Wooley Worms

When I was a little girl growing up in Blytheville, Arkansas we often visited my Grandparents in the small farming town called Tomato. About this time of year we would witness the emergence of the Wooley Worms. We didn't know that these were actually the larval stage of the Isabella Tiger Moth. We thought they were just worms that spent the summer getting fat and wooley. We especially noted them down at the slough. (pronounced slew). This was our muddy playground, that sometimes filled up with Mississippi river water. Once my cousin and I went out on a tractor tire inner tube and floated around for quite awhile. He had a large stick that he used as an oar and pushed us past the muddy bank. Our fun was ruined when our Moms came running towards us, frantically waving their arms and shouting. We had to get out, but we were secretly very proud of ourselves. Anyway, some years there were just a few worms and other years there would be thousands. Sometimes they were banded black with reddish middles, or completely black. The adults would talk in hushed tones when they were large and black. This surely meant a long cold winter. Being a kid I never looked into it. But now that I'm older I am interested in the validity of their predicting the winter weather. The other day the man of the house said "Look out on the patio, what is that black porkypine thing running around?" I couldn't imagine what he meant so I looked out there and that's exactly what it looked like. It was about the size of a large fat black furry mouse and it was schooching around all over the patio, headed east. I informed him that we were in for a very bad winter. He said " How do you know that?" And I said "Cause the porkypine thing is actually a Wooley Worm and they can predict the weather." So there you have it folks, we are probably having a bad winter because the Wooley Worm at my house was fat and all black. Till next time.....