As an unusually mild, rainy summer was melting away, or rather frosting its way, into autumn, I took to noticing signs that mountain people have always used to judge the forthcoming severity of winter. Everywhere, it seemed, I saw those little black-and-yellow striped hairy caterpillars I grew up calling “woolly boogers” but officially known as the banded woolly bear. This being an educational column of sorts, you should know that.