Temperatures could get as high as 70 degrees next week
Feb. 22-28, 2010
In our hearts those of us who know anything worth knowing know that in March a new year begins, and if we plan any new leaves it will be when the rest of Nature is planning them too.
-Joseph Wood Krutch
Lunar phase and lore

The Running Maple Sap Moon is full at 11:38 a.m. on Feb. 28. Rising in the afternoon and setting before dawn during most of the period, this moon is overhead in the middle of the night.
Full-moon weekends often bring more stress, conflict and crime. Avoid family arguments and risky behavior until the beginning of March. Although tempers may be running high this weekend, maple sap should also be running.

Tradition suggests that the two weeks after the late, full February moon should bring some of the best lunar conditions for planting root crops directly in the ground.

This should also be a superb time to set out new raspberry, blackberry and blueberry bushes, plant new fruit trees and dig horseradish.

Nights will be the most productive lunar time to fish this week. The moon will be overhead after dark, and fish should be especially eager to eat at the approach of the Feb. 27 and March 3 cold fronts.

March planets

Jupiter, having disappeared from the night sky early in the year, now returns with Venus before sunrise in Aquarius, low in the east.
Saturn is in Virgo, rising after sunset and crossing the sky throughout the night.

Mars travels with Cancer this month, following Orion into the dawn.
The evenings of March bring Castor and Pollux of Gemini directly overhead. Cancer follows close behind, carrying Mars with it.
Winter’s Orion has moved into the western sky, and its outrider, the Pleiades star group, disappears into the horizon just after midnight.
The pointers of the Big Dipper have moved deep into the center of the heavens and are indicating the North Star, to their northwest.

Weather patterns

This is the first week of the year (and the first week since last November) in which a high of 70 degrees becomes possible (10 percent)! And chances for afternoon highs in the teens and 20s drop to between 5-10 percent per day – the first time that has happened since early December.

Temperatures also climb into the 50s and 60s 30 percent of the time, but they reach the 30s and 40s 50-60 percent of the time, too.

Major March weather systems are due to cross the Mississippi River on March 2, 5 (usually the most severe front of the month), 9 (ordinarily followed by quite mild temperatures), 14, 19 (frequently the second-coldest front of March), 24 (often followed by the best weather so far in the year) and 29.

On March 2, the day’s length becomes a full two hours longer than it was on December’s shortest days. Now the span between sunrise and sunset is 11 hours, 20 minutes instead of 9 hours, 20 minutes.
On March 3, the sun reaches a full 70 percent of the way to equinox. On that date it lies at almost the exact position in the sky that it held on Oct. 11.

By March 1, the S.A.D. Index drops below 60 for the first time since the middle of November. Most people should be begin to notice a little relief from the winter blahs, and the more sensitive folks should be getting a touch of spring fever.
Almanac daybook

Feb. 22: Zeitgebers for this week of February include migrant crows returning with their young, the earliest cardinals singing around 6:45 a.m. and the first of migrating geese flying north.

Feb. 23: Road kills increase as the days lengthen, inviting turkey vultures to return. Wild multiflora roses sprout their first leaves.

Feb. 24: The sun reaches 60 percent of the way to equinox today. The cold front due to arrive in the nation’s midsection within a few days of Feb. 24 brings “Snowdrop Winter” to the land; but this weather system is usually the last really bad one of the first half of the year – except for the March 7 cold front.

Feb. 25: When sugaring time comes to a close, finches gradually turn their spring and summer color, their gold appearing when daffodils are blooming and pussy willows emerge all the way.

Feb. 26: Mountain bluebirds are coming back to Yellowstone. Bald eagles are laying eggs there, and ravens pair up for spring, frolicking as they court. In the desert of the Southwest, wildflower season has begun as far south as the Big Bend National Park along the Rio Grande.

Feb. 27: Many tulips, hyacinths and lilies of the valley are emerging from the ground in the East. Red and silver maples flower in Cincinnati. Red quince buds are flushed in Virginia. Woodcocks and brown-headed cowbirds are arriving in the mountains of North Carolina. Bobwhites are calling.

Today is Independence Day for people from the Dominican Republic. Do you have new kids or lambs (20-35 pounds) to sell for this holiday?

 Feb. 28: The moon is full today, its most troublesome position; avoid work and arguments. Eat dark chocolate. Spend an inordinate amount of time with your best people and pets. Take special care of your livestock and your car. Sit by the fire and dream.

Living with the seasons

After the full moon, start onions, garlic and other hardy root crops in flats or even in the ground. Dig parsnip and horseradish root. Set out the cold frames to warm up the soil. Pull back mulch in early planting areas.

As weather moderates, dock your goats’ tails, give a tetanus antitoxin and clip feet. Plant trees, shrubs, raspberries and root crops between now and the new moon.

Test your soil, then spread bone meal for your garden bulbs and fertilizer in the field garden.

If the weather is especially mild, start worming your sheep every 17 days. If the weather is cold, frost-seed the pastures. Wean January lambs. Schedule vaccinations and ear-tagging before weaning.
If you have pets or livestock, keep an eye out for an increase in the number of coyotes. Coyote attacks often increase as the weather becomes more temperate.

Almanack classics
Surprise!
By Hazel Rose
Muncie, Ind.

This happened in the 1930s. This elderly lady had the one son. He liked to drink strong drink, and he would forget his way home.
One moonlit night, about 1:00 in the morning, there came a knock upon our door. My mother answered the door, and there stood this lady saying that she could not find her son. Would my mother help locate him and get him home?

So, off they went. Eventually they found this person passed out in the barnyard. Being the Good Samaritans they were, they got him up, and my mother kept telling him he ought to be ashamed, treating his mother this way, statements with which the man completely agreed.

Then – lo and behold! They got him home, and the woman’s son was actually home with friends.

They ended up never knowing who the stranger they tried to help really was. And I never heard my mother laugh as much in my life as when she told about what they had done that night.