Granny-lore

I was walking down the walk in front of my house yesterday morning and saw a woolly caterpillar. According to granny-lore, the wider the middle black stripe is on a woolly caterpillar, the more severe the winter will be. The one I saw was the prettiest shade of a golden light brown and had no center stripe at all. I immediately cursed Al Gore and his Global Warming crowd.

But really, all seriousness aside, I have never seen a one color woolly caterpillar before. I got down on my knees to look more closely at it. For those of you that know me, getting on my knees indicates a serious interest (my knees are aging in dog years). What I saw was one of the wonders of nature -- a bug that was mostly not too disgusting. The fluid movement as its body undulated along, the shiny little bug eyes and the furry golden coat made this woolly caterpillar . . . well, kinda cute.

So, I said, "Huh!" and five minutes later I was back on my feet continuing my walk. The woolly caterpillar beat me to the porch.

Later that afternoon I was going out to my office in the garage and I spotted another woolly caterpillar. This one was a bright shade of yellow with little spots of dark brown frosting the tips of some of its woolly caterpillar hair. It too was quite pretty and was definitely lacking any black stripe in its middle.

One time is a freak of nature. Twice in the same day is weird. But I don't think these woolly caterpillars have been exposed to anything toxic. The closest nuclear power plant is more than fifty miles away; I live on top of a mountain so any streams around here can't be too polluted; and my neighbor hasn't been around recently.

All that leaves is granny-lore. According to the recent signs, we are in for a very mild winter.

You heard it here first.

(No woolly caterpillars were hurt in the writing of this blog.)