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Farmer forecasts via pig spleens
Topic Started: Dec 26 2007, 09:22 AM (193 Views)
musicasacra
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HOLY CARP!!!
N.D. Farmer Forecasts Via Pig Spleens

Dec 24, 1:53 PM (ET)

By JAMES MacPHERSON

STEELE, N.D. (AP) - Paul Smokov doesn't need radar or other high-tech equipment to forecast a major snowstorm on the prairie. He consults pig spleens.

"It looks like a normal year with no major storms," said the 84-year-old Smokov, peering at two of the brown, glistening, foot-long organs on his kitchen counter like a Gypsy gazing into a crystal ball. "That's what the spleens tell me."

Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of this town of about 760 people. He is happy to share his forecast with his neighbors or anyone else willing to rely on the reading of animals' innards.

If the spleen is wide where it attaches to the pig's stomach and then narrows, it means winter weather will come early with a mild spring, Smokov said. A narrow-to-wider spleen usually means harsh weather in the spring, he said.

The spleens obtained by Smokov this year are pretty uniform in thickness, which means no drastic changes.

Janice Stillman, editor of the Old Farmer's Almanac in Dublin, N.H., said she had heard of at least one other pig spleen weather prognosticator - Gus Wickstrom of Saskatchewan - but he died earlier this year.

"It's folklore and a dying art, obviously," she said.

Smokov's Ukrainian parents brought their knowledge of pig spleen forecasting with them when they came to the U.S. a century ago. As for listening to forecasts on the radio - electricity didn't reach Smokov's ranch until 1949.

"The spleens are 85 percent correct, according to my figures," he said. As for the weathermen, "Those guys aren't any better."

At the National Weather Service office in Bismarck, meteorologist Vic Jensen relies on Doppler radar and other sophisticated scientific instruments. But he is charitable toward folk methods such as Smokov's.

"I can't discount some of these kinds of theories," Jensen said. "It's just another way for people to forecast what's going to happen."

The weather service's three-month outloook is typically at least 60 percent accurate, Jensen said. Forecasters are calling for a normal winter for North Dakota. That matches Smokov's gut feeling.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quote:
 
"That's what the spleens tell me."


Classic conversation stoppers.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I am glad to hear that haruspication is not a lost art.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
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That matches Smokov's gut feeling.
nyuck, nyuck, as Kenny would say. :P
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Phlebas
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Bull-Carp
musicasacra
Dec 26 2007, 09:22 AM
Farmer forecasts via pig spleens.

Is that what they mean by "pork belly futures"?
Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML

The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D


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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
I usually look at squirrels' tails: (No jokes, please) If they are big and bushy, it will be a harsh winter. If they are rather thin, it will be a mild winter. This past autumn, they were thin, and indeed, as we were driving around today, the squirrels still haven't hibernated. We saw two. Today, it was 60F in middle Tennessee. We actually ran the A/C in the car! It was glorious.... :)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Frank_W
Dec 26 2007, 04:45 PM
I usually look at squirrels' tails: (No jokes, please) If they are big and bushy, it will be a harsh winter. If they are rather thin, it will be a mild winter. This past autumn, they were thin, and indeed, as we were driving around today, the squirrels still haven't hibernated. We saw two. Today, it was 60F in middle Tennessee. We actually ran the A/C in the car! It was glorious.... :)

I'd worry if I were Kluurs...
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The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Frank_W
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:lol2:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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