By Bill Felker

Winter by the fire. Outside the rain Becomes mist, then fog, then sleet. Great Husbandman, I think about your fields. How well you make them, Lord. – Antonio Machado

The Moon, the Stars, the Meteors and the Sun

The Sandhill Crane Migration Moon waxes throughout the week, reaches apogee, its position farthest from Earth on Dec. 17 and then becomes completely full at 11:35 p.m. on Dec. 18. Rising in the evening and setting in the morning, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the night. The best lunar time for fishing or scouting for game will, therefore, be the middle of the day, especially as the cold fronts of Dec. 20 and 25 approach.

The shortest days of the year are December 19-25. Winter solstice for 2021 occurs at 5:44 a.m. on Dec. 21. The day’s length at that time will be a little more than nine hours and a quarter throughout the region.

Orion is the most obvious of all the winter’s constellations, and around him cluster some of the easiest stars to identify. Leading Orion into winter is red Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus. In front of Taurus, the seven sisters of the Pleiades lie almost in the center of the sky. Above the Hunter’s raised arms, Capella is the largest light in Auriga. Above and behind Orion, Castor and Pollux, the brightest stars of Gemini mark the east. Trailing along in the southeast is Sirius, the giant Dog Star.

The Ursid meteors fall through the Little Dipper, near the North Star this week, peaking on Dec. 21-22.

Weather Trends

The third week of December almost always brings in a strong cold wave from the 15th to 17th, and if this frigid front arrived on its earliest date, the 15th, expect another on the 19th or 20th. Most high temperatures are in the 30s and 40s, but warm 50s and 60s come an average of 15-20 percent of the time. However, the coldest December days, those with better than a 35 percent chance of temperatures in the 20s or below, all come at this time of year: the 17th, 18th, 19th, 25th and 26th.  The most bitter day for this period in weather history is the 19th, with a 30 percent chance of highs only in the teens. This year’s full Moon is likely to raise those chances.

Zeitgebers

(Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year)

Fallen leaves are matting down from the rain and snow. Freezing and thawing, their bright middle-autumn colors slowly disappear, faded to a uniform, dull brown.

The gull migration season is usually over by today, ending major bird migration activity for the region.

In milder winters, the foliage of henbit, creeping Charlie, asters, ragwort and hemlock work their way through the garden mulch. New curly dock is often growing back in the wetlands. The freshest spears can be picked and used for salad greens or sautéed with onions and maybe a small piece of bacon.

Mind and Body

The S.A.D. Index, which measures seasonal stress on a scale from 1 to 100, remains in the 80s for most of the week, reflecting the potency of the full Moon, as well as the shortest days of the year and the winter cold.

In the Field and Garden

In southern Florida, the mangos are in full bloom now and will produce fruit for harvest in late June through August. Ruby red grapefruits are ready to eat in the groves north of Miami.

Odds against the survival of garden vegetables rise sharply as the round Moon and the full force of the Dec. 15 cold front combined to attack the area.

As the Moon wanes, prune suckers and dead branches, but don’t cut branches on which you want spring flowers or summer fruit.

Lunar strength and some of the most powerful high-pressure systems of the year continue to create dangerous conditions for abortions in livestock. Take special care with those animals.

ALMANACK LITERATURE

Pee-Wee, the Little Lamb

By Frances M. Vander Weide, Jenison, Mich.

On a very cold winter night in the winter of 1936 on a small Indiana farm, a mother sheep had two babies. One was a nice big lamb, and the other baby was real small. The little one was too small, weak and cold to get up and get some milk from the mother, and so the mother finally started rejecting the small one.

The farmer noticed this and carried the little baby lamb to the farmhouse, where it would be warm. The farmer’s wife decided to call her Pee-wee because she was so tiny.

She warmed some milk and tried to get a few drops on the lamb’s lips, but she was so cold her little mouth was almost frozen shut. So, the farmer’s wife took a spoon and pried open the mouth to get a few sips of the warm milk in her mouth. It tasted so good to little lamb.

Next, she fixed a warm, lined box for Pee-Wee that night and sat the box by the stove. Early the next morning, they hurried in to see if Pee-Wee was OK, and they heard a faint little “baa-baa” and they knew she had survived. This time Pee-Wee lifted up her tiny head to reach for the nipple on the bottle to get more of the good, warm milk.

Several times a day, the farmer’s wife would take a warm bottle of milk to her. Soon she began to grow bigger, and soon she needed a larger box in which to stand and walk around to sleep in at night in the kitchen behind the stove.

Finally, one day Pee-Wee was strong enough to be able to go back to the barn and live with the other sheep. Soon spring came and Pee-Wee was running and playing with the other lambs. But even with all the sheep in the flock, you could always spot Pee-Wee because she was still the smallest of all.

Later when she grew up, she became a mother herself to a baby lamb, and every year she would have a new baby. Many of those years Pee-Wee had twins and she always took real good care of them. During the time when the mothers and babies would make the trek back the lane to the clover field, Pee-Wee became the leader of the flock and would lead the way, and the others followed behind her, even though she was still the smallest of all.

Every year, the farmer would send the bigger lambs and older sheep off to the market. At the market, they were sold for meat. However, the farmer never did send Pee-Wee to the market as she was so special. She got to stay and live at the farm. She lived happily ever after. When death came for her in the early 1950s, she was buried on the farm where she was born.

Note from Frances: The farmer and his wife were my parents, Vernice and Viola Cranfill, and their farm was near Knightstown, Ind. Pee-Wee was born in 1936; I was born in 1937, and my brother, Ira, in 1939.

Poor Will’s Almanack for 2022 Is Still Available

Order from www.amazon.com or visit www.poorwillsalmanack.com to look at a sample of this year’s features and to order an autographed copy of your book. You may also order by sending a $22 check for each autographed copy (includes Priority mail before Christmas) to Poor Will at the address below.

Poor Will Wants Your Stories

Poor Will pays $5 for unusual and true farm, garden, animal and even love stories used in this almanack. Send yours to Poor Will’s Almanack at P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387 or to wlfelker@gmail.com.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S SCKRAMBLER

In order to estimate your SCKRAMBLER IQ, award yourself 15 points for each word unscrambled, adding a 50-point bonus for getting all of them correct. If you find a typo, add 15 points to your IQ.

PAIN                  NAIP

STRAIN              TRASIN

STAIN                TINAS

RAIN                  IRAN

REMAIN            MERNIA

OBTAIN              BOAINT

RETAIN              NERIAT

PLAIN                  PANIL

ABSTAIN              NAABSTI

VAIN                    INAV

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

LITYABI

AAAIIILLBVYT

BILITYRISI

PONRESSIBLIITY

ABILITYSID

BILITYLIA

VABILITYLI

SSENIBILYIT

CIABILITYSO

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Copyright 2021 – W. L. Felker