Woolly-bear caterpillar

I finished feeding the cows late one afternoon. Walking back through the barn, I almost stepped on a woolly-bear caterpillar on the concrete floor. These are the larvae of the Isabella tiger moth.

I scooped it up and brought it outside. It had curled into a ball at this indignity and refused to uncurl.

The reason I was interested in having it uncurl was because I wanted to see the proportion of black to red.

Legend has it woolly bears can predict the winter. If their rusty band is wide, it will be a mild winter. The more black there is, the more severe the winter will be. While there are some data to back up this folklore, it's by no means definitive, and may in fact reflect the conditions of the previous winter (which frankly makes more sense).

In any case, my particular woolly bear refused to uncurl, so I finally scooped it up and placed it in a less vulnerable spot than the barn's concrete floor. It will find a place to overwinter, then emerge in the spring to spin a cocoon and transform into an adult moth.

Since we can't depend on the woolly-bear caterpillars to predict the weather, I guess we'll do what we've always done as winter approaches: Prepare to be snowed in for three months. That's the tactic we've taken each year since we moved to Idaho. In the 20+ years we've lived in this state, that philosophy only paid off during two winters (2006/7 and 2007/8, if I recall), and then it paid off in spades because those were very harsh winters. While we weren't snowed in for three months, it got close.

Got firewood?