A father pointed out a V-shaped formation of traffic cones to his son, saying: "See, son, you know winter weather's coming when the traffic cones head south."

That was in the "Speed Bump" cartoon in the Nov. 2 News-Leader.

What's your favorite -- or unfavorite -- winter portent?

My wife, Anne, dissected the seeds inside three persimmons and found spoons.

That's bad news.

According to folklore, that means a hard winter, with snow keeping farmers from the smokehouse and forcing them to eat soup with a spoon.

If the seed yields a knife or fork that means a mild winter, when you can easily get meat from the smokehouse.

The late Mary Scott Hair was a folklorist at Hurley who wrote about that theory in her "Much in a Basket" column in the Crane Chronicle under the pen name, "Samanthy."

As a kid, I had a bad experience with persimmons, though not in winter prognostication or their "puckerability" if eaten at the wrong time.

I had picked some persimmons on Drury campus -- either to eat or as less painful ammunition for neighborhood battles than hedge apples.

Anyway, I stuck some in a pocket of my mackinaw and forgot them. My mother reminded me that the Great Depression was no time to ruin a good coat by being an absent-minded possessor.

A friend of my wife's found a woolly worm that was all white. Some say this rare sight means a snowy winter.

Other woolly worms this fall are solid brown or solid black, suggesting a hard winter.

My wife says a heavy leaf fall is God's way of protecting root systems of trees. So it doesn't help that part of my fall fun is raking or mulching leaves.

Past winters can influence harbingers of a future winter's severity. The ice storm of January 2007, besides robbing us of power, nearly crippled our two giant oak trees.

As a result, the crop of acorns -- and, thankfully, squirrels -- this fall was nearly nil. That doesn't suggest a mild winter; it only reflects a previous wild one.

As a kid, someone in my family convinced me that unmelted snow on the ground bred more snow.

That was fine with me when I was into sledding. When I got old enough to drive on the stuff, I was tempted to pour hot water on unmelted drifts.

Whether the coming winter is mild or wild, we'll be yearning for spring along about February.

On Feb. 2, we'll hope the groundhog doesn't see his shadow, meaning an early spring and no frozen fishing lines at the March 1 trout season opener. Seeing his shadow dooms us to six more weeks of winter.

Contact Hank Billings at 836-1210 or at hbillings@news-leader.com.