Poor Will's Almanack by Bill Felker April 27-May 3, 2015 For us, the winds do blow, The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see but means our good, As our delight, or as our treasure. -George Herbert Lunar phase and lore
The Petal-Fall Moon, full on May 3 at 10:42 p.m., wanes gibbous throughout the week, gradually pulling down petals from decorative pear trees, crab apples and cherries. Planting of root crops, shrubs, trees and perennials is favored by the moon’s position in Scorpio on May 2-5, and made even more favorable by the falling barometer in advance of cool fronts due on May 2 and 7. The moon reaches Capricorn May 7, renewing the fine lunar planting conditions of May 205. On May 11, the moon enters its final quarter at 5:36 a.m. Weather trends
The first days of May are often marked by a “Lilac Winter” high-pressure system that chills one of the most fragrant times of late spring. During this brief season, frost comes about 10 percent of the time. Temperatures warm significantly as Lilac Winter moves away, and chilly afternoons in the 40s and 50s are relatively uncommon as the May 7 front approaches. The period of May 8-14 historically brings more storms to the nation than any other period except the days between May 17-24. The natural calendar
April 27: Garlic mustard is turning the woodland floor white with flowers. When you see the garlic mustard, you know catchweed is blooming in the garden, celandine and fleabane are open in the alley and Jack-in-the-pulpit and wild ginger are blossoming in the deep woods. April 28: On the cusp of late spring, sweet clover, parsnips and wild lettuce are already a foot high, waterleaf and sweet rockets have buds, white spring cress opens, lily of the valley is almost half a foot tall, clumps of June’s cinquefoil leaves are common and locust and grape vines are leafing. April 29: Many pines have started their new growth, some trees having pushed out tiny cones, others with fresh green needles at the tips of their branches. In town, many decorative pears have exchanged their flowers for leaves, and the forsythia shows almost no gold at all. April 30: Black tadpoles swim in the backwaters. Bass move to the shallows. Great brown “May” bugs (phylrlophaga) begin their evening flights. May 1: Soil temperatures average in the 50s by today. Northern spring field crickets have hatched in milder years. May 2: Venus is the evening star in late spring and early summer competing with Aldebaran for supremacy in the far west. Jupiter remains in Cancer, pursuing Venus in the western sky after dark and complementing Leo’s bright Regulus after sundown. Rising in the middle of the night in Scorpio, Saturn travels along the southeastern horizon until it reaches due south near dawn. Mars will not be visible until August. May 3: Full moon today will increase the chances for cold. Along the East Coast, horseshoe crabs are mating, their numbers increasing under this full May moon. In field and garden
April 27: The commercial radish harvest has begun, and half of the potatoes are planted. April 28: Plan to seed turnips in middle summer for late fall and early winter grazing. April 29: Commercial tomatoes are half-transplanted. Early tobacco plants are set out. Gardeners now finish up early sweet corn planting. April 30: Weeds take over the untended garden by this time in the spring. May 1: Plan to complete all your spring field and garden planting before June. May 2: Most dandelions have gone to seed. Asparagus peaks at roadside markets. May 3: Farmers have sown their oats throughout the lower Midwest. Nettles are waist-high along the fencerows. Almanac literature Great American Story Contest entry Self-Sufficiency By Jerry Golay Vevay, Ind. I was a city boy, and when I retired, I got some land in the country. I didn’t have “a clue” about the hardships country life had in store for me. The land I bought was beautiful, and I loved the idea of becoming self-sufficient. I had no power or water, just the ground. I bought a camper, and my dog and I set about to become woodsmen. He and I lived in that camper the first two years. I built a place with no other human hands for help. So now, our first winter was fast approaching in the cabin. Well, I thought all you had to do to get fire in the woodstove was to stick a match to it. Some guy sold me some wood and mixed in was green cottonwood. The lessons came fast after that. By the third winter, I sure the heck knew wood. If it had not been for Hoss, my dog, I would have froze the first winter. Every fall, I would clean the stove, seal the pipe. The pipe went over the roof’s edge and it had a hood to keep out the weather. So I’m cleaning and scraping, readying myself for the first fire of the season, and I hear a buzzin’ in the pipe – and before I could close the doors to the stove, it happened: The dreaded yellow jacket. I was hit seven times in the back before I made the door. Lesson learned. So, I put screen wire around the hood of the pipe, but the stove wouldn’t draw right and I had to take it off. The next fall, I had already cleaned the stove and pipe and had some kindling started and I heard scratchin’ in the pipe. I thought a squirrel had gotten in through the opening of the pipe outside. So I bent down and opened the doors of the stove, and a red-eyed, burning RAT springs onto my lap! I freaked out and knocked over everything for 10 feet, and it disappeared. And now I didn’t know where the doggone thing was. I opened the windows to let out the smoke that was filling the cabin fast. Finally, I saw the drapes moving, and he went out. Winners of the Great American Almanac Story Contest will not be announced until all selected entries appear in this column.
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