Jan. 10-16, 2011
I’m starting to see more clearly the interpretation I put on physical events like the weather. There is physical weather – sun, rain, wind – which just is, and my emotional response – pleasure, peace, anger, anxiety – that I associate with the weather. If I can tease these aspects apart, and experience weather as weather and emotional response as emotional response, my days might be less dramatic and draining.
-Robert Kull

Lunar phase and lore
The Jessamine Moon, entering its second quarter at 6:31 a.m. on Jan. 12, waxes throughout the period, becoming totally full at 4:21 a.m. Jan. 19. Lying in fertile Taurus Jan. 14-16, the waxing moon moves into Gemini for the weekend, then Cancer on Jan. 16-18 and Leo on Jan. 19-20.

This is the last best lunar week in January for seeding tender bedding plants to set out during May, and the moon in Taurus and Cancer offers the best lunar conditions of all. These days are also ideal for frost-seeding pasture and lawn (scattering the seed and letting the thawing and freezing of the winter do the planting for you).

The moon will be overhead during the middle of the night this week, rising in the afternoon or evening and setting before dawn. Fishing and scouting for game should show the most results at the second-best lunar time, when the moon is below the region – at midday.

Dieters, however, could find that they feel excessive hunger as lunch approaches. When the barometer falls in advance of the Jan. 15 and 19 cold fronts, eating should pick up throughout the late morning.

Since Orion is so easy to find filling the southern sky at bedtime during January, use it as a skymark to locate the constellation Auriga directly above it. Auriga’s brightest star is Capella, a star that remains visible throughout the year, circling Polaris.

You can tell time with Capella: When you find it lying in the west at 10 p.m., you can plant all your tender tomatoes and cucumbers. When Capella hugs the northern horizon, you should dig all your garlic before it breaks apart. And when Capella is due east before midnight, then complete all your harvest and hunker down for winter.

Weather patterns
Of all the daylight hours in January, an average of only 40 percent provides sun. Spells of six to nine days without sunshine occur every year or two between November and March, and longer periods of gray skies are common during winter.

In 1986, most of Ohio saw no sun for the 14 days between Jan. 29-Feb. 12. In 1991-92, the sky was overcast for the 12 days between Dec. 27-Jan. 7.

Daybook
Jan. 10: If you have trouble believing in spring, get up around five o’clock in the morning and go outside. If you look straight up, you’ll see the Big Dipper, and if you follow the tilt of its far western edge straight up, you’ll find Polaris, the North Star. Guide on the handle down toward you, you’ll run into Arcturus, one of the brightest stars of May.

Jan. 11: How often does it happen that snowdrops and aconites are emerging, budding and sometimes blooming at this time of year? At many locations along the 40th parallel, that happened in 2009, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1990, 1989 (the temperature even got close to 60 during this week that year), and in 1975, 1967, 1960, 1953, 1950, 1949 and so on during the milder Januarys back into history.

Jan. 12: The Jessamine Moon enters its second quarter as well as the sign of Taurus today, beginning another excellent planting time. In milder winters, fresh poppy leaves, new pyrethrums and wrinkled lemon verbena can appear in the garden.

Jan. 13: Between the middle of January through the middle of May, spring moves from New Orleans at a rate of six miles per day, or one degree every four days. The seasons are variable and unpredictable, but those average rates of vernal progress hold. Whatever is lost with one cold wave is gained in a later thaw.

Jan. 14: Explore the possibility of marketing lambs and kids for the Muslim celebration of Mawlid Al-Nabi in February. The more diversity you have in your region, the more opportunities you have for selling what you produce. Investigate the possibilities at urban centers within an hour or two drive of your farm.

Jan. 15: Now cut fruit trees down to the right level for picking, but don’t prune what will bloom before June, and wait for July or August for maples. Treat ash, bittersweet, fir, elm, flowering fruit trees, hawthorn, juniper, lilac, linden, maple, oak, pine, poplar, spruce, sweet gum, tulip tree and willow for scales and mites.
Spray trees when temperatures rise into the upper 30s or 40s in January or February.

Jan. 16: The dried flower clusters of purple coneflowers and zinnias, tough and unyielding a month ago, crumble between your fingers. A few honeysuckle berries still hang to their branches, but their firmness is gone. Osage fruit is darkening quickly and breaking down, each change measuring the progress of Earth toward equinox.

Almanac literature
Love at First Sight
By Myrtle Ritchie (Age 101)
Vevay, Ind.
This is a true love story told to me by one of my friends, who lived in Massachusetts. She and a girlfriend, Elaine, had gone to a theater – they walked there, seeing as it was close to her house.

She was 15 or 16 at the time, and there happened to be a soldier named Joe there on furlough. He saw Elaine, and it was love at first sight.

He followed them home, and he went in and told her father how much he loved Elaine and wanted to date her, as she wasn’t used to dating. The father said that yes, they could, and they dated while the soldier was on his furlough. When he had to go back to camp, they were married and she went with him.
They have six children. They are very devoted to each other, and now they live in Florida, close to Tampa. They have I don’t know how many grandchildren, but I do know that they have 18 great-grandchildren.
Joe has retired and has a workshop where he can make beautiful things out of wood. He has been having heart trouble, and he has to have oxygen on 24 hours a day. But they are still in love as much as ever.

Their children and grandchildren are all fine people and look after their parents. Elaine quilts and has bake sales with the other ladies for different organizations when Joe isn’t too sick.

God bless them, and may they have a much longer time together.