Nov. 6-12, 2017

There is the simplified, clarified outdoor world on a bright November day. The leafless trees are stripped to fundamentals. The horizon is in plain sight and far away. Valleys are broader, their outlines obvious. Hills are somehow higher. It is a bigger world, a world that invites wandering and exploration.

-Hal Borland

Almanac horoscope

Moon time: The Apple Cider Moon, full on Nov. 4, reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth, on Nov. 6 and enters its final quarter at 3:36 p.m. on Nov. 10. Rising late in the evening and setting in the morning, this moon passes overhead after midnight.

Sun time: Sunset time varies by less than a quarter of an hour between Nov. 14-Dec. 31.

Planet time: Mars in Virgo is the red morning star, higher than both Venus and Jupiter. Venus disappears from the sky on Nov. 13.

Star time: By the end of the week, Procyon of Canis Major is just over the horizon at midnight. The Great Square has moved into the western half of the sky, Cygnus leading the way. Winter's Pleiades are well up in the east, followed by Aldebaran and Taurus. Cassiopeia is now due south of Polaris.

Plan to watch the Leonid meteors after midnight on Nov. 17-18. The dark moon will favor viewing of those shooting stars.

Weather time

Sun often follows the Nov. 11 front and may provide some of the best days in the first half of the month for harvest. But if a killing frost has not occurred yet, the morning following this front may be the one to put an end to tender plantings.

As the Nov. 16 front approaches, expect milder conditions, but an increased chance for precipitation. (Precipitation is now as likely to fall in the form of snow as in the form of rain.) After the front moves through, favorable harvest conditions typically follow. New moon on Nov. 18 will increase the chances for frost.

Zeitgebers: Climbing bittersweet opens in the woods. Hardy forsythia leaves are giving way to the cold and rain. Sugar maples, burned by frost, gradually drop their foliage. Throughout the nation, practically all weeds and wildflowers become dormant. Only in subtropical Florida do Bermuda and Johnson grass, chenopods and amaranths continue to bloom.

Mid-November usually bring the height of rutting season for whitetail deer. Their activity level increases during courtship, especially during nighttime hours. This often means an increase in automobile accidents involving deer.

Farm and garden time

Clean up all around the yard and garden, cut your wood, clear out the hedgerows and haul manure. Plant next year's sweet peas for early April sprouting. Mulch perennials. Finish repairs to outbuildings.

Soil temperatures fall into the lower 50s, the point at which mulch can be placed around plants and bushes. In the garden, mulch strawberries with straw. Purchase and prepare seeds and flats for the first bedding plant seeding of 2018 (next week). Cover round bales of hay with heavy tarps before the late fall rains and snows.

When all your leaves are down, fertilize the garden and pasture. After that, remove tops from your everbearing raspberries. Also, think about planting an evergreen in the yard; now that the leaves have fallen, you will be able to position it for best winter appearance.

Marketing time: Continue to market Indian corn, pumpkins and gourds at farmers’ markets and roadside stands. Show off handmade Christmas cards in your displays; they are often more appealing than standard store-bought cards. Include one free to your customers.

Mind and body time

Leaf-fall continues to impact your mood throughout the period, and the radical changes in the landscape may be significant in how you feel, especially as the holiday season approaches. Light therapy and art therapy are often useful antidotes for the November blahs; explore how they might benefit you.

Creature time (for fishing, hunting, feeding, bird-watching): The moon will pass overhead before dawn this week, making early morning the best lunar time to look for food, especially as the cold fronts of Nov. 11 and 16 approach (but not after they pass through.

Birds continue to migrate. Watch for the last plovers, willets, yellowlings and sandpipers to be traveling south. Major leafdrop of most hardwood trees has occurred by this time in the year, but foliage of the undergrowth may still complicate looking for game until well into December.

Continue to scout groves of oak trees. Acorns increase in importance for whitetail deer as other sources of food disappear. White oak acorns are typically consumed first, then the deer move on to the red oak acorns – some of their favorite autumn treats.

Almanac classic

Some of your cows may not be giving the milk you'd like them to give. The reason is relatively simple. But to discover that reason, you have to go back in history a bit; you have to read the old newspapers. If you do, you'll find out just what's the matter.

You don't have time to do that research? No problem. Poor Will has already done it for you. All you have to do now is settle back and read this telling report from the Daily Standard of Sept. 22, 1887:

For several weeks a farmer's cow had been failing in her milk. The farmer was puzzled, and many were the conjectures as to the cause hereof, but no conclusion could be reached until last week when a large eel was killed in the pasture near the river where the cow had been kept.

The enormous size of the eel excited great curiosity, and it was decided to open it, which was soon done. Inside of it was found 3.5 gallons of new sweet milk, 5 gallons of buttermilk, 24 pounds of butter and 7 pounds of cheese that had been churned by the action of the eel's body crawling over the ground.

The owner has removed her to higher pasture ground nearer home, and the cow is now giving her old ration of milk.