Receptivity: Listening to Our Environment
/Snow on October 1st! And most of it stayed. Since then we have received more snow and could have taken out the cross-country skis. I must admit in August I was thinking fall was coming soon when I was harvesting the fall vegetables. I have no scientific reasoning why we would be getting an early winter, only my sixth sense. That said, it still caught us off guard as far as winter preparation in the yard and garden. The last of the potatoes were dug up the day before a major wet snow fall October 7th and we did not get the oat cover crop worked into the soil or the garden tilled and ready for the spring planting. I also did not get the garlic planted so I will have to plant it in the spring, which is still acceptable but produces smaller bulbs. My main concern is starting the next growing season behind the eight ball.
I have been evaluating what I was doing late September and early October and wondering if I should narrow my focus. I was taking time to make pickles and freeze some vegetables for our own use, which is important, but we can also buy these since we do not have a large family and use relatively small quantities. I also took time to go to Grande Prairie and Edmonton, which maybe was not the best use of my time. I think next year I will focus on the field work when the weather is good and evaluate all tasks, personal or business, as immediately necessary or not. I will use all of this information as I start planning for next years growing season.
On a different note, we have seen many raptors in the area stopping to hunt for food while on their migration south. On the Thanksgiving Day weekend I counted eight different raptors while driving from Dixonville and realized I need to make time to take the binoculars and learn to differentiate between raptor species. I noticed the American Kestrels had already gone south; not sure when they left.
After speculating that the bears may be hibernating already, we spotted a black bear walking along the wood line on two separate occasions, once from the comfort of our living room and the second time he was plodding along ahead of us on our evening walk with Thor. We were walking head long into the wind and snow and the bear did not smell us but quickly ran into the bush when it heard us.
October 21st I was walking with Thor in the woods and a butterfly or moth flew over my head. It had the color and look of the Common Wood Nymph or Cabbage White butterfly. I was so surprised to see it laboriously flying over my head I just watched it fly into the brush. It was not a sunny day and I wondered how it had the power to fly. I tried to find information about butterflies that can survive the winter as adults, but of the ones that can survive none of them were white. A few species can become dormant and survive in a sheltered area.
Yesterday I watched a Woolly Bear caterpillar making its way slowly across my walking path and when I got home I looked for more information about this little guy. Woolly bear caterpillars survive the winter by producing “cryoprotectant” described as antifreeze proteins and they are able to freeze solid without damaging their tissue. In the spring they pupate into the Isabella tiger moth. Woolly Bears are found in the Arctic and require years to feed as a caterpillar before they are ready to pupate because the summers are so short (Wikipedia). The Old Farmers Almanac informed me Woolly Bears are used to forecast the severity of the upcoming winter! Interesting, I read on. The wider the brown center strips compared to the black sections the milder the winter will be and the smaller the brown section the colder it will be. This little guy had a small brown strip compared to pictures of Woolly Bears on the Internet. There you go, nature called it, we have a harsher winter ahead of us.
