A Critical Eye

• 

Yesterday there was wind. Today the Bay is smooth and calm apart from the (prepare yourself for another collective noun) troupes of shrimp and those elusive herring.

I had to go to the mainland yesterday because Fish’s ear has gotten worse. The good news is that he now has a vet and he will be neutered this fall. The whole Island will breathe a sigh of relief. 🙂

I told you that one of the “signs” of big snowfalls in the winter is a large crop of apples. Well we have that. I checked and there are at least two more.

If the Mountain Ash have a tremendous number of berries (which they do) snowfalls are predicted to be high. The third forecasting tool involves yellowjackets. They aren’t on the same level as murder hornets but they’re still annoying. It is said, by at least a couple of people, that if they build their nests high above the ground we should expect a lot of snow. You can add that to the “yep we’ve got that” predictors. I’ll keep score this winter to see if they have any validity.

• 

The Moose Hunt season opens on Tuesday. A lot of people, both men and women, will be at their (or their friends’) camps this week. “Bagging” one of those animals is obviously the top priority but the whole thing sounds like the biggest social event of the year.

One weird thing, to me anyway, about the Hunt is that licenses are awarded using a lottery system. This makes sense because there is a limit to how many moose can be killed and you don’t want half the population out there with guns.

Whoever programmed the lottery, though, hasn’t really thought it through. I can’t count the number of multiple licenses awarded to family members at the same address while at the same time nobody else around them received one. I think fairness would dictate some modifications to the code but I’m just an ex-system auditor (among other things). 🙂

•