WOOLY CATERPIGGLES DO NOT LIE

I don't know about their early arrival, but I've always heard that the thickness and colors on their coat predict the winter.

What did this one look like?

Also, Farmers Almanac is saying this will be a VERY early, cold and long winter. Freezes from Canadian air are to take place all the way down into Florida.

Get your oranges early!

joys of winter, hmmmm.
Ill get back to you on that.

Well, Miss Wabbit, this caterpiggle was very wooly and thick-coated . . . also slow-moving, although i don't know if that signifies . . .

Well, i just went outside again, and that wooly caterpiggle is still moving slowly--she's moved about a yard in the last hour, although she may simply have been stymied by the downspout. She is very wooly indeed. While out there, i saw another wooly caterpiggle, of darker hue, which was woolier still . . .

Gas for the generator...paraffin for the sled runners....ky and tequila for the master bedroom.....bring that winter on.....

How wide is the black swath? I thought that was the indicator.

And your wooly caterpiggle indicator indicates my weather, and long cold severe sounds good to me so long as there's SNOW! I'd been mourning lack of snow in advance. Three snowless L.A. winters are the only blight on my snow-loving existence thus far, and even those were marked by fake snow spewed by snow machines. (In, like, people's yards. L.A.)

Central Ohio usually gets enough snow to allow you to become sick of it by winter's end. The second wooly caterpiggle i saw had a black streak nearly as wide as her back.

Oooh! :-D

Your "sick of it" threshold and mine may be different, though... I grew up in Minnesota, where roughly November through March was solid snowcover, varying only in depth and color. (The oft-melted-but-not-all-the-way stuff at curbside got pretty black...)

believe me soz, as a guy who grew up right off Lake Erie I can agree with Set that snow gets tiresome.....

They use a ton of salt in Columbus, and it gets nasty and ugly pretty quickly. Although a native New Yorker, i spent most of my youth in rural areas, and was only exposed to snow regularly when visiting relatives in the North. "City" snow and "country" snow are two different critters.

even for a Polar Bear.... :wink:

Oh, I'm not saying it CAN get tiresome -- fer sure -- just that the point at which we say "enough with the snow!" may differ.

When i first drove to Canadia to see The Girl, i took pause, and considered what it would mean to drive through Cleveland, Erie and Buffalo. I decided not to risk it. I drove to Toledo, then up to Detroit and across to Windsor. There were flurries all along the 401 as i drove to T.O. The one time there was anything like an accumulation, near London, Ontario, the trucks were out plowing immediately.

Meanwhile, Cleveland got 12 inches, Erie got 18 inches, and Buffalo got three feet. Lake effect . . . 'tis a wunnerful thing, for those as likes snow . . .

We have a sledding hill all staked out, if there's enough snow to use it a buncha times (10?), I'll be happy.

Hills are easy to come by where you live, Soz. Also, if there is a heavy fall of snow, check out the Park of the Roses, they have a famous sledding hill.

so at about sunrise this morning me and the lady diane were standing in the garage ready for our morning walk and along comes the neighborhood road-runner coming down the sidewalk. He got up in front of our house a few feet from where we were standing, stopped and tilted his head looking at us askance and then proceeded down the sidewalk into the neighbor's yard. He didn't mention the coming weather report but he has never lied to me.

Reliably honest friends are hard to come by, Dys, i hope you will maintain a good relationship.

well Set, he had in his beak a wolly caterpiggle but I couldn't see the colour or the shape. a friend in need is usually a pest but not in his case.

I always heard that the width of the black stripe indicated the length of the colder times. The brown stripes indicate a period of lighter winter weather.

I had a whole thread about this on Abuzz a few years ago. Maybe I'll try to find it before it is gone for good.