Tough winter?

[arcticow]

Don't know the why of it, but in MO, doves, crows and geese are already staring to flock up. Maybe they know something 'bout what's coming?

[farmerDale]

No flocking here in the great white north. No worries...

[BlueRose]

I have been noticing that the birds are started flocking. I have also noticed that the wooly worms are really dark already. I have not opened any persimmons yet. It is about time for MO to get hit with a long cold Winter. I could do without a long cold Winter , just give me one week with temps below freezing and the rest of the Winter could stay a nice 70degrees.

[pamda]

I noticed that the geese are flying in formation already and the crows are flocking..I am ready for fall but not a bad winter yet. However, the sky looks like fall and the air smells like it.

[gladetop]

I cut open a persimmon and seen inside a solid black wooly worm holding a spoon in one hand and a knife in the other. I don't know what that means but I am going church this sunday!!!!!!!!

[am1too]

Darn near put on a coat in central OK this morning. Below 80 in August! Whoa!

[Awnry Abe]

I've noticed the doves, too. They are a month early. We are also lush and green sooner than normal. Maybe, just hoping, that winter will arrive early, the leave early, and next spring will be about 5 months long...

[MeatPigeons]

(Wooly worm....??)

Here in AK it feels like spring. Don't smell like fall nor winter but we've seen cranes flying several times.
Maybe for once, the 48 will experience an Alaskan weather and quit yapping about it being 20F (no offense, I understand being used to temps but when your used to having -20 daily and people complaint about 20-30F, it's a bit envious LOL)

[Jupiter]

I think it's going to be early & cold...

[Wolf mom]

U R all delusional - just wishful thinking because it's so dang hot. I mean the government says the earth is warming so what else is there?



BTW: our August is really cold this year also.

[Breezy833]

I smell fall in the air too, and i'm LOVING our temps right now. low 70's. I hate the exhausting heat of the summer, and am not really a fan of 10- 20 degree weather. I guess i'm fickle.

[Ohio dreamer]

Smells like fall here, too. But .....um...that's because this is the first year our Fuji made more then 6 apples. So I'm canning applesauce...yep, smells like fall, lol.

As far as the weather goes, I've been loving what we have had here (no floods....just cool and rain. Had to water yesterday for the first time in months)

[Jim S.]

It's normal for birds to start flocking this time of year here. I have been watching them for 25 years. Yes, the geese and doves flock. Dove season in TN starts Sept. 1, and they will be flocked pretty well by then.

Our barn swallows left almost 4 weeks ago for South America. I was working in our barn when they first arrived back in late April. One moment there was no sound, the next the barn was filled with their tweets.

The bluebirds have finished up their last nesting, so when I cleaned out the boxes a week ago, they have made no efforts at again installing new nests.

Our hummingbird feeders, just the refuge for a few stray birds during the early summer, are increasingly being mobbed as flower sources of nectar are largely beyond their prime and some birds begin to travel.

There is also a crescendo of insect song this time of year. It started about 3 weeks ago. That's because nearly every kind of bug is mature and calling for a mate. Also about 3 weeks ago, lots of swallowtails began flitting about, newly emerged. Dragonflies have also emerged down at our ponds, in so many colors it is a living rainbow.

This is the time, following the equinox, when summer heat is at its hottest here, and yet in that heat are the seeds of the coming winter if you know the signs to look for.

In late September or early October, with the first weak cool fronts, I will begin to hear the chuck-wills-widows in the woods. Then in November the nights will be filled with barn owls calling to each other. In December, it is coyotes and their long plaintive wails. We once ushered in the New Year on our back porch listening to their serenades.

It's one of the beautiful things about place, and about being in a place for a long time, to gain by observation the rhythm of its natural movements.

[Callieslamb]

Mother Nature gets fooled all the time. But I wouldn't mind an early winter, except for that part that it usually stays around late.

[freegal]

A low in the forties is mighty unusual here in mid August!

[Liberty'sGirl]

It's supposed to be in the 40's here tonight. (SE Lower Michigan) This is August and I actually used my CAR HEATER this morning. Sure hope we get some more warmth or my tomatoes won't get ripe.

[Steve in PA]

We never had summer here. One week of hot weather then cool after already having a late spring.

[Pony]

Last year was hotter than the devil's parlor, and the persimmons were ripe in early September.

I don't see an early or harsh Winter on the way. I just see the earth and animals doing what they've been created to do, in more or less the order they've always done it.

And all you folks wishing for an early Winter just hush!

[RomeGrower]

For some reason I can't explain it "feels" like Fall is coming sooner this year. Last year I longed for it, but this year seems different.

[Debbie in Wa]

It reached 100 today here in the PNW. Even the chickens were standing around with their mouths open.