As I write this, it is early November. Really? It sure doesn’t seem like it should be November. I can’t remember an October that has been as warm as last month. Maybe my rememberer is not working all that well anymore?
In 1970, the year we got married, I was living with my folks in Macksville until our wedding so Mom and I could get things ready. A blizzard hit the first week of October. It started snowing early that day and on into the night.
By late afternoon the roads were closing all over the state. Dad closed the Skelly station he owned on highway 50 early and brought a couple with two young kids home to stay with us until the roads were open again. It was not the first or the last time Dad and Mom had stranded strangers in the house.
I was worried when it snowed so early in October that our wedding day on the 24th would be nasty. Well, luckily I was wrong and the day we got married was in the upper 60’s and everyone came to the wedding in short sleeves.
My lilacs bloomed for the second time this year in late October and so did my shopping buddies. The pink miniature rose is still blooming too. The trees in our yard are just now thinking about turning. By now the yard is usually full of leaves blowing in from the yards around us and our trees are bare.
So this is a strange year. Not that I am complaining, it could stay this way all year round and I would love it. In case I haven’t mentioned it before: I HATE COLD AND SNOW!!
But the signs are all around or to be specific they are on the roads that we are going to have a nasty winter, when it finally arrives. One sign is the Wooly Worm or caterpillars that are crossing the roads this time of the year. The old timers say the color of the Woolies foretells the winter ahead. All the woolies are the same color each year.
If the Woolies are brown all over it will be an easy or warmer winter. If they are black it will be a hard winter. So far the only ones I have seen are black. Sometimes they are black in the front then brown in the middle and black at the rear.
Do you remember the year that we had a lot of cold and snow early that lasted until after the first of the year? Then it was mild with fairly warm temps, for our area, until first of March and then it got nasty again with very cold temps and snow. Spring was late in coming that year.
So the woolies in the fall of that year were black in the front and rear with a brown strip in the middle. So where are the brown woolies when we need them to keep the weather mild for the winter?
I am not around farm animals nor do I have a dog now to see if they are putting on a heavy coat for a bad winter. I do know the squirrels have been frantic this fall burying walnuts and acorns in the yard, which has aggravated my husband because he has some areas of new grass. Of course they love that soft ground because it is easy digging.
Even though there is food in our back yard year round for the squirrels and birds they are still burying every nut they can find. Sometimes a nut gets buried more than once: a squirrel will bury a nut and shortly after he leaves another one will come by and dig it up and move it to a different spot. I have even found walnuts in my flower pots on the patio.
The prairie dogs are fatter than normal, as we go into the winter months, so they must think it is going to be pretty nasty too. I have seen some of them out in the roads, particularly at corners, picking up grain that falls out of the trucks. They are taking their lives in their paws trying to fatten up for the winter.
But even though the critters know that winter is coming the weather hasn’t got the message yet. As I said before, I am not complaining but: Whew! …… was that October? Or was it August we just went through? To contact Sandy: [email protected]
