There is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things. – Carl Jung

The Moon: The Pumpkin Moon turned into the new Gourd Moon on Nov. 13, waxed throughout the period, and enters its second quarter at 5:50 a.m. on Nov. 20. Like all new moons, this Gourd Moon is overhead in the afternoon, encouraging all creatures to eat and be more active.

The Sun: In November’s third week, the rate of increase in the length of the night finally began to slow to about 10 minutes in seven days, instead of 15 minutes.

The Planets: Venus is the Morning Star, and it continues to rise after midnight, crossing the sky until dawn. Jupiter in Aries, travels the heavens through the night, setting in the west before dawn.

The Stars: Orion is well up in the southeast by midnight. Pegasus, the winged horse that lives forever and that hurtles thunderbolts for Zeus (according to the myth), sets in the far west with Mars.

The Shooting Stars: The Leonid meteors (at the rate of about 15 per hour) fall near the constellation Leo after midnight on Nov. 17 and 18.

Weather Trends: Chances of weather in the 60s are still 50/50, but a high in the 70s only happens once in 20 years, and days in the 30s and 40s are becoming common. The 15th, 19th and 20th are the days this week most likely to be mild. The fifth cold front of the month comes through near the 19th most years, and the 21st brings a slight possibility for a high only in the 20s.

The Natural Calendar: Climbing bittersweet opens in the woods. Hardy forsythia leaves are giving way to the cold and rain and snow. Indoors, your Christmas cactus should be budding (or even blooming) as the sun reaches three-fourths of the way to winter solstice. The last woolly-bear caterpillars mark one of the many borders of autumn, as do the shedding of the silver maple, pear and beech leaves, the new growth on the spruce, the flowering of witch hazel, and the first snow.

Even though Late Fall is here, cabbageworms still eat the cabbage. Some years, houseflies still get in the back door. Crickets sing in the milder afternoons and nights. A few butterflies hunt for flowers. Grasshoppers are still common.  Small tan moths, like the first to emerge in March, play in the sun.

This is typically rutting time for deer, and half of accidents involving automobiles and deer happen between 6 p.m. and midnight – and almost all of them occur when weather conditions are mild and clear.

In the Field and Garden: The corn and soybean harvests are usually complete by the end of the month all around the region. Growth of winter wheat slows in the cold, and some fields yellow from low nitrogen levels. New garlic shoots are firm and green, but they’ve stopped growing and can remain at their mid-November height through the winter.

Under the Late Autumn sky, the sugar beet harvest is almost always done by now. Work gypsum into the soil where salt, used to melt winter’s ice, may damage plantings. As the weather becomes colder, watch for declines in livestock milk production that are not related to feed changes or drying off; these declines could be due to health or other stress factors. Maintain good ventilation in the barn and watch for problems from overcrowding.

Mind and Body: November is the first month since March that there is high likelihood of depression, irritability and anxiety in many people. The average length of November’s night is almost as great as the night’s length in December and January; the weather becomes more severe, and clouds thicken.

Almanack Classics

A True Skunk Story

by Eunice Hicks, Willard, Ohio

One Saturday morning many years ago, I was on the way out the back door to throw some apple peelings in the garden, when I kind of glanced to the left and there I saw a big skunk looking up at me with its big eyes! I slammed the door as fast as I could, and screamed.

My son, Clayton, came running into the kitchen, saying “Momma, Momma, what is it? Tell me.”

“There’s a big skunk out there by the door!” I said. But then he right away opened the door and ran outside to see the skunk, and he wouldn’t listen to me when I cried “Come back here!”

By this time, my husband and our other children were out of bed and wanting to know what was going on, and when we looked out the back door we saw Clayton walking up the lane with something in his arms.

“Momma, Momma, I caught it!” called Clayton. But my husband and I knew it was it a skunk, and I ran down to the basement and went over to my canned vegetables and grabbed up two quarts of tomato juice to rub on my son if he happened to get sprayed by that skunk.

But my husband said to put the tomato juice back. “If that skunk had been going to spray the boy, it would have already sprayed him.”

Now three months back, my son Floyd Jr., brought a pet skunk home with him that had already been neutered. The children kept it and ran and played with it around the house. It made a good pet, then it ran away and we thought it got killed.

I said to my husband, maybe that skunk is the same one that Clayton caught. He said no, but when he took the skunk to the vet, the vet said that the skunk had already been neutered. The children were happy when Dad said they could keep it, and the skunk ran and played with them until one night they put him in a cage, and the next morning they found him dead. Dad said he’d broken his neck trying to get out.

And then a couple of weeks later, Dad brought a little puppy home with him, and the children were so glad. It was a happy ending to this skunk story.

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