There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness…. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. – Thomas Merton

The Moon in November

Nov. 13: The moon enters its final quarter

Nov. 20-21: The moon is new

Nov. 28: The moon enters its second quarter

The Weekly Weather

The 15th, 19th, and 20th are the days this week most likely to be mild with highs in the 60s. The fifth cold front of the month comes through at the end of the period, however, and the 21st brings a slight possibility for a high only in the 20s. The 15th is the day most likely to bring precipitation, having a 60 percent chance of rain or snow. The 20th is also fairly damp, carrying a 50 percent chance. The 18th is the driest day of the week; it has only a 20 percent chance of showers or flurries. 

The Sun

The Sun enters the Early Winter sign of Sagittarius on Nov. 22. At the end of November, sunset has reached to within just a few minutes of its earliest time throughout the nation. The latest sunrise, however, is still about half an hour away. The Sun’s declination moves from 14 degrees, 13 minutes (more than two thirds of the way from fall equinox to winter solstice) on the first of the month to 21 degrees, 32 minutes (more than 80 percent of the way to solstice) by Nov. 30.

THE STARS

Two hours before midnight, the sky carries the forms of early winter: the Pleiades, Taurus and Orion are rising, the Milky Way cuts across the sky from east to west, Andromeda lies directly over Ohio, and the Summer Triangle is setting over Dayton.

Farmiing And Gardening

Falling leaves let you know that it is time for fertilizing the pasture and garden.  Manure and compost that is spread now will have a chance to work its way into the ground all winter.

Order legume seed for winter pastures. Start all your bedding plants under lights at new moon to get a head start on spring.

Schedule your frost seeding for January and February. Deep water all perennials before the ground freezes, especially if your garden suffered from the drought this summer.

The Natural Calendar

Rhe final rites of fall include a chronology of the last leaves and fruits. Major losses occur on beeches and pears as autumn ends. Sometimes oaks are the holdouts, sometimes forsythia or a hardy honeysuckle. Sometimes sweet gums and poplars keep a few leaves this late in the year; sometimes protected oak-leaf hydrangeas, Osage, mock orange or lilacs outlast all the other trees and shrubs.

The fruit of the bittersweet continues to fall to the undergrowth. Pale witch hazel flowers are shriveling. Privets are bare, their blue berries revealed. Euonymus fruits are losing their white outer shells, orange cores unveiled by the cold.

New England aster and stonecrop foliage turned yellow in early November; now the plants are shedding. Late garden lettuce and the autumn growth of rhubarb have withered. Hosta leaves have collapsed into the remnants of maples, ginkgoes and white mulberries. The gooseneck turns chocolate brown. Most all the seeds are gone from milkweed pods; just a few wisps of down cling to their shells. Fragile pokeweed stems have exploded in the frost. The last roses have been frozen by nights in the teens.

Journal

The third week of November is Skunk Cabbage Budding Season, a season of the wetlands that lasts until Skunk Cabbage Blooming Season in February. Now Winter Wheat Greening Season greens the fields as Bluebird Migrating Season and Cricketsong Season close. Throughout town, Silver Maple Leafdrop Season foretells next week’s Beech Leafdrop Season. At bird feeders, Junco Season adds juncos to the sparrows and cardinals. On the high wires Sparrow Hawk Season arrives. Bittersweet Fruit Dropping Season comes to the bittersweet vines, and Decorative Pear Leafturn Season transforms Xenia Avenue.

In the greenhouse, it is Aloe Flowering Season. Along the West Coast, this week is the annual Crab Harvest Season. Poinsettia Season begins in Yellow Springs in Ohio as Crawdad Season starts in Louisiana, crawdads moving into flooded rice fields to feed on the remnants of that crop. 

Almanack Literature

Always Look Where You’re Going

By Eunice Hicks, Willard, Ohio

One evening when she came back from the outhouse, Mom told Dad, “Tommie, there’s got to be another outhouse built.”

Dad said then he would build another one beside the old one. He would tear the other one down later.

So one morning, Mom and I and little Sister Polly walked up to the barn, and Mom found out one of her hens hatched out a gang of little chickens, or bitties, as Mom said.

Then Mom said, “I can’t let the hen and little bitties stay at the barn. Some varmint will get them,” meaning some animals.

So she said, “I know where I will put them,” and she took them to the old outhouse beside the new one, but she didn’t tell Dad.

Then one morning early, Dad walked out to the outhouse, and he went into the old outhouse instead of the new one. That old hen flogged him so badly he didn’t take time to get his pants all the way up!

He came back to the house and said, “Rose, why did you put the old hen and her chicks in that old outhouse? Darn near scared the wits out of me!”

Mom laughed and laughed and said to Dad, “The next time, look where you’re going!”

Then all our family laughed together.