As I stood at the window, searching for a rift in the clouds, an expression of my Texas grandmother’s came back to me. She used to say, “if there’s enough blue to make a pair of Dutchman’s breeches, it will clear up right quick.”

I reminded my sister of this.

“I do remember Rosie saying that,” my sister said, “and she was right.”

Both of my grandmothers were born in the year 1884, and some of their references are difficult for people born much later to understand. For example, Dutch men probably no longer wear the voluminous pantaloons my grandmother was thinking of. Most people now wouldn’t be able to visualize Dutchmen’s breeches, or even know that breeches (Rosie pronounced it “britches”) are pants.

I asked my sister if she could remember any more of those old expressions.

“I remember ‘sick abed on two chairs and worse up,'” she said, “but I never knew what it meant.”

I never did either, until I learned from reading Victorian novels that it used to be a common practice for people to sleep on two or three chairs when a bed wasn’t available. I have no idea how they arranged it. That explains the “sick in bed on two chairs” part.

I think it means that you feel sick lying down and even worse when you get up.

My favorite saying from Grandma Allen is “he’s as independent as a hog on ice.” Its meaning was always mysterious to me, possibly because I grew up in the suburbs where, until pot-bellied pigs became popular pets, there weren’t any hogs, and I never had occasion to see how they would do on ice. I have visited farms, of course, but a hog on ice is a spectacle I have yet to see.

Probably its trotters would slide and skitter, making it difficult for the porker to gain purchase on the frozen surface. Its legs might flail around every which way, sending it striking off on its own, in a disorganized way, to no purpose. Someone who is independent as a hog on ice is probably someone going it alone and making poor decisions.

To indicate small numbers or amounts, my grandparents used to say: “There weren’t enough pumpkins in that patch to shake a stick at,” or “You didn’t eat enough dinner to put in your eye.”

There were many pronouncements on common sense, apparently a highly prized but, contrary to its name, rare quality.

He doesn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain. She doesn’t have the sense God gave her. He doesn’t have the sense God gave a donkey. He doesn’t have the sense to pound sand down a rat hole.

Pounding sand down a rat hole — is that meant to be sensible or the opposite? And is it rude to discuss the act of pounding sand, in view of the expression’s recent scatological reference?

The expression to pound sand down a rat hole, whether in describing a sensible or foolish practice, has a long history in the English language. It wasn’t until WWII that the directive, “go pound sand, or salt, in your ear, or other body part,” was introduced into U.S. slang usage.

But getting back to the rat hole, is jamming it full of sand meant to be a sensible thing to do, or a fool’s game? I read that someone pounded sand down a chipmunk hole, only to see the pesky rodent dig right back out and pop its head up again.

According to Eric Zorn, a Chicago Tribune columnist, “pounding sand used to be a good thing — a sensible task undertaken by a person wise in the ways of rodent control — until it became a bad thing — a painful act of self-abasement — and then morphed into a simple act of futility.”

Speaking of rat holes, my mother, who had an absolute loathing and contempt for vermin of all kinds, used to complain that buying certain merchandise or investing money in certain ways was like “throwing money down a rat hole.” I have a fondness for this expression, and think of it often while attempting to balance my checkbook.

Come to think of it, checkbooks are becoming as rare as Dutchman’s breeches. Or britches.

Have a good week.

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(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the News for more than 20 years.)