What is a Wooly Bear?
It's a very fuzzy little caterpillar that appears in fall. The caterpillar comes from the Isabella Moth and it loves to eat my favorite medicinal plant plantain. Their cocoon looks like a fur ball hacked up by a cat. 🤣 It is a reddish brown nest ball because they use their own hairs to make it.
Folklore says that the Wooly Bear predicts winter weather. When you see them appear on warm days in fall they are usually walking across a trail or sidewalk somewhere and if you look at them closely you'll see they have two colors; reddish brown and black. If the brown takes up the majority of their body it means we'll have a mild winter, if the brown is even with the black portion of the body then we'll have an average winter, but if the black takes up the majority of their body then we are in for a very harsh winter.
I've seen two Wooly Bears so far this year and both look the same. So far they tell me it will be an average winter, what do you think? I spotted the following two in August which is actually a bit early so I'm thinking the cold front will be sooner than usual but our winter will be typical for Minnesota.
Only time will tell. I'll have to revisit this blog post in March to see if I'm correct.
Keep an eye out for these fuzzy little nuggets and see if you find any that predict the same or different.
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