There’s a High Country tradition that starts in August and, supposedly, it helps predict how many snowfalls the area will get during the winter. It’s called “Beans in a Jar.”
For every thick fog in the morning, you put a large bean or a quarter in a jar. For every light fog — a small bean or a penny in the same jar. You do this every day for the month of August.
The goal is to record the fog at the same time and same location, preferably earlier in the morning.
At the end of the month, you can count out your beans to predict how much snow you’re going to have in the winter. That's according to Kenneth Reece, a Valle Crucis native and founder of the media outlet WataugaOnline.
"When it snows light, if you say, 'Well, I could see rabbit tracks in that,' then that counts as your light snow, and you take a coin or bean out," Reece says. "And a big snow is considered four inches or more, according to the tradition, and you would take a big bean out or a big coin out."
He adds that it only applies to the area where the fog is recorded.
"You're not forecasting for the entire High Country. It's your location," Reece says.
Native American roots
"Native Americans and old farmers, old wives' tales and all that, you know they had all kinds of traditions about how to track all kinds of weather because obviously their life largely depended on knowing what conditions were going to be," he says.
Reece says the most interesting part of the tradition is its accuracy.
"I'm either one to three over with my number of coins or beans that I use, or one to three under. I've only had two years, last year being one of those, that the numbers were just way off."
The tradition spans the Appalachian region — which stretches from Alabama to as far north as parts of Maine. Reece says he’s noticed the tradition is more concentrated in North Carolina and surrounding states, especially in some of the more remote areas of the Appalachian Mountains.
"There's proof all the way through the mountains of how isolated some of these folks, the old timers, still were and are," Reece says. "Even though most all of us have iPhones, these hollers haven't changed in large part for a lot of the region."
Keeping tradition alive
Reece has been posting information about Beans in a Jar for about 15 years now. He says it’s a lasting reminder of the old Appalachian ways.
"If we don't keep these traditions going, they die off as the older generations die off," Reece says. "I hope I've had just a small part in keeping it going. And, you know, maybe when my time on this earth is done, somebody else will keep it going."
This year, Reece is using a cup from his grandparents to hold his beans. He says even if you don’t have a jar, you can still participate by keeping track of the fog — whether that’s in your notes app or a container of your choosing, on early August mornings.