Acorns & a Snowy Winter

Had no acorns from my giant oaks last year and it was a crappy winter for snow. We've got a lot of big acorns on the ground already this year. That's supposed to be a sign of a snowy winter.

Anybody else see any signs? Wooly bear caterpillars? Woodpeckers sharing trees? JP posing in a naked calendar?

i have a lot of acorns and have seen wooly bears already.  big snow season!

last year i had a poor crop of black walnuts. this year they're dropping early, fast, and hard, covering the lawn so i can't cut the grass.

Last year I had a huge black walnut crop none this year. Hickory nuts also seem the same way

Have seen wooly bears.

Have noticed a second nesting of turkeys...very strange, or at least not too common. they must be getting ready for heavy snow.

Got my doe permits today...doesn't have anything to do with the amount of snow BUT it does mean we're getting CLOSER

The maple seeds have been dropping for a few days now. This is early for the Maples in my neighborhood. Usually they start dropping late Sept or ealy Oct.

i had to confirm monday night beer league racers today in order to know which night to schedule ice and make sure i'm covered for coaching jr's hockey practice - all in! saw an all black woolly caterpillar camping last weekend

Spongeworthy wrote

JP posing in a naked calendar?

You got to see it to believe it!

gorgonzola wrote

i had to confirm monday night beer league racers today in order to know which night to schedule ice and make sure i'm covered for coaching jr's hockey practice - all in! saw an all black woolly caterpillar camping last weekend

Uh oh?

Apparently there is an official way to interpret woolly worm snow predictions, at least in the NC mountains.  Found it on the website for the annual Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk, NC.  There are three ski areas within a few miles of Banner Elk.  The official weather forecast is based on the 13 body segments of the winning worm.  (No, I don't know how they choose the winner.)   Here's what happened in Oct 2018.

2018 Woolly Worm Festival Final Results of “Reading Of The Worm”

41st Annual Woolly Worm Festival Read by Tommy Burleson

Winning Worm – “Montgomery County’s Best” | Owner of the Worm – “Carolyn Thompson"

The official weather forecast:
black, black, black, flick, dark brown, dark brown, dark brown, dark brown, dark brown, dark brown, flick, flick, flick.

Black: below average, snow/ Dark Brown: below average/ Light Brown: above-average/ Flick: black and brown, below average, frost or light snow. The average temperature is 27 degrees F.

There are 13 body segments in a Woolly Worm and 13 weeks in the winter season.  Each body segment of the winning Woolly Worm corresponds to that week’s weather.

sooo many acorns this year?!?

Have seen the same with the turkeys this year, never seen this before. Wonder what this means? either a shit winter or extreme I hope for the later. And yes crazy amounts of acorns this year.

Looks like it's "somewhat" normal, but not normal?

https://www.nwtf.org/hunt/article/re-nesting-hens

Interesting, I have never seen this before and have lived in country setting for 45 years. This spring was very wet, maybe higher loss. But from what I’ve seen didn’t effect the amount of young I seen this spring.

I'd never seen it before either.

Must be higher loss --- damn predators. But to be honest looking at game cam pictures that's all you see. I'll see a turkey go by, then a fox, then a coyote, then a raccoon, then a fisher, etc etc. Hens don't stand a chance to nest with that kind of action going on.

I also feel turkey numbers are down in general. As I'm sure you know we had world class turkey hunting here in CNY during the 80's and early 90's. It was as good as anywhere in the US. Really. As soon as the farmers went to liquid manure it all stopped. No food, well very limited food in the winter. Remember seeing flocks of 50 to 60 birds? It was common to see that many birds out in the fields feeding. Now you'd be lucky to see 15 to 20.

We lost most or I should say almost all dairy down my way, Beefers are around but small numbers. The farm I worked on as a kid milked 165 head and within a 10 mile radius there were probably 10 farms the same size, gone now. Yes much more game around then deer,turkey, grouse even pheasant. I haven’t seen corn or oats planted in years, any acreage gets bailed any more. When I was a kid it was nothing to count 80 deer in one field below my house, tonight we seen maybe 30 on the way up the hill and that’s in 8-10 fields.

For sure, hunting in general was way better then. We're still fortunate to have all the dairy farms we still have. That said, very few of them are the family farm we grew up with. Now it's mega farms milking 100's of head.
You bring up a good point about the hay fields. Used to be they would bail 2 times a year. Now they're bailing/cutting 3 to 4 times per year. It's obviously good for the farm but bad for deer/turkey raising their young. Can't tell you how many nests/fawns are killed by combines.