Saturday, September 03, 2016

Mark These Words


My husband came in the other day from his time meditating amongst the potatoes to tell me that we won't get much snow this winter.
"And how do you know this?" I asked. "A potato bug tell you?"
"I saw a woolly caterpillar and it was all brown. When they have black on them, it means snow. When they are all brown, it means bare ground."
Oh.
As the sun sets earlier and the mornings are cooler, as the asters bloom and the bees collect pollen from the sunflowers, we know the season is changing. Remember those hot days of summer when the air barely moved and heat shimmered off bare skin?
Gone. In a week, the last of this year's ospreys, the baby of the family that always hangs around the nest until the last possible moment, that one will finally leave which for us signals the end of summer.
Instead of looking up, we'll watch where we step. The woollies are out -- and their wool is predicting another winter without much snow. The only mystery, then, is whether this means a mild winter or one that is bitterly cold. Perhaps I'll keep an eye out for a woolly wearing a scarf.


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