Harbinger

I've had an issue with Pilchard lately. She's been going into the basement to poop when she wants to register some discontent with the litter boxes. I never know, precisely, what that discontent is and the fact that I don't have to do laundry as often as I used to, thanks to Patt and Pam helping me out in May and June means I don't find the poop for many days.

Over the weekend, I went into the basement to do a load of clothes and saw a dark line by the washer. You need to scrub the area where the cat pees or poops to remove the smell and I was irritated at having yet another spot to clean. I grabbed a paper towel and went to pick up the piece only to find out it wasn't poop. Viola. It was a wooly bear.

I used to see these caterpillars in a lot of places this time of year. It wasn't uncommon to see 4-5 in a week. Now, it's rare to see even one in a year. I chanced across one in Wisconsin while doing an inspection.

I was thrilled to see this one. Having one in my basement is very special. But he wasn't going to survive down there. So I took him outside and put him in the remnants of the pansies. It tickled when he crawled across my hand.

It's interesting that the Wisconsin wooly bear's stripes are roughly the same width, while my wooly bear is distinctly more brown. Folklore would say that the Madison area, where I was doing inspections, is going to have a winter similar to last year while my house will have a mild winter. I've seen projections which say a warmer but snowier winter. Mild, I don't mind. Less heating costs. Snowier? Well, I'm on the fence about that. It would mean more shoveling, something my joints wouldn't appreciate. We'll just have to see.

I wonder if the lack of wooly bears is akin to the lack of monarchs. I'm disappointed that, with all the milkweed I let grow in my yard, I don't have any chrysalises. You'd think, if they can find food, they'd leave their eggs. I try to provide an attractive ecosystem for moths and butterflies even if it makes the yard look unkempt.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

The Things That I Saw - Part the Sixth

Let's just say two words, "Wide Load". Both of these photos are blurry.

This is heading east on Interstate 70 towards Dayton, Ohio. I wonder how much it would cost to transport a fully constructed ranch-style house and set it up on your lot. This is not something that would probably pay in the suburban/urban setting. I'm thinking that house would take up, easily, three-quarters of my street and then require probably magic to get it situated on my lot. But, if you are rural, I'll bet this is quite cost effective.

This was a storage tank, the middle one of three heading south on Interstate 79 north of Pittsburgh. They were miles apart. It would have made for quite the photo to see them traveling in a convoy.

I saw lots of earthmoving equipment moved by truck. The whole premise of the Eisenhower Expressway system was that overpasses were high enough to move military equipment, some of which was large and tall. If the goods are large and need to be moved great distances, you can't go wrong with the Interstate.

It also makes for interesting speculation on the final destination or, in the case of the tanks, just what are those going to be used for. Ooooh. Maybe they contain cocoons of the species of moth known as...

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast Tea

Deb

I Tried to Save It

I know some of my readers have recoiled at the sight of the moth to the right. I used to be afraid of them myself. I don't know what caused me to not be afraid but now, I like to look at them, when they are outside.

See, when they are inside, as this one was, they become play targets. More than one item in the house has been broken by a cat launching itself after a moth that has somehow gotten inside to circle a light. If that's the hall light, well, the cat will just sit in the hallway and watch it. I won't take the fly swatter and knock it out of the air. I'll wait until it alights somewhere and then perform catch and release. You need to have an open window because you're going to be using both hands so you don't crush the moth. Cup one hand over the moth and scoop the other hand under it. There will be just enough space in your cupped hands for the moth to flutter in an attempt to get away. It feels weird but don't open your hands or it flies away, really fast and you're trying to save its life. Walk over to the window and toss it outside by opening up your hands. Be sure you're in a darkened room or the stupid thing flies back into the house. Actually, the stupid thing will possibly fly back into the house even if you're in a darkened room.

At that point, it can be played with. I don't know where it went. I haven't found the body. They might have killed it and eaten it for all I know. I gave it a chance at freedom and to avoid becoming a cat toy but it chose to stay in the house.

That is a pretty good photo of it.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

And the prediction is...?

I took the garbage and recycling out yesterday after coming home from work. I found this, a woolly bear caterpillar, on the ground. Yes, he (or is it a she? How does one 'sex' caterpillars or does one?) is curled into a ball, but you can see that roughly half of him is brown and the other half is black.

Woolly bears are the larva of Isabella Tiger moth. At this time of year, when you see them, they are in the process of moving to a sheltered location to spin their cocoons to wait out the winter before become the moth in the spring. They can, very often, be almost everywhere. Folklore developed over the centuries giving these little guys the ability to predict the severity of the winter weather. This isn't altogether untrue because the more of them you see and the more they are moving, it means they know cold weather is coming and they are taking shelter for the winter.

Growing up, my grandfather always said the size of the black area indicated the severity of the winter. The more black there was, the harder the winter. Some folks say the number of segments of each color (There are 13 total.) indicate how long the harsh weather will last as opposed to the mild weather.

Some folks say the thickness of the hairs on the worm's body indicate winter severity. Thick hairs equal harsh while thin hairs equal mild. And others said that if the woolly bear is traveling north, it will be a mild winter. If he's traveling south, batten down the hatches. There's nothing to say what happens if you see him curled in a ball. Did he just give up?

So, in looking at this little guy, my forecast for winter is that we'll get snow and cold and then, about April, we will get rain as the temperatures warm up. How's that for precise science? The Old Farmer's Almanac gives the winter forecast for my region, #6, thus:

Winter will be colder than normal, with the coldest periods in late December, mid- and late January, and mid- and late February. Snowfall and precipitation will be near or slightly above normal in New York and below normal elsewhere. The snowiest periods will be in mid-December, January, and mid-February.

According to Esther Lutz, East Central Illinois Master Naturalist, woolly bears have an accuracy rate of 80-85%. (The rest of her article on these little guys is very interesting.) I think that's pretty good, for a bug.

Beverage: Water

Deb

Oooh lookie!

Jessie and I were headed out the door to go to dinner and something caught my eye amongst the overgrown vegetation in the front of the house. On further examination, I saw these caterpillars going to town on this milkweed plant.

Milkweeds can be considered weeds. You know of the sticky white sap the plant produces when damaged. If you've ever been dared to taste it, it's quite bitter. It's a usual dare of a farm kid. But once you do it, you'll NEVER do it again.

And, I don't know of a farm kid who doesn't, in October, run around pulling the pods off the milkweed plants, opening them up and letting them head off into a stiff breeze.

There is a waltz, a grace to the flight of the seed pods. Walt Disney used this in the original Fantasia.

I keep milkweed plants, encourage their growth, in my yard. They are the primary food source for monarch butterflies and who doesn't like those? I have seen a few flitting about the yard, not as many this year as in years past, however. The insecticide used to kill mosquitos can be deadly to monarchs, but, until recently, mosquitos haven't been a problem. My neighbors probably aren't enamored with the milkweeds but they are with the butterflies and you can't have one without the other.

Here are the seed pods on one of the plants next to the front door. I think the flowers of the milkweed are rather distinctive. You probably have never noticed. They do have a scent.

But the caterpillars at top are not monarch caterpillars. I had no idea what kind these were. It has taken a full hour of poking around on the Internet to find the answer. These caterpillars are Euchaetes egle, the Milkweed Tussock Moth. I've never heard of this moth.

In researching this, I've discovered there are four butterflies that love milkweeds. Two of them don't range this far north. Interestingly, they all look similar and I don't think, unless I really studied butterflies, I could tell them apart. A moth, however, I know what that is.

I have not seen the caterpillars since Thursday evening. I don't know where they went. I would love to see them pupate into the moths. Moths are attracted to light sources so perhaps, in a few weeks, I'll have these in the house in the evening. I usually catch them and toss them outside as they aren't a threat so killing them is silly. My girls, on the other hand, enjoy having moths to stalk. It's actually quite comical to watch.

I take this discovery as a testament to a natural landscape. I'm not going to call it overgrown, as my neighbors probably do. Harboring something I've never seen before makes me smile.

Beverage: Cranberry Grape Juice

Deb