Before science, original tales explained fall's coloring

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Sunday, September 21, 2003 | Lillian Thomas

[Willie Green]

Before humans used chlorophyll and carotenoids to explain fall leaves, they drew on a mother's grief over the kidnapping of her daughter or the persistence of a group of bear hunters to account for the spectacle of summer green giving way to autumn's fiery blaze.

[Willie Green]

Link to The Old Farmer's Almanac.

There are only 2 days left until it's officially Autumn.
And we have another 132 days after that until Groundhog's Day.

Anybody know what the wooley-bear caterpillers look like this year?

[Aracelis]

Ah, folks...take time to revel in Nature!

[Willie Green]

Ah, folks...take time to revel in Nature!

Sunday is a day of rest.
Before abolition of the Sunday Blue Laws,
people in our culture were quite conversant on these matters.

[PatrickHenry]

Bah! Humbug!

[netmilsmom]

Oh, Oh I know! My daughters saw a Wooly Bear for the first time this summer. (Being from Northern Ohio, where the Wooly Bear Festival is handled, I was thrilled). This one had a medium black band. I forgot what it meant though. Can you enlighten me?

P.S. Being 5 & 3 they named it Samantha

[Willie Green]

The folktale says that if the brown band is wide, then the winter will be mild and if the brown band is narrow, then get ready for deep snow and cold well into April.

[Aracelis]

I remember vividly my grandparents and their friends telling me rich, colorful yarns about all manner of natural phenomenon. My maternal grandfather was an especially good story-teller...and he whittled toys for us as he talked.

Wish I still had one of those toys...

Nothing better on a quiet Sunday afternoon than listening to him tell us how the frog got his big mouth while he carved a slingshot for one of us kids (my brother broke quite a few windows).

Today, we are all much too busy for such things...very sad.

[netmilsmom]

Well, I have seen them almost totally brown, so by comparison Northern MI will have a mild winter. Woo Hoo!
Do they turn into Monarch Butterflies? Someone said that and I thought it was wrong. It was such a cute story that my 3 year old is going as a Wooly Bear for Halloween and my Five year old is going as a Monarch Butterfly. I don't want to bust the bubble, I just want to know.

[PatrickHenry]

Today, we are all much too busy for such things...very sad.

You're right. Let's quit this freeping and go outside for a roll in the hay nature walk.

[Willie Green]

A wooly bear caterpillar turns into an
Isia Isabella tiger moth like the one above.
(Source)

[Willie Green]

BTW, Monarch caterpillars look like this:

[Aracelis]

Anytime, anyplace, mon ami! ;^)

[yankeedame]

Anybody know what the wooley-bear caterpillers look like this year?

I don't know, but I've been told the buckeyes have covered themselves with a might thick shell this year.

[tet68]

The goddess Demeter lost her beloved daughter, Persephone, when the king of the underworld abducted her. Demeter was so grief-stricken that she neglected the plants of the Earth, which began to wither.


In one version, the leaves on the trees saw her despair and turned red, orange and gold to try to lift her sadness. When it deepened, they, too, despaired and the leaves dropped to the ground.

Of course Demeter appealed to the other gods and got her daughter back but because she had eaten a pomagranette seed
she had to spend half the year underground, hence the seasons.

Ah fair Demeter, whose golden hair falls in rich tresses as only a goddesses does............

"........and where else was there ever a greater disparity between seeing an hearing........"Aristidies the Rhetor.

I'm pining for the kykeon, myself. It's been a long time, over two thousand years! But then I'm epoptes and can wait.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up! Hugs!

[js1138]

Round here trees lose their leaves in spring, when the new ones push the old ones off. Still summer here.