By Bill Felker

All things swell…the earth, trees, plants, wood and even iron. Why should not the same thing be true of our minds? We must expand, like the leaves, if we would receive all the cleansing water in our souls. – Charles Burchfield, Journal, April 12, 1914

The Final Week of Early Spring

The Black-Capped Chickadee Moon enters its last quarter at 7 a.m. on March 25. It then wanes until it becomes the Gilded Goldfinch Moon on April 1 at 1:24 a.m. Rising in the morning darkness and setting in the afternoon or evening this moon passes overhead before lunch time, encouraging creatures to be more active around that time, especially as the cold fronts of March 24 and 29 approach.

A few hours after sundown, Leo and Regulus are directly above the center of the United States. The Pleiades and Taurus lead Orion into the far west. The Big Dipper protrudes deep into the center of the sky. By 6 a.m., the stars have become a prophecy of late summer, August’s Vega almost overhead, Hercules a little to its east, the Northern Cross to its west.

Weather Trends

The last front of Early Spring introduces tornado season to the nation’s midsection, and the likelihood of a thunderstorm is six times greater this week than it was last week. As this front moves across Pennsylvania, a significant chance for a high in the 80s occurs for the first time this year in the lower Midwest. In the warmest years of all, frost can be gone until October or November. Since the new moon occurs this year on April 1, however, expect frost, flurries and wind as March comes to a close.

Zeitgebers: Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year

When you hear the robin chorus at 6:30 a.m., then look for wild geranium and columbine leaves growing in the woods. Scarlet cup mushrooms could be swelling in the dark.

When you see the first blue periwinkles open among last year’s fallen leaves, then summer’s lizard’s tail is sprouting in the river mud, and in the Southwest, wildflower season is peaking.

When you see golden forsythia flowering, then you know that middle spring has come to your township, and in the woods, the first major wave of wildflowers –bloodroots and Dutchman’s britches and more – will be in bloom.

Look for morel mushrooms when May apples push out from the ground and cowslip buds in the swamp. That’s when leaves come out on skunk cabbage. Parsnips bloom, deer are growing their new antlers and sunfish are moving to spawn in shallow waters.

Among the migrant birds to watch for: great blue herons, hooded warblers and pine warblers, chipping sparrows and snow buntings.

In the Field and Garden

The appearance of cabbage butterflies tells you that this is one of the most favorable of all times this spring to seed hardy vegetable and flower seeds directly in the garden.

Although several mornings of frost are likely during the next 45 days, even tender sweet corn (at least a few rows) can be planted now for late June or early July harvests.

The first grass will need cutting in fewer than 20 days: tune up the lawn mower. Put in first field corn, potatoes, sugar beets, carrots and beets. Feed bedding plants in containers or flats and continue to bring them indoors when heavy rain or frost threatens.

Mind and Body

Most people have now moved from winter doldrums to spring fever, a welcome shift in the body clock. But since the moon becomes new on April 1 (and becomes much stronger than it is right now), the S.A.D. Index (which measures the forces thought to be associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder) rises into the troublesome 50s for several days as April arrives.

Almanack Classics

April Fool

By Susan Perkins

Hardtimes Farm, Kentucky

In dad’s younger days, he loved to go to Colorado deer hunting with his buddies. Dad always worked extra jobs to raise money to take deer hunting every year. He was a furnace and air conditioner repair man. When he had to install a new furnace or air conditioner, he would bring part of the old appliance home. He would sit in the basement and strip the metal from the appliance that was no longer good. He would put copper in one pile, brass in one, and so on. He did this for months till he had several large piles to sell. He would load them in his old van and haul them to a junk dealer and sell his wares. Then, somewhere in the house, he would stash the money to go to Colorado. We didn’t have the extra money for him to just go hunting.

One year he hid a $100 bill under the oval braided rug in the living room. I’m sure he felt no one would find it there. But one day mom was walking through the dining room and snagged her shoe on the rug and flipped it up. She about fainted when she saw the bill under the rug.

Needless to say, it was spent before dad even knew it was gone.

The next year, for April Fool’s Day, Dad tore the corner of a one hundred dollar bill off in a triangle shape and glued it to a piece of blank paper the same size of paper currency. He slipped it under the rug with just a tiny piece of the green bill showing.

When mom came home from work and walked into the dining room, her eyes fell on the bill.

“Ah-ha,” she hollered, and threw back the rug only to see a note that read, APRIL FOOL’S!”

***

Poor Will’s Almanack pays $4 for stories used in this column. Send your stories to Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387

Poor Will’s Almanack for 2022 is still available, containing the S.A.D. Index, as well as natural history essays for each week of the year, monthly weather reports, some of the best reader stories of all time, and a monthly farm and garden calendar. Purchase your copy from Amazon or, for an autographed Almanack, order from www.poorwillsalmanack.com. Or send $22 to Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387.

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Copyright 2022 – W. L. Felker