Oct. 1-7, 2018

Now, too, the first of October, or later, the elms are at the height of their autumnal beauty, great brownish-yellow masses, warm from their September oven, hanging over the highway. Their leaves are perfectly ripe. I wonder if there is any answering ripeness in the lives of the men who live beneath them.

-Henry David Thoreau

The Jumping Jumpseed Moon enters its final quarter at 4:45 a.m. on Oct. 2, wanes into perigee on Oct. 5 at 5:28 p.m. and then becomes the Shattering Ginkgo Moon at 10:47 p.m. on Oct. 8. Rising in the middle of the night and setting in the afternoon, this moon passes overhead in the morning.

At the start of October, the day’s length is about 11 hours, 45 minutes. At the end of the month, the day’s length is only 10 hours, 30 minutes. The sun now advances quickly toward winter, moving from a declination of minus-3 degrees to minus-13 (that is halfway to winter solstice) by the end of the month.

Venus in Virgo remains the evening star until the middle of the October, when it fades into the sunset. The Pleiades and the Hyades of Taurus lie on the eastern horizon late in the evening, announcing middle autumn. A few hours after midnight, Orion appears in the far east, and it moves to the center of the sky before sunrise.

The Draconid meteors fall at the rate of about 10 per hour in the vicinity of the North Star after midnight between Oct. 6-10. The dark moon will favor finding these meteors. The Orionid meteors fall through Orion every night in October.

Weather trends

Weather history suggests the cold waves of middle fall are likely to cross the Mississippi River on or about Oct. 2, 7, 13, 17, 23 and 30. Lunar perigee on Oct. 5, new moon on Oct. 8 and full moon on Oct. 24 are likely to intensify weather systems near those dates.

Chances of a killing frost increase from about 10 percent during the first part of the week to a full 20 percent by the end of the week. Oct. 3 is an important pivot point for cold; that morning brings the first chance (5-10 percent) of a morning low in the 20s (that happened in some parts of the region in 1981).

The likelihood for colder weather almost always increases after Oct. 4, when the chances of highs only in the 50s swell from 15 percent all the day to 30 percent. Warm days in the 70s and 80s are most common on the first of the month, a 60 percent chance on that day, but chances decline to only 30 percent by Oct. 7.

The waning moon will become less influential as the week progresses, reducing lunar stress and opening the way for dental appointments, minor surgery, vaccinations of livestock, shearing, clipping nails and hooves and treating for external and internal parasites.

Seasonal Affective Disorder becomes more frequent in October as the length of the night increases and chances of mild weather decrease. Although cloud cover is ordinarily not a major factor in S.A.D. during middle fall, the odds for completely overcast conditions rise steadily.

Field and garden

As the Jumping Jumpseed Moon wanes, harvest grains; the weakening moon is associated with lower moisture levels in crops. The waning moon is favorable for pruning shrubs or trees to retard growth and for killing weeds. This moon also favors the planting of garlic cloves and all spring bulbs.

The natural calendar: During the first week of October, almost all trees develop some color change; a sizeable number of maples suddenly becoming bright red and orange. Patches of ash and hickory reach their peak, then thin quickly.

Some sycamores and tulip trees are completely golden. Redbuds, fading in the autumn sun, begin to lose their foliage. Sumacs are either scarlet or else totally gone by now. Sassafras is old and rusty. Blackberry leaves are darkening to purple.

In two weeks leaves of the red mulberry can be gone, along with flowering crabs. The black walnut crop is almost always on the ground. Peak leaf-turn starts to occur in woodlots where maples, ashes, buckeyes, wild cherry and locusts predominate.

Many Osage leaves are yellow now, a few ginkgoes starting to fade. Cottonwoods and the rest of the box elders lose their leaves, and great openings form in the high canopy.

Marketing notes: Halloween crops have come to town. And the Hindu feast honoring the goddess Durga (Navaratri/Navadurgara between Oct. 9-18) may increase demand for lambs and kids.

Fish and birds: The moon will be overhead in the morning throughout the period; therefore, look for fish and game before and after breakfast as the barometer falls in advance of the Oct. 7 and 13 cold fronts.

Terns and meadowlarks, yellow-rumped warblers and purple martins migrate south. Chimney swifts, wood thrushes, barn swallows and red-eyed vireos join them as early fall moves to a close.

Almanac classics

The Red Nail Polish

By Kathleen McCrillis

My mother-in-law, Charlotte Nethers McCrillis, was rightfully proud of her farm country roots in rural Licking County, Ohio. She enjoyed looking back on those simpler days when as a young child she fed the chickens, gathered eggs and caught lightning bugs in the warm summer twilight.

One summer memory she liked to share with her children and grandchildren was not quite so peaceful and idyllic. The year was 1943, and her young family was living with Grandma and Grandpa Swick. Four-year-old Charlotte was playing with her 7-year-old sister, Norma, and their Aunt Patty, who was the ripe old age of 6-1/2.

Back in those days, little girls never wore pants – only dresses – and these little girls’ dresses were handmade out of feed sacks. Playing with bright red fingernail polish, a universal favorite of little girls, Norma accidentally spilled it on one of her few dresses.

When her mother discovered the disaster, she was so upset that she threw the hateful bottle down the outside toilet, thinking that was the end of that!

Well, those little girls had their own ideas on the matter, and they soon decided they would get that fingernail polish back. Now this outhouse was just a one-seater with a deep pit. Undaunted, Aunt Patty leaned over through the hole, while skinny little Charlotte and Norma held on to her legs.

Today Charlotte says, “If we’d have dropped her, she probably would’ve drowned or smothered.” But the two girls successfully pulled Aunt Patty out of the wretched black hole with the prize in hand. All three scurried to the pump behind the house to wash off their retrieved treasure.

How disappointed they were to discover that they couldn’t get rid of the powerful stench, so they tossed the once precious bottle back down the abyss.