Just returned from a short trip to the town clerk & post office.

Along the way, I noticed two sets of animals making a weather forecast.

Couple hundred birds lined up sitting on a telephone wire.

A little further along, a pasture of free range dairy cattle laying down.

90% lie down, with only a few on their feet.

Old lady in her 90's I knew always said:

"The cows are laying down......It's going to rain."

She was always right !!!

w

My dad worked for a farmer when he was younger. He said you never got worried about the weather until you saw the cows headed for the barn.

Another is if it's raining and the birds disappear it's a passing shower or storm.
If they stay out in the rain, it will rain all day.

So if the cows lay down its due to rain? If they stand up no rain?
What about when they do both in the same day?
My dad used to say when the squirrels built their nest high in the trees it would be a bad winter. Geese early or late migration sure signs. When the moon has a ring around it the number of stars inside the ring mark the days till rain. Ya know all this came from people that believed fresh sloppy cow dung was the best thing to put on a snake bite?
Only thing I know is when the bubbles from a gator fart burst at the surface and the gas is yellow a hurricane is sure to come in the next year or three,,,or was that a tropical depression? lol carry on.

I've followed several supposed plant and animal forecasters over the last three decades. Never seemed they were any better than the weathermen on tv.

My prediction. Winter is coming!

Our Canadian fishing guides didn't have radios back in the day, but they watched the sky all day. If we headed back early, trust me we were glad to be off the lake !
The lodge owner would put his life on the line and go looking for people after dark who did not come in.

Sometimes they were so scared, they would not get in his boat and stay out all night.

Fish and animals sense barometric pressure changes which drives certain activities. Cows laying down has more to do with moon phase than anything. Clear or raining or snowing if livestock are on their feet I'm in the deer stand during the season. If you watch the pressure in the winter just before a high pressure the fish feed. Ever hear the best fishing is in the worst weather. Off shore folks live by it especially tuna and bill fish. Reason ? Low pressure. I believe barometric pressure plays a much larger part in fishing and maybe marine animals than in land animals. Length of day and moon phase effect land animals more. That's just my opinion.

Cattle lying down -- Usually a sign of precipitation coming.
We had an Australian Shepherd that would get down-right antsy LONG before a storm cloud was in sight.

My grandfather always said if the birds ain’t stirring , the squirrels ain’t either.
I believe he was right

Wooly bear caterpillars...Some say more brown in the middle = easy winter..less brown in the middle = harder winter

Anyone else picturing walleyed driving home from the post office running over pedestrians while he’s daydreaming and gazing out the window staring at cows, birds, clouds, and wheat? Lol

There are no pedestrians on my way home from the P.O.

It's either alfalfa, wheat, or corn.

All my neighbors are corn plants.

Shouldn't you be outdoors overcoming your

fear of wading in beaver ponds ?

w

Ran over them all already eh?