There's an old saying in the Valley, "when the oak leaves are the size of suirrels' ears, then its time to be a plantin corn".  I moved to the valley in the summer of 1975, and I think I first heard that nugget in the spring of 1976.... and every year since I believe I've heard someone repeat it.  Guess there must be some truth to it. 

Well, Saturday morning I was walking out to my shop which rests in the shade of an old black oak (Quercus velutina) and I glance up to the crown of this rather noble tree and and by golly, I notice there are tiny leaves emerging.  Now, an oak leaf doesn't have to be very big to be the size of a squirrel's ear and closer examination confirmed the truth of the matter.  The leaves were the size of a good sized squirrel's ear.  So you know what that meant.

I spent a good portion of my Saturday tilling the areas of the garden where the first plantings of corn and beans will go.  I didn't have quite enough time to do the planting, but all was ready for the Monday evening planting onslaught.  Monday arived, with no rain yet so when I got home from work I went right to work raking, laying out rows, hoeing furrows and after dinner in went the corn.... three 40 foot rows.

While I was doing all this Monday, I was pondering on the squirrels ears.  Its easy enough to figure that this became a reasonably reliable sign to early settlers that the spring season had progressed enough that it would be safe to seed their fields.  After all, the warming of the soil would be one of the stimulants of the oak leaf out and oaks were certainly and abundant resource in the Valley. And the soil must be warm enough or the seed would rot in the ground before it could germinate.  Given another week to 10 days for the corn to emerge and in all likely hood in 7 or 8 years out of 10, the weather was past real hard damaging freezes and frosts.

Quercus Velutina, Black Oak: Looks like its past time to have that first planting of corn in the ground 

Well we had some pretty good rains the next two days, so my corn, planted when the oak leaves were the size of squirrels' ears should get off to a good start.  Boy they don't stay that size long.  This evening I glance up at the tree again and leaves had grown to be about the size of a deer's ear and the tree was full of catkins that will eventually develop into acorns.  Guess I'd better follow with the green beans pretty soon.

 Lets face it, its hard to argue with a wisened old 80 or 100 year old oak tree, he's seen a lot of springs and has a pretty good handle and when the time's right.