May 25-31, 2009
It may start cold or it may start late, but before it comes to its end May has fulfilled its promises.
-Hal Borland (suggested by R.N.)
The astronomical outlook The Fledgling Moon waxes all week, entering its second quarter at 10:22 p.m. May 30. Rising near sunrise and setting after sundown, this moon continues to bring fledglings from their eggs as it moves overhead through the afternoon.
By the end of the first week of June, the sun has reached a declination of 22 degrees, 44 minutes, less than 1 degree from solstice.
Just before you go to bed, find the Milky Way filling the eastern half of the sky, running from the north and Z-shaped Cassiopeia through Cygnus the Swan, then through Aquila and finally to Scutum and Sagittarius deep in the southeast.
The weather The end of May brings a sudden end to the likelihood of highs in the 50s and 60s. Chances for that kind of cold were around 30 percent last week; this week, chances for 60s fall to only 15 percent, and 50s are rare.
Temperatures rise into the 70s on 35 percent of the afternoons, into the 80s on 40 percent and into the 90s on 10 percent. After June 6, the likelihood of highs reaching into the 90s jumps to 20 percent, and reaches 35 percent by the middle of the month. About 15 percent of the nights bring temperatures in the 30s or 40s.
Rainfall is usually lighter in the first week of June than in the last week of May, and the sun shines more. Still, showers fall an average of 40 percent of the time each day, except for June 4, which has just a 30 percent chance, and June 6, one of the driest days of the month, which has just a 15 percent chance for precipitation.
Almanac daybook May 25: By this time of year, slugs are usually roaming the garden. Flies are bothering the livestock. Bean leaf beetles are common in the fields. Alfalfa weevil infestations become more troublesome.
May 26: White-marked tussock moths attack the elms; Maybeetles find the oaks; scurfy scale comes to the lindens. Tadpoles move to land. Cricket song grows louder. Mosquitoes become peskier. Dragonflies appear along the rivers.
May 27: Pickle planting is completed throughout the lower Midwest by now, and farmers are harvesting zucchini and squash. The earliest corn is six to 12 inches tall, soybeans three to four inches. More than half the winter wheat has headed. South along the Kentucky border, one tobacco bed in four is typically full of plants.
May 28: Cottonwood trees are in bloom, seeds floating through the countryside. Fawn births peak as the wild roses fade. Elderberry bushes and panicled dogwoods reach full bloom. Bottle grass is fresh and sweet for chewing. A few mulberries are ready to pick.
May 29: It’s pruning time, after flowering, for forsythia, quince, mock orange and lilac. Pollen from grasses reaches its peak in the central United States as bluegrass, orchard grass, timothy, red top and Bermuda grass all continue to flower. In the northern forests, pines, spruce, hemlock, arbor vitae, alders and birch reach the height of their blossoming.
May 30: Iris and peonies are blooming at elevations near 4,000 feet in southern Idaho. Aspen leaves are the size of a thumbnail, and the raspberry plants are just getting their leaves in Yellowstone. Blackberries are in full bloom in the Northwest, and dogwood trees are open around Sequoia National Park in California, at the same time that the first canola and winter wheat crops are about ready to be harvested in the Midwest.
In the Southwest, blackberries have set fruit and wildflowers such as chicory, salsify, moth mullein, great mullein and milkweed are open, marking the full bloom of the sunflower crop in southern California.
May 31: Spring pasture now reaches its brightest green of the year. Haying moves toward the Canadian border at the rate of about 100 miles a week, and will be taking place almost everywhere in the U.S. by the middle of June. Spring wheat is just about all planted in the North, and all the oats are in the ground between Denver and New York.
Potatoes and commercial tomatoes and pickles have all been set out along the Great Lakes. Winter wheat is turning a pale gold below the Mason-Dixon line. Blueberries are setting fruit in the Northeast. In Southern gardens, squash bugs and Japanese beetles are out in force.
Mind and body clock Farmers in the South have been cutting hay since April or May, and now haying season reaches up into the Ohio Valley. To livestock owners, fresh hay begins a new year in the feeding cycle of their animals.
To commuters and anyone who drives through the countryside, the smell of fresh-cut alfalfa, like the smell of the first cut of grass in April, signals a deepening of summertime.
Fish, game, livestock and diet The moon is overhead near the middle of the day this week, encouraging dieters, livestock and game to eat and fish to bite at that time, and especially as the May 29 and June 2 cool fronts approach.
Almanac literature
The Goat
By Fanny Lindsey
Greenwich, Ohio
My dad had a lot of chickens and hogs and cows, but only one goat. Boy, was that goat mean!
But my dad would not pen him up. He said, “Just let him run loose,” so that was it.
Well, when the school bus came to pick up my sister and brother, here came the goat chasing them all over, and everybody was laughing. At last, they made it to the bus.
Then it was Saturday, we were out feeding the chickens and hogs and my mom was hoeing in the garden. We looked and saw the goat coming. Then, my mom bent over.
We stood there and watched the goat go really fast and butt our mom right in the rear end, and we all fell on the ground laughing so hard someone wet their pants (but I cannot give the name). Well, we helped her up, and she was mad.
When our dad got home, she told him to either put the goat up or she would kill it. So Dad finally took care of the goat, and Mom had a big bruise on her hip. Follow the advance of spring with the calendar for flowering trees, shrubs and perennials in Poor Will’s Almanack for 2009. Send $16 (includes shipping and handling) for each copy to: Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. |
