Dec. 28, 2009-Jan. 3, 2010
Love to daily uses wed
Shall be sweetly perfected.
Life by repetition grows
Unto its appointed close:
Day to day fulfills one year.
-Francis Thompson
Lunar phase and lore

The Tufted Titmouse Moon is full on Dec. 31, then wanes through its third quarter in the first week of January. Rising in the afternoon and setting in the morning, this moon is overhead in the middle of the night.

Since New Year’s Eve occurs on the same day as full moon, expect the weather to be disruptive and parties to be especially rowdy. Don’t drink and drive, and watch out for an unusual number of impaired drivers.

As the moon wanes, make plans to seed bedding plants and hardy spring vegetables under lights at new moon, Jan. 15. If you order your seeds by the weekend, they might arrive in time to swell with the waxing Skunk Cabbage moon.

Pruning is recommended for the next two weeks, as the moon wanes. Also, take cuttings to propagate shrubs, trees and houseplants. Take time to check the warm-weather bulbs you brought indoors; clean and dry them carefully if mold has started to form.

Full moon time invites all creatures to eat more in the middle of the night. If you fish in the cold, use the second-best lunar time, the middle of the day.

Venus is not visible this month; look for it in the evening sky at the end of February. Saturn lies in Virgo, rising after midnight. Jupiter is low in the west at sundown and red Mars follows giant Orion through the night in Cancer.

Weather patterns

The warmest days of early in the month are typically Jan. 3 and 6, each having a 25 percent chance for highs in the 40s or 50s. Cold comes too, however; the first major cold front of the year arrives the last day of December or Jan. 1 or 2, and most days between Jan. 1-7 have a 30-40 percent chance for highs only in the 20s or teens.

Countdown to early spring

Keep track of small changes in the landscape and use them to measure the advance of the year. On your walks, look for fallen antlers of whitetail bucks early in January. Check for growth on spruce trees.

Watch your allergies: Pollen from Early Spring in the Deep South may be making you sneeze. Watch for brown Asian lady beetles to emerge in the sun. Count the honeysuckle berries; as they disappear, April comes closer.

Almanac daybook

Dec. 27: Milder December weather near the Great Lakes may open pussy willows and draw up snowdrops, crocus and aconites as the days expand, but along the Gulf of Mexico, the sun is already shortening the dormancy of trees and shrubs, hurrying the gestation of spring.

Dec. 28: The snow and the over-wintering robins pull off the last honeysuckle berries. Winterberry branches are dropping their fruit. Bittersweet hulls continue to split away from their branches.
Dec. 29: As the weather gets colder, wild game moves to areas where cover is thickest. For deer, mating season is over. Whitetail bucks have their gray winter coats now.

Dec. 30: Tomato and pepper plants, seeded in middle summer and brought inside before frost, could be continuing to produce fruit in a south window or greenhouse. Basil, parsley, rosemary, thyme and oregano should also be doing well.

Dec. 31: The butterfly bush leaves are showing the stress of the cold days. Japanese knotweed leaves are almost all down.
Jan. 1: Deep winter, the coldest period of the year, begins today and lasts until Jan. 26. Collards, kale and well-mulched carrots and beets can survive to this point in season, but January’s cold spells eventually take them.

Jan. 2: Weasels are active, their five-toed tracks occurring in pairs. And listen for great horned owl calls in the night; those owls begin to mate in the January cold.

Jan. 3: Zeitgebers (events in nature that tell the time of year) for this week include occasional sightings of foxes and coyotes frolicking at night in their mating rituals, and starlings and sparrows scouting for nesting areas in and around your eaves. In warmer years, the tips of crocus, snowdrop and hyacinth leaves push up through the leaves.

Living with the seasons

The S.A.D Index lies at its peak from New Year’s Day all the way through the middle of the month. The high percentage of clouds, the length of the night and the likelihood of severe weather all work together at this time of year to produce the most challenges to your mind and body. And full moon makes everything more complicated.

Bits and pieces

 “As a servant was opening some very large oysters in a gentleman’s house, he found one of them with two mice within; one seemed to be dying at the time the oyster was opened, but the other was quite dead.

“The servant immediately sallied forth to his master, to shew him so strange a sight, who after viewing it a while, supposed that the oyster had opened itself and the mice, mistaking it for their holes, had crept in, when the oyster feeling such a weight, shut itself so fast as to squeeze and keep them in the manner they were found.”
-Fry and Southwick’s Almanack for 1798

The toad and the spider

“A toad was seen to fight with a spider; and when the former was bit, it hopped to a plantain leaf, bit off a piece and then engaged the spider again. After this had been repeated sundry times, a spectator pulled up the plantain and put it out of the way.
“The toad, on being bit again, jumped to where the plantain had stood; and it was not to be found, she hopped round several times, turned over on her back, swelled up and died immediately. This is an evident demonstration that the juice of the plantain is an antidote against the bites of venomous insects.”

-Poor Robin’s Almanack for 1797
All in your mind

“Imagination plays a part
That often chills the human heart.
A large proportion of our woe
Is caused by things that are not so.”
-Exchange, March 25, 1931
Insufficient preparation
“It is said that Mexico’s most famous bull fighter is getting ready to enter politics. When he gets started, he will realize that he has not seen anything yet.”
-Exchange, July 21, 1926

The Almanack will pay $3 for any original, unusual animal or family story. Send your tale to: Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. An extra $3 will be paid if the story is used in the annual Almanack for 2011.