Today, a tiny fuzzy visitor made his way across the patio behind the puddle and managed to do what very few creatures can do so quickly: start a debate between Brian and me.
Our little guest was a woolly bear caterpillar, black on both ends with a rusty orange middle, slowly making his way across the patio and through the river rock as if he had an important seasonal message to deliver. Of course, that immediately brought up the old folklore about woolly bears predicting winter.
The problem is, Brian and I remembered it differently.
Brian remembered it as the bigger the orange stripe, the milder the winter. I remembered it as the bigger the stripe, the harder the winter. So there we were, standing behind the puddle, looking to a caterpillar for weather interpretation and realizing that somewhere along the way, we each carried away a different version of the story.
Apparently, the traditional folklore says Brian is closer to the remembered version: more orange in the middle is supposed to mean a milder winter, while more black suggests a harsher one. There is also another version that says the black on one end or the other can point to how winter begins or ends. Which, of course, only makes this all feel a little more negotiable depending on who is doing the remembering.
But maybe that is part of what I loved most about this little patio visitor. He did not just bring a bit of autumn folklore with him. He brought memory, conversation, and the reminder that even the stories we think we know well can live a little differently in each of us.
So now I am curious.
How do you remember the woolly bear folklore?
Did you grow up hearing that a wider orange stripe meant a milder winter?
Or did you learn it differently?
And while we are at it, do you trust the woolly bear, or do you just enjoy the tradition of asking?
Behind the puddle, even the caterpillars seem willing to start a conversation.
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