Winter Weather and Woolly Bears

Or How Not to Predict the Weather

As we are now into fall, many conversations involve talk about what kind of winter we might have. Everyone has a theory based on various things--satellite data to the Farmers' Almanac, caterpillars to pig spleens, and aching joints to hair thickness. 

The good old standby of the Farmers' Almanac predicts a colder winter with more snowfall than normal for North America this year. And how accurate is the Farmers Almanac? Well it depends on who you talk to. The people who sell the book, say their predictions have been 80% accurate. Otherwise, you can take any year or place and make the predictions work or not. Accuracy is in the eye of the beholder. I'd like to believe that they are going to be wrong this winter.

How about some of the other indicators? The woolly bear is another favored one. The woolly bear is a fuzzy black and brown caterpillar of the Isabella tiger moth. They are seen a lot during the fall as they move around looking for a protected place to spend the winter. It seems like forever that I've heard people talk about the woolly bear and its predictions about winter weather. I was never sure how that worked, but I assumed they looked at their fuzzy coat and if it were heavier than normal, that meant a harsher winter. Turns out, I was wrong.

The predictions are made based on the ratio of black to brown stripes on the worm. Most woolly bears have a black stripe on each end with a brown section in the middle. If the brown area is bigger than the black areas, then it is supposed to be a milder winter. And conversely, if the brown area is smaller than the black areas, it is supposed to be a harsher winter. And how accurate is this predictor? Well it depends on who you talk to. Some say it can't miss and others say that it is more accurate in telling if last winter was mild or harsh.

Dr. D. H. Curran, curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, actually studied the woolly bear and its weather predicting abilities starting in 1946. For eight years he counted whether each of the 13 segments of a woolly bear was black or brown. He averaged his counts and then predicted the weather for the upcoming winter based on the black/brown ratios. His results were 80% accurate. However, he discounted his studies saying that he knew his sample size was not very large. Other experiments have had varying outcomes, so once again accuracy is in the eye of the beholder.

But not to be deterred by previous results, I set out to see what our local woolly bears were going to tell me about the upcoming winter. However, I ran into a few problems. The first one was even though these little worms are supposed to be everywhere, I only found six of them over the course of  several days. Of these, two were black and brown striped, and four of them were entirely black. That was the next problem. What was I supposed to do with the black ones? No one talked about those in the studies I read. If I went strictly on the black/brown ratio, we are in for a horrible winter. So, I decided to leave the black ones out of the study and use only two data points. Those two had healthy brown stripes, so I predict that we are going to have a mild winter. Now how's that for making the numbers say just what you want?

So what kind of weather are we in for this winter? I'm not sure. I think I may just have to stick my hand out the window when the time comes to know for sure.

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Want to read more?

Description and history of Farmers' Almanac

The Old Farmers' Almanac predictions for 2013-2014 winter in North America

How accurate is the Farmers' Almanac?

 The Old Farmers' Almanac describing the woolly bear and how it predicts winter weather.

All about the woolly bear caterpillar

Why do woolly bears cross the road?

Locations of various woolly bear festivals

Predicting weather with a pig spleen

Thankful Sunday--October 13, 2013

I am thankful for this new toilet.

This week we installed a new toilet in our half bath. Now our toilet flushes first time and every time with 1/5 the amount of water as before.  Yea!

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Oct. 11, 2013

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

 

This week my fridge was full of almost empty containers.

The refrigerator was getting pretty full after we found a sale on milk, so I decided it needed rearranging and cleaning. Among other things, here is what I found.  

• -An olive jar with one olive in it. 
• -A pickle jar with one pickle slice in it.
• -A storage container with one orange slice in it.
• -A bowl with five grapes in it.
• -A bowl with two potato slices.

I not sure how we ended up with all of those almost empty containers, but they made it really easy to create extra space in the fridge. The only part that was waste were the two potato slices. They were probably okay, but since they were cooked with meat, I didn't chance it. 

Bulletin: This just in. Tonight's supper included burnt rice.  Really burnt rice. The whole pot will have to go. :(

This Week's True Food Confessions

If I'm going to do True Food Confessions this week, it would have to be that I bought and enjoyed Pop-Tarts. I've not been a big Pop-Tart eater over the years mostly because they got too fancy when they put icing on them. So when I saw this box of plain strawberry (my favorite flavor) without icing, I had to have them. I put up a good front when I paused in front of them at Aldi's about how they weren't good for me and how I really didn't need them. After a couple of minutes of this hemming and hawing, Ward popped (pun intended) a box into the cart and said we had to move on. And if we're all going to be honest, we are all enjoying them. I hope this was a one-time buy for Aldi's and I won't be faced with the same temptation next week.

On other fronts we had Mexican and Chinese over the weekend while we were out of town and enjoyed roast chicken, spinach pie, pizza, and sloppy joes the rest of the week.

Until next time...

A Second Look--October 9, 2013

The unusually warm weather of last week has given way to beautiful fall weather. There's a definite nip in the morning air that turns into warm, sunny afternoons. However, we haven't had a frost yet. Our first mums bloomed this week and a few of the summer flowers are hanging on. The squirrels continue to be active, and there have been more birds at the feeder this week. Our neighbor put up two new feeders, so the birds have a lot of choices these days including all of the wild berries that are ripening. More leaves are turning but we're definitely not at our peak yet. Here are a few things I saw this week during a Second Look.

Daisy mums

We are getting a fair amount of oak leaves on the ground from a big tree we have in the front yard. They go pretty much straight from green to brown.

Marigold

Balloon flower

These female and male cardinals come to the feeder at the same time but are rarely eating at the same time.

Pansy

I try to put critter treats outside the cats' favorite window so they can have a good show like they did with this squirrel eating popcorn.

An overall view of our upper backyard to see how the leaves are changing. In the left of the picture is a dog wood tree that has mostly red leaves now.  In the middle is a maple tree that is starting to change. I always like to watch how it loses its leaves from the top down. In the right of the picture is another maple tree that has very little change.

A Morning with Sarah

Sarah is my special needs buddy that I spend Sunday School with sometimes. I'm not sure about her special needs, but I do know that she is special. And my recent experience found no exception to this.

The air was cool, but the sun was shining as Sarah and I walked from one building to the other. She was carrying her stuffed animal for the day, a bird, as well as a photo album and an animal book. I was carrying the rest of her breakfast. She hadn't finished it before it was time to move onto the next activity.

As we walked down the path, we made faster progress than normal. Sarah usually stops to look at every plant and bug along the way but today was different because we were engaged in a conversation about what we had done over the summer. However, that changed just as we arrived at the other building. She spotted a cricket and had to have it. On the third hop, it was secured safely in her fist. I was amazed she was able to do this because crickets have a lightening fast jump. Also, I was amazed that she was able to do this without dropping any of the other things she brought for the day.

Sarah now had her prize and she wasn't letting go. I told her we couldn't go inside with the cricket, so she chose to stay outside and finish her breakfast rather than give it up. In the middle of eating her scrambled egg, she decided that she was going to feed the ants. She took a leaf to use as a plate and put a small piece of egg on it. And then we waited. She was a bit concerned and I was a bit confused because no ants showed up. At least not for a while. Then they came marching in. They worked together and carried the egg off not to return. It was amazing to watch. It was as if I had never seen ants carry crumbs before.

All the while, the cricket was firmly trapped in her hand. I was concerned that it might be squished from her firm grasp, but every once in a while she would reveal part of it to show me that it was all right. And it was. (And when I say it, I should say she. Sarah said that it was a girl cricket and I'm sure she knew although I have no idea how. ) She then decided that if the ants got something to eat, the cricket should have something too. She pulled a leaf off a nearby bush and proceeded to feed the cricket. She released it just enough for its head to come out above her fingers and it started munching around the edges of the leaf. I could actually see the little jaws moving as it was eating. That was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. Ever.

Soon her mother showed up and volunteered her coffee cup so Sarah could take home the cricket to join others she had there. We parted our ways and I spent the rest of the day telling anyone who would listen about the cricket I had seen eating. And I also spent the day being thankful that I got to spend the morning with Sarah.