CR Biker: In Which Some October Bears Are Saved

Didn't ride to work on the morning of Oct. 22 due to the first rain this month, but late in the afternoon took a ride along the Boyson Trail. Creek at the Hanna Park end of the trail.

Oct. 21--Morning light at C Avenue Pond seen on bike ride to work. October was a very pretty month in Iowa.

Happy Halloween! A grandson had an afternoon costume parade at his school, which meant I left work earlier than usual today—which was nice, because that way I didn’t run into any trick-or-treat traffic on the bike ride home.

It was blustery and cold, however. We had a decent rain yesterday, a rarity in this dry fall, but the weather pattern seems to finally be shifting. The summer season of October is ending and genuine, chilly, damp fall is suddenly upon us. It was cloudy this morning, in the 50s, so I wore a sweatshirt but stowed a jacket, knowing that this would be a windy day that would only grow colder as the day wore on.

Speaking of wore on, I wish the jacket had been worn on my back rather than stowed in my backpack. Before I event got the 40 yards or so to C Avenue, a cool sprinkle began, which turned into a rather unpleasant drizzle for the first third of my commute. Luckily, I didn’t get truly soaked, just slightly damp.

Well, I drove Wednesday due to the rain, and even if both rides were slightly challenging—damp in the morning, windy and cold in the afternoon—they were rides, which in general are always nicer than drives.

Oct. 22--Morning. Not my bike seat, some braver soul rode to campus that rare, wet morning.

October 2024 bike rides are history, and they were a pretty good history. I rolled for 275.65 miles, not a bad total for a full-time professor who doesn’t have time for any truly long bike journeys during the school year. So far this year, I’ve ridden 2,674.21 miles.

And witnessed a few bears being rescued. Woolly Bears, that is—the fall caterpillar. The moth that the caterpillar is the larvae of has an interesting lifestyle—why do we see these caterpillars in fall? Because their bodies are designed to survived the winter—they actually can stop their hearts and fully freeze, and yet thaw and get on with their brief lives as a adult moths next year.

And, no, despite folklore, the width of the bands has nothing to do with the harshness of winter—it’s both chance (caterpillars from eggs in the same brood will vary) and the age of the caterpillar (which molt it’s in—as it ages, the brown parts increase), not some magic weather forecast, that leads to narrow or wide caterpillar brown stripes.

Anyway, on Sunday, Oct. 27, a grandson and his mom brought over some doughnuts for a nice breakfast (with scrambled eggs and bacon), and then we loaded up my bike in the van, drove to his house, picked up his bike and parked at Hanna Park in Marion. That’s at the south end of the Boyson Trail, and the grandson, who is a big baseball fan, agreed to go for a bike ride before we played at baseball at the park.

The ride was good—the day was fine and sunny. The grandson is a relatively recent bike rider, and was a bit wobbly on this day—and at one point, he did lose control, rolled off the edge of the pavement and tumbled. Fortunately, the ouch wasn’t serious, but it startled him, so we cut the ride a little short. In the meantime, his mother and his grandmother were walking on the same trail, and we waited for them—counting Woolly Bears, the seasonable caterpillars who were appearing in some numbers on the warm pavement.

The grandson is the Woolly Bear rescuer. He picks them up, looks at them, and always places them on the grass. When his mom came into view, he had to grab one and run to her, showing her the caterpillar he had. Now, to be fair, not all spikey looking caterpillars are safe to handle—spikes on a caterpillar are defensive and can even contain poisons. Woolly Bears can irritate the skin a bit if you are a little rough and get scratched by their spikes, but they are not one of the iffy kinds of caterpillar—handled gently, they are safe for a child to pick up and examine. And the grandson, as the saver of Woolly Bears, is always gentle with them.

Bear on the trail! Woolly Bear caterpillar Oct. 27--Grandson is busy showing another one to his mom. I don't rescue them as he does, but I don't harm them, either.

A Woolly Bear, my bike and grandson's bike Oct. 27.

Can’t say I picked them up, although I do try to avoid them on warm fall afternoons when I see them. Luckily they are small and the trails relatively wide compared to their body sizes. As far as I know—and I honestly don’t know for certain—no immature moths have been harmed this fall by my rolling across the planet.

Snakes, on the other hand, can be a bit harder to avoid, and this month I saw several of them—but, again, didn’t hit any.

Above and below--not the same snake, two snakes I saw on Lindale Trail ride Oct. 19.

Snakes, like caterpillars, can be dangerous, but almost all of the ones seen in Iowa are harmless creatures, hunters of bugs that do us no harm, so I tend to let them be.

Anyway, I appreciated this October. I hope next year’s October may be a bit more seasonal—as a gardener, I’m not all that fond of drought and heat—but it would be OK for it to have pretty days, as I will be retired then and I aspire to accumulate even more miles.

Tower decorative details added to bridge on Lindale Trail in Marion, seen Oct. 19.

We’ll see. On the Lindale Trail (or Grant Wood Trail—not sure what the current name is), some towers were added this month to the curved bridge over the busiest street in Marion, which are nice to see. There are clearly lights on the bridge, but I haven’t checked the bridge after dark to see if it’s lit at night. Never mind, I’m sure I will see this at night some time, and in the meantime, I’ve been lucky to enjoy many pleasant rides during this pretty month.

More images of some pretty sights October bicycle rides: