2026, Food, holidays, home, News, Seasons, Uncategorized

Anyone’s Guess

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Well, it is that time of year when people try to predict how severe or mild the coming winter will be. Winter is coming, you know!

Our Arikara Indian friend from Twin Buttes, ND likes to use buffaloberries for prediction. Buffaloberries, aka Shepherdia or Bulberries, are a pictured in the header photo. They are tasty, tart, native berries that grow on shrubs that make lovely jam, jelly, and pie. You can order plants for your yard. Deer, elk, and bison love them. Our friend Bruce says the more productive the buffaloberries, the harsher the winter. I haven’t had a chance to ask Bruce what he has observed as yet. I trust his judgment, but it may only be relevant for north central North Dakota.

Woolybears. The caterpillars that develop into Isabella Tiger Moths. Well, if the black stripes on them are near the front end of the caterpillar, winter will be early. The more black stripes, the more snow and the harsher the winter. The more brown stripes, the more mild the winter. I wonder through, what if the woolybears all have different stripe allocations? Which one do you believe?

I think I have a better source of prediction. Saturday we noticed a house down the street that was having a Christmas light service install their lights. I had no idea such services existed. Humbug Christmas Light Services was on the job. We don’t put up Christmas lights, but how nice for people who want lights but who can’t manage ladders. I think the earlier the lights go up, the earlier the first snow.

What do you think we should use as winter prediction? Be creative. Do you put up outdoor Christmas lights?

43 thoughts on “Anyone’s Guess”

  1. I suspect we are in for a mild winter from what I hear weatherwise. I worry it is also going to be dry.

    Wildlife seems to have disappeared around here- no turkeys or coyotes this year. Also haven’t seen garter snakes (which we usually have in abundance).

    I keep bringing things in against the coming cold though, I have been caught too many times.

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  2. I favor “always be prepared no matter what you think the prediction is”. Having said this, I will say that it seems as if the bunny population has started to hunker down already. The number of bunnies in the back has really dropped off the last month or so. It’s hard to get worked up about this theory however because I don’t think of bunnies is being all that bright.

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  3. I think I’ve mentioned that when I was in high school my family had a holiday tradition of once or twice during the Christmas light season of driving around and looking at peoples lights. In fact, one year my dad even had a little cards made up that said “Thank you for your Christmas light display. We really enjoyed it”, which we left in people’s mailboxes. This was a part of St. Louis where the mailboxes were all at the end of the driveway so we weren’t traipsing onto people‘s property. So you think I’d be big on Christmas lights, but I am not. I love looking at other folks’ displays – that’s just fine but the effort to put them up, the electricity to pay for them and the take them down is just not my thing. I do you have plenty of holiday decorations inside the house, however.

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  4. We believe in Woolybears. The ones we’ve seen so far are sporting wide brown stripes, which, when combined with a massive El Nino, suggest a mild winter (but one likely punctuated with cold snaps and sudden snow dumps). I do know that putting stakes out to mark our driveway for the snow plows will induce a snow storm! So these stakes are still in storage.

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  5. An image just popped into my head of a cartoon, maybe the Far Side, with a caption something like
    “Just look at the whiskers on them cats, Martha – it’s gonna be a hard winter.”
    I tried a quick search, but nothin’…

    We did outdoor lights for a few years in Robbinsdale, but now just some indoor ones in our 7-window “solarium”, a former front porch. I don’t ever take them down, as they’re not in the way the rest of the year, so I also plug them in on Halloween…

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  6. I usually put lights across the front roofline and in the window box with (artificial) pine boughs. Last year Robin complained that our roofline lights weren’t bright enough, so at the end of the season I bought brighter ones.
    One of these days I suppose hanging lights will get to be too much, but not this year. I have brand new lights.

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    1. The much beloved ethicist and theologian, Louis Smedes, died at age 81 after falling off of a ladder while putting up Christmas lights on his house in Southern California. I count him as “of blessed memory” whenever I climb a ladder any more.

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  7. The squirrels in our neighborhood get more active this time of year, which I take as a sign that they’re getting ready for winter. They race around and dart into the street, requiring a quick use of the brakes. They are constantly in the bird feeder and eat holes in our Halloween pumpkin.

    This year, they have been quiet. No racing around and the pumpkin is sitting on the deck untouched. So maybe they know something about the weather that I don’t. Or maybe it’s too hot to race around and they have plenty to eat and don’t feel the need to gnaw on pumpkins (yet). Or maybe the local predators (eagle, hawks, owls) have reduced their population.

    We’ve only done Christmas lights a couple of times, years ago. Husband doesn’t like getting on ladders and it just was a lot of work. We decorate the deck railing with lights, which can actually enjoy more than the house lights.

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    1. This Saturday a squirrel was splooting on the fence rail in our backyard. I don’t think winter was on his mind.
      The house across the alley has two big black walnut trees in their backyard. The squirrels have been busy burying the nuts all over the neighborhood.

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  8. Snow or not isn’t my big worry, but if it’s gonna freeze, let it stay below freezing then and not have so many ups and down. That’s hard on all the animals. And I hate the mud more than snow.
    My predictor is when or if I move the snow blower into the shed. If I do move it in and get it prepped I won’t need it. If I leave it outside, we will get a cold spell just prior to the snow storm, so I’ll be trying to get the blower ready when it’s about -10 degree’s.
    I’m gonna do driveway markers anyway, so that doesn’t count.

    The other big thing, we won’t be doing snow fence anymore because we planted all these seedlings. Maybe that will induce the snow Gods.

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  9. My iPad might be giving up. The keyboard no longer works so I am using the keyboard like an iPhone. There may be more errors than usual.

    I’ve only ever seen wooly bears with black on the front and rear ends, and one brown stripe through the middle. Because there is a year between wooly bear seasons, I don’t know if the stripe is wider or narrower from one year to the next, and I’ve never measured one or taken photos. And maybe there are variations from one individual to another. I don’t think this is a reliable predictor.

    I find The Farmers Almanac to be almost laughable in some of its predictions.

    I tend to look at bird migrations and squirrel behavior. I also read some long term forecasts, if I feel like it. This year it seems that bird migrations are on time, and the squirrels around here are fairly relaxed. Snakes are still up and about, so are toads and turtles. I don’t think winter is coming any time soon. We should have had a first frost by now. It sounds like we might get a light frost later this week.

    No outdoor holiday lights or decorations for me. I like little white lights indoors for their light, but I use them year-round, so they don’t really count as holiday lights.

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  10. Husband and the pups notice fewer bunnies now on their walks. Mitzi got so excited the other day when she saw one that she squeezed through our fence to chase it. Her pack drive was greater than her prey drive and she quickly came to the gate to be let in.

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  13. Friends, I had a call today from PJ’s husband, letting me know that PJ passed away yesterday morning. Not entirely unexpected, but news that weighs heavily on the heart.

    My mind went back to a blog post from a time when PJ first started commenting….I think it was the first time she & I connected, in that way that you connect with someone you recognize as part of your “tribe”, with a late night back-and-forth that had me laughing out loud.

    What’s My Line?

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    1. I had a very busy day here, and had been unable to get back to the Trail since I read it this morning. And then I found this sad news in a week of very sad news. However, reading the old (2011) blog a bit was very fun. I will go back to read more. I had wondered over the past week if PJs health had been failing entirely when she was so absent. And so it is. I will miss her here.

      This weekend we got news that husband’s brother-in-law died unexpectedly, as well. We also attended a Memorial Open House for another friend. I have been stocking up on Sympathy Cards for the season of loss.

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    4. I don’t get here hardly at all these days (blame my changes in morning routines and life and… ) – but saw this news and it seemed like a day to come back to the Trail. PJ was such a lovely soul. I dropped something at her house in that middle space of COVID – past the early days when we hardly left our houses but before we were really out and about. We had such a lovely chat, she and I, on her porch. I can hear the lilt of her voice even now. Sad news and a sad day.

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  14. peace baboons

    pj will be remembered as a friend who showed up one day and was immediately a fixture and a treasure. strong, opinionated, and one of a kind. i loved having her here and was missing her yesterday hoping the broken leg was not too much. a great lady and a great friend

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    1. If she did so by mail, her sealed ballot will be removed from the stack of envelopes before they are opened and counted. If “early voting in person” is already in operation in Minnesota, I’ve no idea HOW that will be dealt with.

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