Dog Days and Blackberry Winter

Ovid Vickers
The Newton Record

NEWTON September 03, 2008 03:38 pm

— Dog Days are over! I know because I heard a mockingbird singing the other day. Legend has it that during Dog Days, mockingbirds do not sing. I thought that was just another old tale that wasn’t really true until I began noticing that all the birds were notoriously silent during the last, hottest days of summer.
That is, all the birds seemed silent except one. I heard a mockingbird singing away in the top of an old oak in my backyard during Dog Days. Nobody had bothered to tell him he wasn’t supposed to be singing during that period. But the long, hot Dog Days of summer are over, and now we have the shorter pleasant days of a Southern fall season.
The expression “Dog Days” brings to mind the sultry days of summer. They are a phenomenon of the Northern hemisphere and usually fall between July and early September, but the actual dates vary greatly from region to region, depend ing on latitude and climate.
I always associate Dog Days with sw-arms of gnats, more flies than usual, swirls of dust, and picking cotton. When I was a child, we picked cotton in August, started to school in September, and after we had been in school for a few weeks, school recessed for about three weeks so that those bolls, left in the tops of stalks, which opened late could be gathered.
It was during Dog Days that the chickens dusted themselves in the yard and the dogs hunted a cool place on the front or back porch to curl up and take a nap. We eagerly awaited the arrival of the ice truck, enjoyed riding to the gin on top of a bale of cotton, and searching for the coldest NeHi at the country store across the road from our house.
The term “Dog Days” is an ancient expression and can be traced through the Latin language back to the ancient Romans who gave the name to the period which followed the appearance of Sirius, the Dog Star.
It was once thought to be an evil time when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs went mad, wounds wouldn’t heal, and all creatures became a bit disoriented, causing people to have burning fevers, hysterics, and what the ancients called “frenzies.”
Today, Dog Days are just those long hot summer days that seem to go on forever, and we modern folks avoid the heat by staying inside, cooled by an air-conditioner. The birds, however, remain silent until early September, and now they are singing again.
Now that the Dog Days have passed, we can enjoy the fall and winter and anticipate spring which brings with it Blackberry Winter. Before what is traditionally referred to as “Blackberry Winter” arrives, we have the opportunity to revel in the rich colors of fall. The sun will set sooner, the days will be cooler, and porch sitting can once again be enjoyed. The leaves of the Virginia Creeper which reached the top of a pine in my front yard will turn orange, red, brown and gold before they waft down from the topmost branches of this old pine tree.
Before winter comes, birds and butterflies will go south. The hummingbirds will stop by, beat their multicolored wings to a blur and drink the last sweet water we put in feeders for them. The butterflies will hover above the last fall flowers taking a final sip of nectar before they continue south.
When I was growing up, winter was not a favorite season. North winds howled around the chimney, and hauling firewood was always a chore. Taking care of the stock required bundling up in coats and scarves and gloves and trudging to the barn.
Then the season changed again, as Solomon so beautifully put it, “For lo, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard throughout the land. The fig tree forms its fruit; and the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.”
Suddenly it is the merry month of May. The blackberry “brambles” tucked away in the woods or growing at random along old fence rows begin to brighten the edges of the woods and country roadsides. The pure white flowers of the blackberry sprinkle themselves over the landscape with the promise of fruit to be enjoyed.
When these blackberry filled days and nights are really, really chilly, old timers will remark, “Well, we are certainly in the midst of Blackberry Winter.” Blackberry flowers last over a number of days, and it is thought that these cool temperatures help to “set” the fruit, not only on blackberry bushes but other fruit trees as well.
Blackberry winter is a fine time for walking down a country road or doing some serious “backpack” hiking. If you do not have wild blackberries in your “neck of the woods,” take a stroll along the Pearl River or drive for a distance along the Natchez Trace. During Blackberry Winter, be sure to take along a light wrap while you observe one of Mississippi’s great gifts of nature, wild blackberries.

Ovid Vickers, a retired East Central Community College professor, writes a weekly column for The Newton Record.