Calculations

If it had been about ten degrees colder today, we'd be getting walloped with snow. As it is, it just rained all day. It's hard to say which I would prefer - the rain has been a drag, because we've been short of sunshine and this just made it drearier. Snow would have been pretty. But it also would have kept us from going out and doing stuff today, so... I guess I just wish it had been sunny instead!

It stopped raining very briefly and I took the opportunity to go out with my camera - and about two minutes later it was raining again, so my bug walk was curtailed today.

I did, however, find two bugs to be Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day!

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Woolly Bear Caterpillar. It's amazing that this has not been Backyard Bug of the Day yet this year. I saw quite a few of them in the early spring, which is when I realized they must overwinter as caterpillars (and I looked it up, verifying this), but I have not seen them this fall. Usually I see them as I am mowing the lawn in the late, late summer and early fall (because after that I stop mowing the lawn), but this year I didn't see them. I don't know why. Everyone knows, of course, that there is a legend about being able to tell if it will be a cold or not-so-cold winter based on the proportions of black and brown on the woolly bear, but it's not true, alas. However, I did read somewhere that it actually can be an indicator of how bad the previous winter was, because the proportions have to do with the length of its growing season, and a late spring means less time to grow. However, I am not sure if that's true, either.  Anyway, obviously if you are a woolly bear caterpillar you need to find somewhere to stay cozy for the winter (Not really. It will freeze solid, its tissues being protected by a cryoprotectant), and this one has chosen the package bin at the end of the driveway. It has obviously just arrived there since yesterday afternoon, because I look in there every day, it was not there yesterday. I am trying to decide if moving it out of there goes against my non-interference policy. See, the package bin is not a good place for a caterpillar to be at the moment - this is package season, and it is very likely to get squished in there. But if I take it out, where am I supposed to put it? I don't want to be responsible for choosing it a new place to chill out for the winter - what if I choose a terrible place? I don't know what to do.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Yes, I know, it's not a very exciting moth, but what is exciting is that when we got home tonight it was on the porch, attracted by the porch light. It was hovering around 39ºF/40ºF - that's pretty cold for finding bugs on the porch. And lately it's really rare to see a moth. So I was psyched to see it (because I get psyched about weird things, I admit it), and decided to honor it with BBotD status. Huzzah! There were a few other bugs on the porch, including a ladybug, but they were out of the reach of my camera.

Okay, not much for Random Bugs today:

 The lawn chair was covered with springtails today. They definitely prefer wetter weather, but I have never seen so many of them at once. Of course, they mostly sprang away when I came in with my camera.

I found a swarm of those flies, too. You can just see one of them here, if you look hard...

And then it started to rain, so I had to get the camera out of the inclement weather. It's been raining ever since. I am curious to see how much we get in total, because if you multiply that by 5, that's about how many inches of snow it would be. Depending on whose calculations you chose to use for your rain-to-snow conversion.

I found a couple of spiders today for Arachnid Appreciation:
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 On the rim of the package bin. I know, terrible picture, but I didn't have my monopod and was juggling an umbrella because it was raining pretty hard.

I have a little Christmas tree on my front porch, and when I was outside getting pictures of the moth, I thought maybe there'd be some bugs on my little tree, and tada! This spider was there. At the moment this spider's web a dried leaf, and the bow that was on it at the garden center are the only decorations on the tree.