Predicting the Weather

The two of us were sitting around a mid-September campfire in the back yard hands and feet to the fire, libation in hand, enjoying the last rays of daylight that lit up the peak of Joe Mountain on the other side of the lake. There is a ‘ting’ and a watery ‘plop’ as something lands in Irene’s glass. This is followed by a number of small objects hitting the ground around us.

“Somebody is throwing things at us”, grumbles Irene as she picks an acorn out of her glass.

As the bombardment continues I look up to trace the source of the missiles. At the very top of the spruce tree behind us there sits a squirrel busily picking acorns and firing them down to the ground. As we watch, it takes a flying leap to the next tree and continues the harvest until the ground is fairly covered with the acorns.

“Must be a cold winter coming”, Irene remarks.  “They’re starting early and us sitting here doesn’t deter them a bit.”

Throughout the early evening the little monster is joined by a pal and the barrage continues until dark.

“Interesting”, I thought out loud. “Maybe I had better get the wood sheds filled.”

Consequently during the next month or more I filled the woodbins with 10 cords of firewood and for good measure I stacked two more alongside.

It isn’t long after the first snow that we activate our bird feeder. The redpolls and chickadees come first. They are followed by the grosbeak and of course the gray Canada jay more commonly referred to as a whiskey jack or by the unflattering name of camp robber. All of the birds were early this year. In the course of a day the family of jays would make off with a mountain of hard bread. We know they’re not just eating it but storing it for the winter in copious amounts.

Here we are in November. I haven’t had to cut much kindling as the wood stove has been burning continually for most of the month.  Our weather experts tell us that it is the coldest November in recorded history, whatever that means. We’ve been inundated with warnings of global warming but apparently somebody forgot to tell the little critters. They started early preparing for a cold winter. In the short term maybe we should pay a little more attention to the flora and fauna around us and take a lesson from their actions.