know what swamping is? Do you? It has nothing to do with water.

  9. Tipper,
    Yesterday, a friend in Nantahala
    said he saw 42 at his place. When
    I looked at 11 pm it was 49. But I
    sure welcome this cooler weather.
    …Ken

  10. Cloudy and a chilly 62 here on White Oak at 1pm. Unheard of in July! Jim Casada- when you hear katydids during the day it is 6 weeks until frost. Usually pretty accurate-

  11. When I was a teen-ager, the old man that taught me how to hang a new axe-handle and sharpen an axe properly, and how to play the fiddle, told me “So much heat,so much cold.” meaning the hotter the summer, the colder the winter. I’ve seldom seen the seasons turn out differently; by his measure, we are in for a mild winter.

  12. It has been much cooler here in Roanoke, VA; think it was 54 here this morning. We spent a week in Canaan Valley, WV two weeks ago and two of the mornings it was 46 degrees with a high in the afternoons of only 64!!!! This is weird.

  13. Cooler than usual out here on the edge of the plains, too, but we haven’t seen it get down into the 40’s, just into the 50’s ay night, and lower than usual humidity too. Sure is a welcome change.

  14. I’m not complaining about the cold July weather we are having here in KY. The air conditioner hasn’t been running much for the past week or so and I’m loving that, too. Tipper, I hope we get at least one snow like you dreamed about…on December 24th. The rest of the winter can be above freezing and I will be happy. The persimmon seed is the most accurate winter forecaster out there. Can’t wait until they are mature enough to share their secret with us.

  15. Tipper–I failed to follow up on my hog quiz, although Don gave the essence of my answer–cucumbers–and curious soul I am, I tested it at Grandpa’s sty. They won’t touch a cucumber.
    As is often the case, I also learned something from your readers. I didn’t know they wouldn’t eat onions. Maybe because I don’t think any scrap of onion ever made it from Grandma’s table to the slop bucket. Grandpa was a mighty trencherman and he firmly believed in a clean plate.
    I have no doubt Ken is right about poke salad, although I suspect if you fed it to hogs all nicely cooked, they would dine on it with delight. It is toxic for humans if only cooked once, and I’m sure it’s even worse in the raw state. On the other hand, hogs will scarf up red-rooted pig weed faster than you can pull and tote it.
    One other thought, and it may put some off of pork chops for a time. Hogs will eat human flesh readily and eagerly. They “cleaned” up many a Civil War battlefield and roamed in “No Man’s Land” between the trenches in World War I. They aren’t particular about how fresh the flesh is, either. Not exactly a cheery thought, but reality.
    Jim Casada
    http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

  16. Tipper–Like the Deer Hunter, I welcome the cool mornings. It sure does make working in the garden easier. I reckon you need to get in touch with the bloated bloviator who goes by the name of Al Gore and let him know that there are all kinds of holes in his pestilential global warming prognastications.
    As for what this portends for winter, I’ve also noticed thick corn husks (I shucked perhaps 150 ears yesterday). It’s time to start checking out the time between katydid cadences to see when the first frost will arrive, but I have forgotten the formula. Maybe someone here knows, or doubtless I can find it with a bit of Internet browsing.
    Wish I could heard the girls in Bryson on Saturday, but I’ll be there in spirit. They’ll be performing within an easy stone’s throw of where I spent many a great day as a boy fishing for catfish with poles, throw lines, and trot lines. Maybe you’ll even be lucky enough to get a glimmering of the ghost of old Al Dorsey, who haunted those banks of the Tuckasegee after he returned from a goodly span in the state pen for having killed a man on the town square. When I knew him, he was as easygoing a fellow as you could ever meet, although he was a stranger to soap and water and on a warm day it wasn’t wise to get downwind from him.
    Jim Casada
    http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

  17. Tip, it’s chilly here too! It makes no sense at all. I’m guessing it will turn hot again through August and September….real hot.
    I’m with the Deer Hunter, I love this cool and wish it would stay.

  18. It has been cool here too. This morning was 52, feels like fall. It has been hard on the garden. Everything is behind schedule to be ready. Tomatoes and beans are late. My winter squash are blooming but till no squash growing. I am hoping for a warm fall to extend our growing season. Our first frost date can be Sept 15th. Praying God will hold off the cold til Oct. Barbara

  19. Tipper,
    Wow, you ‘all shore’nuff had a chilly morning yesterday! It was cooler here too. I don’t think it got quite that cool. I love it! I remember a few years back, we had a cool August. Then along about or before Indian summer it turned hotter than, oh well, errr last July 2013.
    I am thinking that we are going to have a mild winter! I keep hearing since it turned cooler that some are predicting a very cold winter. I know one thing the husks on the corn are thick. I got a various prediction there, as early on I bought corn from two different vendors, One local about 10 mile from here, another about 50 mile from here, and some from Muddy Pond up on the plateau. All were different varieties and all had real thick husks. Seems I just peeled layer after layer off of it.
    Then my son has a nest of yellow jackets building in his siding on his home about 12 feet up on the warmer side of his house, instead of the ground. Are they trying to get away from a future freezing cold ground.
    Haven’t seen a wooly worm yet!
    Remember to start counting your August “FOGS” tomorrow and the density of them. That should let you know how many snows we will have and if it is a “skiff” or a full blown blizzard!
    Anyhow I love the cool weather!
    Thanks Tipper,

  20. Wish the front would make it to FL, I hear it is supposed to get 1/2 down, not far enough. Enjoy

  21. Tipper: Sounds like you better get ready for more chilly weather. I would love to make the Swain County G&H Society performance of the Pressley Girls – but I will be up in VA visiting some friends – and HOPEFULLY selling a few copies of “Fiddler of the Mountains” as we make our way UP and BACK through the mountains.
    Eva Nell

  22. We put up corn yesterday as we do every year on our back porch. But yesterday was the first time ever in my life of preserving garden veggies that I can remember when my hands were COLD!! I could have used a pair of gloves!! The cold corn & the juice from cutting/scraping it just made my hands hurt since they were so cold. (Of course it was about 10am cause we gotta start early). It’s usually so hot when we are canning/freezing; this was a strange day. I even cooked my corn a little longer because it was so cold when I started the process. What is going on here?

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