August is the month that the most babies are born, so what better time to share a little folklore on the subject…
Divinations
~After a woman’s first baby was born the granny woman (midwife) would count the lumps in the umbilical cord to divine how many children the woman would have.
~If a woman’s first child was born in August, she was said to have many more.
~They used to say that if a baby is carried high, it will be a girl. If carried low, it would be a boy.
Pragnancy Taboos
~It’s was considered bad luck to make a cap for a baby before it was born, or to talk about the cap or the head of the baby- it would cause a difficult birth.
~It was once believed that children became “marked in the womb” by a sudden fright or other unexpected happening or disturbance experienced by the mother.
~Cravings during pregnancy were catered to so the baby would not receive a birthmark resembling the craved food.
Birthing Rituals
~The laboring woman’s head should be toward the north.
~In a difficult birth, the granny woman would put a sharp axe or plowpoint under the bed to symbolically “cut the pain”.
~If things were going wrong, the granny woman would dip all the blankets in hot water and hang them up around the bed.
~Spikenard (wild licorice) or sweet flag (acorus calamus) were herbs used to ease childbirth. Blackberry tea was used to speed up labor.
Arival and Recovery
~After the baby was born, a handful of chicken feathers were burned beneath the bed.
~The bed was not swept under, nor the ashes removed, until it was certain that the mother was fully recovered.
~It was believed that the afterbirth had to be buried for the mother to recover properly.
Babies
~If a newborn’s head is bathed in stump water, it will prevent baldness later in life.
~The newborn baby was carried three times around the the house. It was believed that this would keep the child from running away in the future, but also protect against sore eyes and colic.
~A baby and a cat cannot live together in the same house. This belief has a basis in the fact that babies have been smothered by cats, which had lain across them for warmth.
~Catnip tea was a common remedy for colic.
~Babies are irritable when the wind is in the northeast.
~Babies are best weaned in the (zodiac) signs of the heart, legs, knees, and thighs.
Sunday’s child is ne’er to want.
Monday’s child is fair in face.
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday’s child is woeful and sad.
Thursday’s child has a long way to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving.
Saturday’s child will work hard for a living.
Right now there is the delicious aroma of paw-paws (also called Ozark bananas) filling my kitchen. The taste is a cross between a banana and a mango, and they’re really good for you- a truly nourishing food. Pawpaw trees grow wild in moist soil- they don’t usually grow very tall, and are often more of a bush or shrub. When ripe, paw-paws are yellow with brown spots. My dad used to wait until they were all the way brown to eat them- but by then they are way too ripe in my opinion. Right now, the ripe ones are laying on the ground ready to eat, and some that are not all the way ripe, but loosening from the stem, can be picked and will ripen quickly on the kitchen counter. I’ve read that green paw-paws can be eaten as a vegetable when green, but I haven’t tried that. There’s all kinds of recipes paw-paws, in case you have so many paw-paws that you aren’t able to eat them all before they go bad- they do go bad fast. You can store them a little while in the fridge, but chilling them to below 40 can change their flavor- though the pulp can be frozen with good results, but it’s better to freeze them quickly. You don’t want to heat them too hot either, that destroys the flavor- but cakes and breads are good. Use your recipe for banana bread to make paw-paw bread. 
When I was growing up, every year we went to a family reunion for my dad’s side of the family. We drove way out to this place in the middle of nowhere that was kind of a cave-like picnic area with a natural spring. This is where we had the reunion for years and years, and every year I heard the old men talk on an on about … okra. Yes, okra. “How’s yer okra doin’?” is how it would always start out. Then they would talk about, well, how their okra crop was doing, if they’d canned any, etc. It was very boring conversation yes, but I do love okra. Something I’ve always wondered is why those restaurants that serve “country-style” food, serve the okra individually batter-dipped and deep fried. This is the way my dad made fried okra: rinse and chop up fresh okra into small chunks. Mix up a breading that’s part flour, part cornmeal, and plenty of salt and pepper. Mix up the okra in it and fry in a skillet with hot grease until okra is tender and browned. The okra isn’t completely coated with the breading, but rather, there are lots of crumbs- the breading is loose, so you scoop up your okra to eat it instead of having little individual chunks of okra. That may sound strange, but it is better this way, and I believe, more traditional. 
