The grass of spring covers the prairies,

The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,

The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,

The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches....

Walt Whitman

The Moon

The Daffodil Moon became the Tulip Moon at 12:15 a.m. on April 20.

Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead near lunchtime. 

The Sun

April 21 is Cross Quarter Day, the halfway point between equinox and solstice. The sun enters its Late Spring sign of Taurus on the same date.

The Planets

Mars in Gemini, is overhead in the middle of the night. Saturn, rising well before dawn in Aquarius, is the only Morning Star

The Stars

At midnight in the middle of April, lanky Scorpius lies along the southeastern horizon. In front of Scorpius, almost due south, is the parallelogram formation of Libra. Over along the southwestern tree line, find a smaller parallelogram, Corvus. Overhead, the most prominent star is Arcturus. Vega is the brightest star in the east, Regulus in the west.

Weather Trends

After April 20, high temperatures almost always reach 70 at least once or twice in a week, and chances for a day in the 80s jump from 10 percent on April 16 to 60 percent on the 25th. Cold days with highs below 50 occur only three times in a decade during this week of the year, and the 20th completes major snow time in the region. The 20th is also the date after which the average number of frosts per week drops by 40 percent. Eight years in ten, most April precipitation is complete by the 20th, and a major increase in the average daily amount of sunlight occurs: a rise from early April’s 50/50 chance for sun or clouds up to a brighter 70 percent chance for clear to partly cloudy conditions.  

The Natural Calendar

Between now and the first of May, most dandelions go to seed in the central states. 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. When ticks and mosquitoes become troublesome, the morel season is about over. 

Full apple, redbud and dogwood blossom time usually begins this week along the 40th parallel. Grape vines leaf out. Grasshoppers are born in the woods and hedgerows. Locusts, mulberries, ash, tree of heaven, and ginkgoes get their foliage. The first daddy longlegs are hunting. By this time of the year, honeysuckles and spice bushes have developed enough to turn the undergrowth pale green. Flowering begins on lilacs, azaleas, raspberries and ragwort.

Pheasants lay their eggs, and bird migrations peak with the arrival of red-headed woodpeckers, catbirds, cedar waxwings, yellow-throated vireos, meadow larks, indigo buntings, scarlet tanagers, Baltimore orioles, cowbirds, kingbirds, and more than a dozen varieties of warblers. Fish are active in the shallows and should be especially hungry at moonrise and moonset, as well as in the afternoon with the moon overhead as the April 21 cold front approaches. 

Countdown to Summer

• Two weeks until clover blooms

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

• Four weeks to the first strawberry pie 

• Five weeks until the first orange daylilies blossom

• Six weeks until roses flower

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

• Eight weeks until wild black raspberries ripen

• Nine weeks until fledgling robins peep in the bushes

• Ten weeks until cicadas chant in the hot and humid days

Almanack Classics

The Little Red Hen

By Cristine Arter, Crestline, Ohio

I’ve lived on a farm most all my life and have always loved farm animals. One spring, I decided to get a dozen baby chicks, and since none of the hens was setting, I thought I had a problem, as the weather turned cold and rainy. What should I do?

The fall before, a friend gave me a little red hen, and I just wondered, would the little red hen accept the baby chicks? 

One night after dark, I went to the hen house and slipped a baby chick under the little red hen sitting on her nest. She didn’t seem too happy to be disturbed. 

I didn’t know what to expect the next morning when I went to the hen house. Would the chick be dead or alive?

Lo and behold, much to my surprise, the little red hen had accepted the chick and was mothering it. So that night, I slipped a couple more under her and kept that up until she had all the chicks. 

So I moved the little red hen and her chicks to a doghouse with plenty of fresh straw. She loved the chicks and accepted them as though she’d hatched them.

She was a laying hen, and whenever she wanted to go in to lay her egg, she’d flap at the screen door of the hen house until I went out and let her in. Then she’d lay her egg and come back outside and take care of her little brood. 

She was a good little mother hen, and I’ll never forget how she took to the baby chicks and solved my problem of raising them.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S 

SCKRAMBLER

NICLEPS SPLENIC

RHPINEC PHRENIC

RAESCIN ARSENIC

EUEIGC EUGEIC

HLLNCEEI HELLENIC

RNCIEI IRENIC

LACHTSINECI CALISTHENIC

UENSAREHTCIN  NEURASTHENIC

THAPOGENIC PATHOGENIC

CINEGOTOPH PHOTOGENIC

EEEICNGLT TELEGENIC

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING 

SCKRAMBLER

HERENCQU

EUERSNC

ELCCNERH

UEEDNTR

REHCNERT

NEVRUTE

ADVNEUTER

DENTUREIN

DENTUREIN

SIMDAEVTNRUE

REHCNEB

In order to estimate your SCKRAMBLER IQ, award yourself 15 points for each word unscrambled, adding a 50-point bonus for getting all of them correct. If you find a typo, add another 15 points to your IQ. Yes, you are a genius.

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Copyright 2023 – W. L. Felker