May 18-24, 2015

The summer winds is sniffin’ round the bloomin’ locus’ trees;

And the clover in the pasture is a big day fer the bees,

And they been a-swiggin’ honey, above board and on the sly,

Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin’ and stagger as they fly.

-James Whitcomb Riley

Lunar phase and lore

Moving into its second quarter at 12:19 on May 25, the Hummingbird Moon accompanies hummingbirds migrating to your feeder, as it becomes rounder and fatter, entering its third quarter (and becoming full) at 11:19 on June 2.

Although lunar power is stronger at full moon, most of the week should reflect the benign position of the moon at apogee (its position farthest from Earth) on May 26. Rising in the afternoon and setting before dawn, this moon will pass overhead in the middle of the night, improving chances for catching fish in the dark – especially as the cool fronts of May 29 and June 2 approach.

Continue to plant your summer seeds, perennials and shrubs – the sooner, the better.

Weather trends

Rain is often heavy as the final front of May and the first front of June approach. When these weather systems move away, however, they usually leave sunny, dry conditions.

Now summer heat typically begins, and chances for highs in the cool 60s fall to only 15 percent; 50s come just about 5 percent of the time.

The natural calendar

May 18: In the salt marshes of the South, fiddler crabs emerge from their tunnels in creeks and estuaries.

May 19: Cedar waxwings migrate north as the last buckeye flowers fall. The first fat brown “June bug” clings to the screen door when the first firefly glows in the lawn.

May 20: Black walnuts, silver olives and oaks become major sources of pollen.

May 21: In the rivers, lizard’s tail has three leaves. Deep in the woods, July’s wood nettle is a foot tall, and red flowering ginger has replaced the toad trillium close to the ground around the small open fingers of white sedum.

May 22: Pollen from grasses reaches its peak in the central United States, as bluegrass, orchard grass, timothy, red top and Bermuda grass all continue to flower.

May 23: Tall meadow rue is knee high-now in the wetlands and fields, pacing the angelica.

May 24: White-spotted skippers and red admiral butterflies visit the garden. Gold-collared black flies swarm in the pastures.

In field and garden

May 18: Strawberries come into full bloom and many have set fruit. Black medic and plantain blossom. Spittlebugs appear on pine trees, azalea mites on azaleas, cankerworms on elms and maples and lace bugs on the mountain ash.

May 19: Remove seedpods from daffodils and tulips.

May 20: Three out of every four potatoes are in the ground, along with two out of every three of the processing-tomato plants.

May 21: Begin commercial sunflower planting.

May 22: Leafhoppers have come looking for corn.

May 23: Pasture plants may have unusually high water content in May, and livestock may not get enough nutrition from this forage. Silage and hay supplements could take up the feeding slack.

May 24: By today, winter wheat could be at least a foot high across the central states.

Almanac literature

Great American Story Contest entry

Sheep Cat

By John Hamstreet

Grand Ronde, Ore.

Last November we had a bunch of kittens, of which one survived.

It hung out in the barn with the other cats but since it was smaller, it was a little bit of a loner.

We also had a lot of other lambs that did not have the run of the barn but were able to come into the nursery if the weather was bad.

One night I went down to feed the orphans, and there was a lamb lying down in the nursery with the kitten lying half on and half off.

A couple of nights later, I went to the barn and there was a big pile of lambs in the nursery. Went by them and fed my babies, and turned around to find a black head sticking up out of the pile of lambs.

It looked around and then disappeared back into the pile.

This continued on through the rest of the winter and into the spring, with the kitten hanging out with the lambs, including lying in the manger while they were eating.

In May, I sorted out my ram lambs from my ewe lambs and the kitten attached itself to the ram lambs.

She would walk around and under them dragging her tail across their bellies and under their chins. If they laid down, she would get up and walk around on them until she found one she liked, then settle down. While they were walking along she would lie down in front of them, roll over on her back and they would nuzzle her belly with their noses.

She even would come up to them and get up on her back legs and hug them on the neck or face with her forepaws. At none of this activity did the rams raise any objection.

Even now that she is a mama cat and most of her rams are gone, she still goes down to the ram barn every night when I feed.

She walks around and checks everything out, hops up on the manger while they are eating and sits there, just hanging out.

I don’t know which is weirder – the cat or the rams.

Winners of the Great American Almanac Story Contest will not be announced until all selected entries appear in this column.