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Average temps warm up to those seen in early October

April 28-May 4, 2008
For nothing exists nor happens in the visible sky that is not sensed in some hidden manner by the faculties of Earth and Nature.
-Johannes Kepler

The astronomical outlook

As carpenter bees settle in around your eaves and siding, drilling holes and laying eggs, the Carpenter Bee Moon grows dark. In its place, the Gosling Moon becomes new at 7:18 p.m. on May 5.
In May, Venus moves into Taurus, low in the east near dawn. Mars shifts back into Cancer, visible in the western sky from early evening until midnight. Saturn stays in Leo, following Mars. Jupiter is in Sagittarius, rising in the middle of the night and moving along the southern horizon until it is lost in daylight.

The Eta Aquarids are active on May 5-6, but only a few meteors per hour occur with this shower.

The weather

The average highs rise into the upper 60s this week, and average lows reach the upper 40s. The last time averages were so warm was the first week of October, and the chances for an afternoon in the 80s are twice what they were only a few days ago.

Five to six days for field and garden work are the rule this week, since rainfall is usually the lowest of the month. Superb lunar conditions for setting out bedding plants and for seeding root crops occur as the moon turns new.

Almanac daybook

April 28: Trailing arbutus blooms in Maine as the Carpenter Bee Moon comes into its final quarter. During this fourth lunar quarter, destroy tent caterpillars as they hatch and plant all your remaining root crops.

April 29: The first blue jay is born, and some orchard grass and rye are ready to harvest in an average year. Wild cherry trees bloom. Star of Bethlehem season begins in the garden, spring cress season in the woods.

April 30: Tobacco plants are set out now. Complete your sweet corn planting and be thinking about soybeans: Soybean yield loss can be up to one bushel per acre per day for planting after the first week of May. Sweet William, Korean lilac, catchweed, nodding trillium and larkspur are coming in.

May 3: The white Star of Bethlehem flowers in much of the country during early May. It’s a low plant that rises from a bulb, usually in small clumps, and it’s not good for your sheep.

As conditions permit, sow seeds for forages that will provide as close to year-round grazing as possible: tall fescue, ryegrass, wheat, oats and rape for early spring; Kentucky bluegrass and orchard grass for spring and fall; brome grass and timothy for early summer; birdsfoot trefoil, bahiagrass, Bermuda grass, Sudan grass, crabgrass and lespedeza for mid- to late summer. Plan to seed turnips in middle summer for late fall and early winter grazing.

May 4: Silver olive bushes come into bloom, just when sweet gum, mountain maples and white mulberry trees flower. In the woods, wild strawberries and bellwort have golden blossoms. Poppies and daisies open in the garden.

Spring pasture now reaches its brightest green of the year, and haying is underway in the southern states. The cutting will move toward the Canadian border at the rate of about 100 miles a week, and it will be taking place almost everywhere by the middle of June. As fresh cuttings become available, introduce them slowly into the diet of your herd and flock, in order to avoid enterotoxemia.

Summer outlook: June

Last June’s temperatures were only slightly above average (the low 70s) in most of the area, and history suggests another near-normal June will occur this year. There is a chance for a chilly month, but only a 10 percent chance.

As for precipitation, last year’s sixth month was relatively dry, up to two inches below normal in many counties. A June that dry has always brought normal to above-normal rainfall the following year.
Mind and body clock

The progress of the season is so dramatic at this time of year that people sometimes feel they are getting left behind. In winter, it is easy to tell yourself you have plenty of time to meet your goals. When spring comes, however, you may feel pressured to fulfill all the promises you made to yourself back in January, February or March.

So, sit down and make a new list of things to do, scaled back and more realistic. Give yourself less to do. Schedule more time to relax and enjoy the wonderful changes taking place around you.

Fishing calendar

The moon is finally overhead at a reasonable time of day this week; you can sleep late, be on the water by 9 a.m. or so, eat lunch on the water and fish and doze into mid-afternoon. The two days just prior to the May 2 and 5 cold fronts ought to give you the best fishing conditions of the period. After passage of the fronts, try deeper water.

All of spring

From this fragile space in the year, we can travel to the whole panoply of early, middle and late spring. For just a few days, all of those seasons lie out totally accessible to anyone who will go to see them.

As May begins, Ohio lies between the first stirring of color in northern Minnesota and the leafing of all the trees along the Gulf of Mexico. If you travel to the Canadian border now, you will find the first cottonwoods budding there, the first crocus, the first daffodil and tulip foliage pushing out of the ground.

It is still the second or third week of March in Ohio River Valley time. The city grass is green, but the plantings along the roadsides are still brown, and the fields are all still dull from the cold.
Gaining on spring at the rate of approximately one day for every 30 miles south, you will the see the grass showing color near St. Cloud, Minn. By Minneapolis, it’s the first of April in our time: A few tulips are in bloom and forsythia is out. Daffodils are blooming. Maples flower and willows glow.

Into Wisconsin, down to Madison, the tree line comes alive with golds and pale greens, and dandelions appear in the lawns and fields. Scilla, bluebells and daffodils are in full flower, as are the first of the pink magnolias. Willows are starting to green up, and it’s April 10 in Southern Ohio Time.

Into Chicago and northern Indiana, the intensity of coloration grows with each mile, all the winter branches filling in. Redbud and apple tree blossoms announce the middle of middle spring. Then, Kentucky brings out full yellow garlic mustard by Lexington and middle May’s sweet rockets at the Tennessee border, moving the world quickly toward summer.

It’s clover time all the way now to the ocean – first the white, then pink, then the tall sweet clovers into South Carolina. The canopy closes in and loses its early brilliance by the time you pass into southern Georgia, where redbud and apple blossoms are falling. In Mobile, Ala., the leaves are full-size. Mulleins and thistles and lilies are open. It’s June.

4/23/2008