Poor Will's Almanack by Bill Felker March 16-22, 2015 There is no foliage on the trees yet; only here and there the red bloom of the soft maple, illuminated by the declining sun, shows vividly against the tender green of a slope beyond, or a willow, like a thin veil, stands out against a leafless wood. -John Burroughs Lunar phase and lore
The Flowering Moss Moon becomes the Cabbage Butterfly Moon on March 20 at 4:36 a.m. Rising in the early morning and setting in the afternoon, this moon will travel overhead through the middle of the day. That being the case, fish should have lunch about the same time as you do, especially when the cold fronts of March 24 and 29 approach. Lunar conditions for planting are ideal throughout the period, especially as the moon passes through wet Pisces on March 18-20 and through Taurus March 22-24. Weather trends
The March 24 cold front, like the March 14 system, is often mild and is followed by some of the driest and brightest days so far in the year. In the low-pressure trough that precedes the March 29 cold front, March 28 is typically one of the warmest days in the month, with highs above 60 degrees occurring five days in 10 at the 40th Parallel and below. The natural calendar
March 16: Wild parsnips grow back. Mock orange leafs out. March 17: Canada geese nest and lay their eggs throughout the country. March 18: Ragwort buds in the swamps. Willow trees glow yellow-green with new foliage. March 19: The moon is at perigee (its position closest to Earth). Perigee, combined with tomorrow’s new moon, is likely to bring precipitation and unseasonable cold. March 20: The moon is new today. The sun enters Aries, and equinox occurs at 12:14 a.m. March 21: Pollen appears on pussy willow catkins. First forsythia flowers. March 22: New raspberry leaves are ready for tea. In field and garden
March 16: Lettuce and other hardy sprouts can be moved to the cold frame. Today is the latest date for planting commercial tobacco seeds. March 17: Horseradish, dock and dandelion root are ready for digging. March 18: All farm tools and implements, seeds, herbicides, fertilizers and pesticides and should be online. March 19: Seven to eight weeks until tender vegetables can be set out. March 20: Rhubarb should be up in most sheltered patches. Five weeks remain until the first rhubarb pie. March 21: Plant first sweet corn in southern counties. March 22: Termites swarm in the third to fourth week of March, depending on the character of early spring. Almanac literature Great American Story Contest entry Melanie’s Strategy By Margaret Nestor New London, Ohio My husband and I were married in 1961 and were blessed with three girls, one son and, five years later, another daughter we named Melanie. The year Melanie was in the third grade, she was packing her lunch when she told me she was going to run away. I didn’t believe her, of course! Soon she was nowhere to be found. Oh dear! I looked inside and outside of the house, and called our neighbors who had a cluster of pine trees across the street where they lived. They looked for Melanie. No Melanie. So, I walked outside again and then saw the dog’s tail wagging underneath the back porch. “Come out, Melanie,” I said. “I will go have a talk with your teacher and see what’s going on.” I drove to school and talked to the principal, who said he would ride home with me and find out what was making Melanie want to stay away from school. When we got home, there was no Melanie to be found, even though my husband had been home with her when I left. Then we heard a noise across the street. We walked over to the tall pine tree and looked up … There was Melanie at the tippy top of the highest limb, 12 feet up the tree. The principal called up to her and told her she could stay home the rest of the day and that he would talk to the teacher. So Melanie shimmied down the tree like a young monkey. We were all relieved. The principal did talk to the teacher, and Melanie never tried to run away again.
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