Fall Color and Poisonous Canadian Caterpillar spotted.

Hickory-tussock moth

The colors are just starting to look good this weekend and should come to a high point sometime during the next week. Also on a more alarming note I spotted a couple of these caterpillars from Canada. At first thinking is was some sort of albino caterpillar until I found out they are poisonous. Do not pick one up if you see it. See  video report. These little guys can give a rash or worse. Let the kids know cause they love to pick up any crawly thing they see. Enjoy the great weather and color. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Porti-Potty for No Where

Porta-Potti at Pipeline

Dead brush

Opposite side of road from dead brush

Leaf eaten by caterpillars

Oak tree with leaves gone

First with the good news. Thanks to Bill Rhodes who reported seeing Snaggle Nose at the BonneyView Camp we now know he made it through the Winter and hunting season. This makes the bear at least seven years old. I am guessing he was probably 3 or 4 when he was first in a fight with another bear, which caused his face-deforming injury in 2009.

Now on to the first picture. It seems the people working on the pipeline project can't be too far from a porti-potty even when they are in the middle of the woods. I think this is extremely funny since, loggers have been working these mountains for centuries without a single such luxury. They placed it at the middle of one of my daily hike routines. At first I thought, "How nice I can use it instead of the side of the road." But as luck would have it since the appearance of the facility the urge to go before returning home has left me. 

The next strange thing is just next to the top, an area of brush seems to be dead in a large area just on one side of road. As you can see from the next picture, which was taken exactly opposite from the area what the underbrush should look like. This makes me wonder if they have sprayed it for some reason. Although, I haven't found another area like that along the pipeline or road. Just seems weird.

Last two pictures show a leaf on the road eaten by caterpillars and what the bare oak trees still look like in a few areas. The caterpillars are going after more than the oaks as you can tell from the leaf. They sure can do a lot of damage for such a small insect. 

We have had a couple of cold mornings with clear skies at night the heat leaves fast. This morning I awoke to 39 degrees. That is pretty cold for June 20th. I didn't catch yesterday morning's low but they are saying it was a record. Of course for the weekend we are supposed to get back into the 90's yuck, so much for the nice moderate weather. Our feral cat is back for a visit. He must be an expert at avoiding Bobcats and Coyotes to stay alive in this woods. At least now since his vaccinations he can't bring any diseases back with him. Well off to the city of Wellsboro to work. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.