For nothing exists nor happens in the visible sky that is not sensed in some hidden manner by the faculties of Earth and Nature. — Johannes Kepler

The Moon:  The Tulip Moon is full on May 5 at 1:36 a.m. Rising in the evening and setting in the morning, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the night. It reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth, on May 11 and enters its fourth quartrer at 12:29 on May 12. 

The Sun: On May 9, the sun reaches three-fourths of the way to summer solstice. 

The Planets: In Gemini, Venus is prominent in the west after dark. Setting about an hour after Venus, Mars is also visible in the far west after dark. Saturn is the earliest of the Morning Stars, coming up two hours before Jupiter in Aries. Rising in Pisces, Jupiter is the largest Morning Star.

The Stars: Orion has disappeared from the night sky, a sign that Middle Spring is turning to Late Spring. Without Orion, one way to view the warmer months of the year is to keep track of the boxy formation of Libra in the southwest, followed by the scorpion-like constellation of Scorpius. Watch them move across the southern sky throughout the summer.

The Shooting Stars: The Eta Aquarids are active from April 18 through May 28, with the most meteors expected on May 7 and 8. 

Weather Trends: The cold fronts of Late Spring usually cross the Mississippi on or about May 2, 7, 12, 15, 21, 24 and 29. Tornadoes, floods or prolonged periods of soggy pasture are most likely to occur within the following windows:  May 3 – 12 and May 17 – 24.

Full moon on May 5 and lunar perigee on May 11 are likely to bring frost. New moon on the 19th will increase the chance of storms in the month’s third week and threaten a freeze, as well. The last days of May and the first week of June are often soaked by the Strawberry Rains.

Average highs rise into the upper 60s this week, and average lows reach the upper 40s. The last time averages were so warm was the first week of October, and the chances of an afternoon in the 80s are now twice what they were only a few days ago. Five to six days for field and garden work are the rule this week, since rainfall is often the lowest of the month. But the May 7 weather system is often a prelude to the dangerous May 10 front; both of these fronts sometimes bring frost or even snow deep into the Border States. 

The Natural Calendar: Under the closing canopy, phlox and ragwort are purple and gold. May apples and spring cress flower.  Wild ginger, meadow rue, bellwort, bluets, Jack-in-the pulpit, nodding trillium, larkspur and thyme-leafed speedwell are still blossoming. The sticky catchweed replaces chickweed. Thyme and horseradish open in the garden. Lily-of-the-valley and star of Bethlehem push out from their buds.  Red-horse chestnut trees and buckeye trees and Osage orange trees flower. Oak and elm leaves are at least half size. Some maples are fully leafed, others just starting, some dropping seeds. The high tree line is completely alive all across the county, either with new glowing foliage or with orange buds or golden flowers. Birders may sight willets, nighthawks, Eastern kingbirds, catbirds all kinds of warblers and vireos. 

In the Field and Garden: Some orchard grass and rye are ready to harvest in an average year. Winter wheat is typically four to eight inches high. Spring pasture now reaches its brightest green of the year, and haying is underway in the southern states; the cutting will move toward the Canadian border at the rate of about one hundred miles a week, and it will be taking place almost everywhere by the middle of June. 

The first cool front of May is a good marker for spring worming, weaning lambs and kids, clipping feet and dipping for external parasites. In the fields, fight armyworms and corn borers. Attack carpenter bees around the barn.  Iris borers hatch now; check the iris roots. Weevils may be emerging in the alfalfa. 

Mind and Body: The high canopy of leaves is filling in, changing the entire aspect of the landscape. The trees of Late Spring bloom, offering new possibilities for allergies; the weather continues to warm, and the day is almost summer-long. And the progress of the season is so dramatic at this time of year that people sometimes feel they are getting left behind. In winter, it is easy to tell yourself you have plenty of time to meet your goals. When spring comes, however, you may feel pressured to fulfill all the promises you made to yourself back in January, February or March. Clearly, you might make a new list of things to do, scaled back and more realistic. 

Countdown to Summer 

• One week to the great warbler migration through the Midwest

• Two weeks to strawberry pie 

• Three weeks until the first orange daylilies blossom

• Four weeks until roses flower

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

• Six weeks until wild black raspberries ripen

• Seven weeks until fledgling robins call in the bushes and fireflies mate in the night

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

• Nine weeks until thistles turn to down

• Ten weeks until sycamore bark starts to fall, marking the center of Deep Summer.

Almanack Classics

A Plague of Frogs!

by Bonnie Gullett, Greenwich, OH

This is a frog story that happened about fifteen years ago. It was after one very cold winter. The pond behind my home froze so solid that winter that the fish all died. 

In midsummer, I went out into my back lawn a few steps and thought that my head was swimming. I was afraid to step for fear of falling. It looked like the whole earth was moving beneath my feet.

Then I saw what the matter was: Frogs about the size of a quarter were so thick that they were almost tumbling over each other. The first thought that came to me was the plague of frogs in the Bible. 

I hollered to my neighbor: “What’s going on?” 

He said there were no fish in the pond to eat the frog eggs, so they hatched and came out onto the ground.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S 

SCKRAMBLER

WLOB BLOW

PWRC CROW

EOD DOE

WOSN SNOW

OTSW STOW

AWOH WHOA

AGWLO AGLOW

AOUHGHTL ALTHOUGH

AOBNJ BANJO

OOEGRF FOREGO

IEHHG-OH HEIGH-HO

LOEHL HELLO

WOE OWE

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

CCOBOTA

OTMATO

OUEDNGR

AEOWLGRTF

OOINMD

HODAI

XMCEIO

OHLYLAT

IIGODN

VOREGRWO

TOTELAFL

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.

Follow the summer with Bill Felker’s A Daybook for May and A Daybook for June. These daybooks contain all the nature notes used to create Poor Will’s Almanack. Order yours from Amazon, or, for an autographed copy, order from www.poorwillsalmanack.com. You can also purchase Bill Felker’s new book of essays, The Virgin Point, from those sites.

Copyright 2023 – W. L. Felker