The Case of the Cloistered Caterpillars

Ah! A new mystery is afoot! Marigold Holmes here, along with my faithful sidekick, the inimitable Watson. Grudgingly we are allowing Peanut to play along in the role of 'boy wonder' on this one. So what, you ask, is the big mystery? The big mystery is that we have seen not one, but two Woolly Boogers in the barn. "Wait just a goober-eating minute, here, Marigold! Just what is so dad-blamed unusual about seeing a Woolly Booger at this time of year?"

Well allow me to tell you just what is so special. Granted last year we saw lots and lots of Woolly Boogers. Really too many to be comfortable. They were everywhere, and it was just plain hard to walk without stepping in the middle of one or almost having one for lunch. So seeing only two Woolly Boogers doesn't appear, at first glance, to be anything noteworthy. However, the fact is that both these Woolly Boogers were inside the barn. Now just why, in a goat's Peanut-eating dream, were these guys inside and not outside as all the others have been? You see, my friends, herein lies the conundrum.

I do, however, have a theory. You see today is the Equinox. To be precise, it is the Autumnal Equinox, a point at which the length of day and night are equal all over the earth. Actually it is due to the Earth reaching a point in it's annual orbit around the sun at which the polar inclination is at right angles to a line drawn between the Earth and the Sun. (An astronomical goat. Who knew?) At any rate, the appearance of the Woolly Boogers, as you might remember from last year, signals a rough winter ahead in folklore...or goatlore, depending upon which theory you care to subscribe.

So, we can look at this in two ways. First, there have been only two Woolly Boogers sighted. Only two. Must be a very mild winter ahead for us. On the other hand, both of these Woolly Boogers were inside the barn. Now why would they be inside and not outside? One can only surmise that they were 'getting-the-hay out of Dodge'. The winter is going to be SO bad that the only two surviving Woolly Boogers felt compelled to find the most protected (not to mention cozy and Peanut-packed) environment possible in which to ride out the haylacious storm.

So, it is the Equinox. Equal. Fifty-Fifty. In line with that vein of thought, it would seem to me that, all things being equal , we have an exact fifty-fifty chance of having either a very bad or a very good winter. But which will it be? Occam's Razor theorizes, "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." In that case, I suppose the simplest solution would be to just wait and see, and perhaps have a few Peanuts while we wait. We certainly can't ask the Woolly Boogers. They never tell the truth anyway.