Hello North Country Explorers!
It’s us! Thimble and Blossom, and we wanted to let you know why we’ve taken so long to return to our homes on the local trails. As you can imagine, fairy wings don’t do well in dry weather, and the end of this summer has been the driest ever recorded where we live! So far this summer we’ve only had 2 inches of rain, compared to the 19 inches we had last year. What a huge difference! That means that the berries and nuts we usually eat aren’t as plentiful as they usually are, and the streams we play in are all dried up!
One of our friends at St. Lawrence University, Dr. Stewart, made some cool pictures to show what the history of rain here looks like, check it out!
This may look a bit crazy, but that’s because it measures the total precipitation (or rain) and number of days with rain, all the way back to 1925, 100 years ago! The blue line is how much rain each year had in June, July, and August, and the red line is the number of days with rain. You can see that this summer had a big dip for both lines, and the blue line especially is far below even the second driest summer, all the way back in 1944.
Here's the good news. We never miss fall leaf change, even if it means toughing out dry weather. Stay tuned for the riddles to find our houses! We’ll tease you a little bit. This year, our friends at Nature Up North are doing some repairs to our houses, then dropping them off at the Indian Creek Nature Center near Rensselaer Falls, at Stone Valley in Colton, and on the Copper Rock Trail on the Tooley Pond Rd. near Degrasse.
Thimble and Blossom are two traveling woodland fairies who love to migrate through the North Country on their way towards the tropical forests where they spend their winter. Thimble loves spending his time exploring the tops of trees and enjoys surfing down the falling leaves in autumn. Blossom likes to spend many of her afternoons befriending bees and butterflies in the forest. She also loves to take dewdrop baths every morning while listening to morning birdsong. Because they live in the woods, Thimble and Blossom have learned a lot about North Country plants and animals throughout the years. They're very excited to share their knowledge with you!