May 16-22, 2011

Now fields and trees all blossoming appear,
leafy the woods, and loveliest the year.

-Virgil
Lunar phase and lore

The Clover Moon, full on May 17 at 6:09 a.m., wanes throughout the week and enters its last quarter at 1:52 p.m. on May 24. Rising in the evening and setting in the morning, this gibbous moon lies overhead in the middle of the night.

Moving from Scorpio to Sagittarius next Tuesday, the moon reaches Capricorn on Thursday, Aquarius on Saturday and Pisces the following Tuesday. Put in all your root crops as the moon is waning, especially under Capricorn and Pisces.
Grain planting and all other flower and vegetable seeding should continue as conditions permit. The falling barometer in advance of the May 21 cool front should improve both sprouting and fishing, especially with the moon overhead at night or (the second-best lunar time) around midday.

The sun reaches a declination of 20 degrees (out of a possible 23 degrees, 26 minutes) on May 21, entering the early summer sign of Gemini at the same time.

Weather patterns

The days surrounding the May 21 cool front are some of the most turbulent of May, often marked by rain, tornadoes and high winds. The May 20 system also brings the threat of frost to the northern tier of states, but it typically spares tomatoes and eggplant below the 40th Parallel.

Even though more than half of May 25-26 are in the 70s or 80s, a full 40 percent are not, giving them the most potential for chilly conditions since May 15.

Daybook

May 16: Plant peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes and cucumbers when hummingbirds hover at feeders. Look for thrushes, catbirds and scarlet tanagers to arrive, too.

May 17: Today is full moon day: Livestock and family may be harder to handle all day. But after the moon starts to wane, plant carrots, beets and turnips. Fertilize asparagus and rhubarb as their seasons end. Sidedress the corn. Complete setting out tobacco plants.

May 18: When azaleas lose their petals, cow vetch blooms and morel season is about over for the year. Then, swallowtail butterflies come looking for flowers.
May 19: When flea beetles are feeding in the vegetable garden and spring field crickets sing, then cedar waxwings will be migrating through your land and fiddler crabs will be emerging from their tunnels in the estuaries of the Southeast.

May 20: When the first thistle blooms, the corn should be about eight inches tall. Panicled dogwood will be budding and grackles will be feeding their pesky young. Strawberry season will be starting.

May 21: When you see cottonwood cotton floating in the wind, then deer will be giving birth and pollen from grasses will be reaching its peak. Armyworms and corn borers will be hard at work.

May 22: Mulberries and wild grapes flower. Multiflora roses, pink spirea, boxwood and yellow poplars are ready to bloom.

Evergreens have four to six inches of new growth. Sycamore and ginkgo leaves are half- to full-size, and the rest of the maples fill in.
Almanac classics

Scared Silly

By Teresa Steinbrunner
Fort Recovery, Ohio

This incident occurred approximately 70 years ago when our family lived on a farm south of St. Henry in Mercer County, Ohio. My mother was a talented seamstress who could make something useful from items which otherwise would have been discarded. Her motto was “Use it up, eat it up, make it do.” Consequently, my younger sister and I usually wore coats that were made from cloth salvaged from the castoff coats of our elders.

On one occasion, the original garments had fur collars, one black and one white. From these, Mom fashioned a very realistic-looking skunk with shiny black buttons for eyes and a white stripe over its back and tail.
One pleasant summer day, my brothers placed the skunk in a likely spot on the lawn midway between the driveway and the west door of the house. That afternoon, a cousin and his wife came to visit, and seeing the skunk, were reluctant to get out of their car.

Since the “critter” didn’t move, our cousin had suspicions, but his wife was terrified! When he came near enough to see it was a fake, we all came out of the house laughing, and someone picked it up to prove it was harmless. Our cousin thought it was a great joke and guffawed as loudly as anyone.
Slowly his wife exited the car and walked over to us. Then, realizing we had all had a good laugh at her expense, she took the skunk, chased after her husband, and whacked him a few times on the head with it. Then we really laughed.

Now most of the buildings of the old farm are gone – the combination summer kitchen-woodshed, the “necessary house” at the end of a well-worn path, the garage, the chicken coop, the machine shed, and the big red barn. The house has been rebuilt and renovated, a beautiful home quite different from the “big white house on the hill” we knew and remember.