Bev Wigney on "early fall"

[Fred Schueler]

Bev's messages don't come through on the list (she's been copying them
to me), and my forwards to the list also don't seem to come through, so
I'm copying this. She also sent a message about Ian's object suggesting
it was an unusually-placed Cecropia cocoon.

fred.
===============================================

I'm here in the Annapolis Valley now -- have been here since 2010. We
are having a pretty severe drought here. As you may have heard,
everyone is banned from going into the woods anywhere in the province.
If you go into the wood anywhere except on your own property, you will
be fined $25K if caught. That is happening in the other maritime
provinces as well. Here in the Annapolis Valley, things are looking
very dry. Today was the third incident I have heard of where a farmer's
grain field went on fire as a result of some kind of fire started by
their equipment. The volunteer fire departments across the province are
being kept very busy. Most of our streams are pretty much dried up The
river that flows alongside my property is on the verge of drying up.
Pastures in many areas have no grass and the farmers are feeding their
livestock using their first cut of hay they put into their barns. My
own woods are very dry. The soil is like powder and starting to crack.
Some of the local wetlands have no water now and just cracked earth.
Temperatures are unusually high for here. Today was about 33C at my
place - and that was in the shade of the big Sugar Maple beside my
house. Tomato, pepper and basic plants, etc.. are drying out and dying
if they aren't shaded. I had to move the basil in to the full shade of
the house or it would have died. It's been like this for a few weeks.
Needless to say, produce farmers in the Annapolis Valley are worried
about their crops. Older trees in the many orchards are still hanging
in okay, but young orchard trees are getting stressed out.
On the matter of Monarch butterflies. I belong to a Nova Scotia Monarch
butterfuly group on Facebook. Many have had no butterflies laying eggs
on their milkweed this year. Some are like myself -- I saw 3 laying
eggs a few weeks ago and then there were some caterpillars, but they
only made it as far as second instar and then disappeared. I think they
are dying as surely they all aren't being eaten by predators. I have a
pretty large area of milkweed on my property and used to see about 50
caterpillars make it to eclose each summer. I have not seen even one
caterpillar survive past second instar since 2022. Others are saying
much the same. A few people do seem to be seeing some success -- not
huge numbers, but maybe a half dozen making it to being butterflies. I
seem to be hearing much the same from people in other areas who used to
see quite a few caterpillars -- friends in Canada and the U.S., so it's
not just us here in Nova Scotia.
--
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
2024 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/11E63979
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
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[I Macaulay]

You realize that the only reason we had rain at all is because you mentioned the lack of  it.   :-)

or Someone stepped on a spider.

Senility has been a smooth transition for me.

Note New Hours

Ian Macaulay   Carp, Ontario

Open at 11:AM   Close at 5:00 PM

45.2397 N long: 76.0991 W Elv 137 M UTM
    Don't Forget to Save the Stamps

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