April … the month of the swelling buds, the springing grass, the first nests, the first plantings, the first flowers…. The door of the seasons first stands ajar this month, and gives us a peep beyond. The month in which to begin the world, in which to begin your house, in which to begin your courtship, in which to enter upon any new enterprise. – John Burroughs

 

The Moon: The Daffodil Moon entered its final quarter on April 13 at 5:12 a.m. On the 16th, it reaches perigee, its powerful position closest to Earth. On the 20th, it becomes the new Tulip Moon at 12:15 a.m. Rising in the early morning and setting in the afternoon, this moon passes overhead, encouraging creatures to be more active in the middle of the day.

The Sun: By April 16, the sun reaches about 70 percent of the way to summer solstice.

The Planets: Venus is still the Evening Star. Setting in Pisces before Venus, Jupiter is visible near sundown.

The Stars: Before the sun comes up, Hercules has moved to near the center of the sky. The Milky Way passes through the Summer Triangle, separating it from autumn’s Pegasus rising on the eastern horizon. The Corona Borealis has shifted into the western half of the heavens, and the pointers of the Big Dipper point almost exactly east-west.

The Shooting Stars: The Lyrid Meteors are active after midnight between Cygnus and Hercules during the second and third week of April, peaking on April 22 and 23. These shooting stars often appear at the rate of 15 to 25 per hour.

Weather Trends: Rain is the rule for April’s second quarter. After the third major high-pressure system passes through, however, a brief mid-April dry spell typically occurs. Chances for highs below 50 degrees fall to less than 10 percent on the 11th where they remain until they drop to 5 percent on April 22. Milder highs above 60s occur better than half the time on all the days of this quarter. Frost strikes an average of 30 percent of the nights.

The Natural Calendar: Hobblebush is leafing in the woods. Violets bloom in your yard. Nettles are about half a foot tall in the pastures. Velvety wild ginger leaves unfold on the hillsides. Tadpoles swim in the pools and ponds. Daffodils and hyacinths are at their brightest in the lawns and gardens.

Crab apple and cherry blossom time begins and usually lasts into the last week of the month. Columbines and bleeding hearts are bushy and nearly a foot tall. Rhubarb leaves are bigger than a pie. The grass is long enough to cut. Redbud branches turn violet as their buds stretch and crack. The trillium grandiflorum is starting to flower. The first yellow trout lilies of the year come out. Star of Holland and the fritillaries bloom. Cowslip flowers appear below the ash and sugar maples in full flower.

Branches of the multiflora roses are almost completely covered with foliage. Dogwoods start to open. Early tulips are at their peak. Leaves appear on elm trees. Bleeding hearts have hearts. American toads are chanting, and hummingbird moths and bumblebees come out to sip the annual mass flowering of dandelions. Gnats become bothersome.

As daffodils come to bloom and the pale winter feathers of goldfinches turn gold, it is not uncommon to see swarms of ant-like creatures (termites) flying in search of new breeding and feeding grounds. When termites swarm, carpenter bees emerge to invade home siding and eaves, usually returning to the same places they were the year before, drilling and making nests, often leaving telltale piles of sawdust as signs of their activity.

Young groundhogs have come out of their dens. The juniper webworm emerges, and Eastern tent caterpillars begin to weave webs on flowering fruit trees. Mounds begin to show on your lawn as moles wake up and hunt grubs and worms. Flies infest the barn. Carpenter bees bore holes in your siding. Along the beaches of the Northeast, piping plovers return to establish their nests. Fish feed more heavily with the moon overhead near the middle of the day (and when the moon rises and sets) throughout the period, especially as the cold fronts of April 16 and 21 approach.

In the Field and Garden: Throughout the country’s midsection, black and gray morel mushrooms come up at this time of the month, the same time that orchard grass is ready to harvest and May apples are fully emerged. When ticks and mosquitoes become troublesome, the morel season is about over. Asparagus is up in the garden now, and the first strawberries are in flower. This is the period during which you should try to complete all your Middle-Spring planting on the farm and in the garden (except for the most tender plants).

Mind and Body: The upcoming new moon may increase stress, but the full blossoming of Middle Spring easily counteracts lunar influence. If spring fever brings depression instead of lethargy, however, more exposure to nature is the antidote.

Countdown to Summer

• One week until tadpoles swim in the sloughs

• Two weeks to morel season

• Three weeks until clover blooms

• Four weeks to the great warbler migration through the Lower Midwest

• Five weeks to the first strawberry pie 

• Six weeks until the first orange daylilies blossom

• Seven weeks until roses flower

• Eight weeks until the first mulberries are sweet for picking and cottonwood cotton drifts in the wind

• Nine weeks until wild black raspberries ripen

•10 weeks until fledgling robins peep in the bushes

Almanack Classics

Did the Diet Make the Difference?

By Eugenia Herrmann, Redkey, Ind.

My family moved to our Indiana farm in 1945. The house was in bad shape, and it took my mother months to get it livable… like layers and layers of sagging wallpaper in almost every room.

Mom’s sister had a small grocery in town, and somehow through one of her customers, she located four baby turkeys, and nothing would do but that the turkeys had to come to the farm.

Due to chilly weather, it was decided that the turkeys would be put upstairs in an extra room with a small pen to confine them and a light bulb for heat. Layers of newspaper were used to cover the floor.

All went well until my aunt brought leftover cottage cheese and onion tops from the store. She intended for the turkeys to eat the mixture. Talk about a guzzling, stinking mess! But the turkeys thrived on that particular diet.

Once outdoors, the turkeys grew into huge birds, learning to fly and occasionally even roosting on the house. Then they became like a pack of guard dogs, and I was their prey!

I would make it from the house to the school bus in the morning in relative safety, but getting off the bus in the afternoon and across our large yard was a screaming, hysterical challenge for a first-grader on the run from four angry turkeys.

Needless to say, I was really grateful for Thanksgiving that year, and to this day I wonder how much influence that cottage cheese/onion top diet had on those turkeys’ hateful personalities.

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Poor Will’s Almanack for 2023 is still available from Amazon.

Copyright 2023 – W. L. Felker