What is going on out there? This is the beginning of October and trees are dropping their leaves like its November. Leaves don’t usually fall like this until the third week of October. Many of the leaves haven’t even begun to change colors. The leaves are doing strange things. Many trees have excessive fruit also. The oak trees next door had large amounts of green acorns 6 weeks ago. It looked like bunches of green olives just hanging there. The squirrels went nuts. (no pun intended.) They jumped from cluster to cluster, stuffing their cheeks and gorging on the green fruit. The acorns turned brown overnight and then began falling. It sounded like rain for a day or two.
Other trees have had huge amounts of fruit and seeds. Usually when the plants act strange and there are heavily laden fruit trees, , I have found it is a harbinger of blizzards and memorable snow storms.
What have our contributors read? What have been your experiences? Should we expect an unusually cold winter or many snow storms? Your predictions please.
My esteemed, Grizzly Adams-like neighbor (who killed a deer yesterday morning and brought over superb venison canapes spiced with jalapeno and feta last night) informed me we are in for a helluva winter. To back up his case, he noted that persimmon seed evidence strongly indicates by the presence of an inordinate proportion of “spoons” in the seeds) that we will have a great deal of snow.
OK, he is agreeing with the grizzly adams side of me.
Quantity in fruit again.
Note the white on the squirrel’s tale – getting whiter every day. Another old trick to forecast rough winter. Plus, they be digging like crazy buring in my yard…especially the walnuts dropping from a neighbor’s tree. And there have been a lot more this year than previous. Last two weekends, filled up one of those brown paper yard bags halfway each time with the balls.
I had never heard that about the squirrels’ tails. I will start checking.
I have an oak tree overhanging my home.
Its…….LOUD.
And today, I thought a branch had hit the roof.
Nope.
A squirrel had jumped from the Magnolia, slipped and had fallen off the roof. I watched him scamper away from my window.
I have sooooo many acorns hitting my roof. I am praying for a nice, very windy, thunderstorm.
We are having a lot of wind today. No thunder but some good healthy gusts.
Is the squirrel OK?
I too noticed the rapid change in leaf color and how quickly the leaves are already dropping. I don’t know how true this is but a friend said that a cold winter followed by a mild summer, leads to an earlier onset of cold weather. I haven’t a clue if or why this may or may not be true.
I definitely feel like something is up. Extremely cold winter, cool, fairly dry summer, early leaf drop. heavy fruit. I predict snow and lots of it. Deep snow. Snowmageddon.
Two shivering mice came in last week and asked if they could winter over in my house. I advised them to get their own place and, on the chance that they were low on cash, gave them directions to a church just a few blocks away.
Gonna be a cold one.
How about the precipitation?
Did you use snap traps, sticky traps or catch and release?
Chinese-made booby traps. One survived. One didn’t — too small.
Reminds me of the old days in Africa. In one place, our house seemed to be a magnet for mice. Mrs. W used sticky traps. She gave the captured mice to the local day guard for disposal. One day she asked him how he disposed of those mice. He told here he just took them out of the sticky traps and tossed them over the high garden wall into the street. Now, that street was used by a lot of local people to walk to work and to market and anywhere else. I think an urban legend was born — No wonder mice were everywhere. Sometimes they just dropped out of the sky!!
One night, my youngest daughter went to her bedroom to get an article of clothing from her dresser. She opened the dresser drawer, and a mouse jumped out of it. She ran screaming from the bedroom and slammed the door behind here. She forget that our cocker spaniel had gone into the bedroom with her. Well, sir, the sounds from that bedroom were terrible as that cocker went after the mouse. When we reopened the door, it looked like there had been an earthquake in that room. But the mouse had escaped.
I HATE mice. HATE HATE HATE. I had a horrible infestation about 2 years ago. I finally went to neck snappers. The other kind were just cruel because they starved to death. Instant death is better. They cannot resist snickers. I had one so bold it ate out of the dogs bowl…until the neck snappers were bought. I almost was so desperate that thought about getting a cat. Not all cats are good mousers though. I expect them to return but I am ready for them.
Mice are filthy.
I am glad that your cocker spaniel gave one a good run for its money.
I had one get in this summer. I haven’t seen any lately or remains.