A Wild and Woolly Winter?

Where's a Woolly Bear when you need one?

I need to check the stripes to verify whether a cold winter is coming. The new Farmers' Almanac says so, and my recent sighting of a squirrel building a nest along with early mating of our Praying Mantises makes me wonder about the 2013-14 winter.


With a new mayor taking office on Jan. 1, one hopes there will not be a repeat of what Mayor Mark Fury encountered in 1994 - seventeen snowstorms in a row.. It taxed the ability of Public Works to respond and wearied the citizenry no end.

N.J. State Office of Climatology

August was cooler than normal and temperatures are dipping into the high forties at night already. Will there be a killing frost at the old normal time of mid-October? Last winter, there was not a hard frost until almost the end of the year.

The Praying Mantises are making a no-tell motel out of the Butterfly Bush, with three mating couples spotted in the last week.

 The females have to get busy making oothecae (egg cases) before cold weather if there is to be a next generation.

The Annual Cicadas barely stopped singing before a mighty chorus of crickets began chirping madly in our yard. What's the rush? And where are my snow boots?

--Bernice

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