Around the Campus

Saturday morning was bright and crisp, a great day for a walk. Norm and I decided to walk around part of the university campus, since we hadn't 'seen' it on foot for a while. The annual and perennial beds are still magnificent, and only a few of the trees are beginning to show any color at all.

As we passed the science complex, we came upon one of two pairs of Canada geese that we would see feeding lazily on the grass. UMSL is home to several nesting pairs, but the university uses various "humane" control measures to minimize the number of goslings that hatch every year. Before they started to do this, pedestrians were often confronted by territorial ganders challenging their right to enter buildings, not to mention the problem of having to watch carefully where one stepped! No such issues today.

The legendary wind storm we had on July 19 took a heavy toll on many of the oldest trees near the entrance to campus. Some were completely sheared off about 20 feet above ground level. This venerable oak in Founders' Circle lost about half its crown in the storm.

As we walked, I kept hoping we would find a wooly bear caterpillar, but we didn't see any. Folklorists swear by the coloration of woolly bears as a predictor of how severe the coming winter will be. Light coat equals a warm winter; dark coat a cold one. Dark stripes at either end and light in the middle means early and late cold snaps but a mild December and January. But we are still clueless. The meteorologist on a local TV channel is saying that our '70s weather will last through Tuesday, then a cold front will arrive and we should have the first hard freeze of the season on Friday morning. Time to get the rest of the plants into the house from their summer home on the porch.