It’s time for spring cleaning and Maine women will no doubt find a lot of culch in the corners of the closets. Just where did that peculiar-to-locals word come from? It means oyster bed (gravel and pebbles) or clean trash – stuff we just can’t throw away – clean paper, used-only-once wrapping paper and string.

When I lived in Manhattan in the 1960s, my Long Island-based employers used to think I talked funny and would ask me to repeat certain words.

We’ve got some strange words and phrases hereabouts, that’s for sure. Is this the only place where some of the houses have dooryards? I’ve heard late-comers refer to their lawn and something called “grounds” (used up coffee, to me) but it’s most of us native old-timers who say “dooryard” which actually means the yard in front of a door. It’s only in relatively recent times (and only in America) that residences were surrounded by acres of manicured fields – requiring constant care and called lawns.

My mother used to say, when things were going well, that “the goose hangs high.” In the olden days, when the majority of people were superstitious, it was the belief that geese flew low when evil spirits were about. So if they flew high, all was well. This saying must have been passed down by her English ancestors.

We were taught to look something up if we didn’t understand, and so when she’d refer to St. Swithin’s Day, I had not a clue. We also didn’t own a dictionary at that time and it wasn’t until years later, my curiosity led me to research this unknown saint. Swithin was bishop of Winchester and died July 2, 862. He was practically unknown but his remains were taken to Winchester Cathedral on July 15, 971 and that day there was a heavy rain. An old English belief is that if it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, it will rain 40 days after. If it’s a “fair day,” there will be good weather 40 days hence.

Does your house have a cellar or a basement? It’s a cellar if it’s used primarily for storage and around New England would be under only a portion of the house. Basements on the other hand are part of the foundation and generally could be used for an extra room.

Remembering the cellar at the farm where I was born, there definitely was no room to put a cot or even a chair! The old plaster walls had shelves where jars of jelly and pickles were kept and a few small bins for vegetable storage. The crock of salt pork set at the bottom of the cellar stairs. At the house on Chute Road where I grew up, the cellar was again under a portion of the house. It contained a big combination coal-wood burning furnace, and large bins for coal, wood and potatoes. More shelves and lots of cobwebs welcomed those who ventured “down cellar.” Years later, houses I lived in had basements – they are outfitted with sheetrock walls, tiled floors and real stairs and rails.

Around here we say “Dwarfs boots” when we mean Jewel Weed. (Also called Touch-Me-Not) We call a kind of wild blue flower, blue-eyed grass and the purple trillium is often better known as Stinking Benjamin! Kids catch pollywogs instead of tadpoles. And spring is definitely the time to clean out the culch!

See you in a couple of weeks.

Kay Soldier lives in Windham.