By WILLIAM FELKER
Poor Will's Almanack Nov. 23-29, 2015 The stars are down close to the trees, The air crisp, no wind, no cricket or bird. -August Derleth Lunar phase and lore The Second Spring Moon, at perigee on Nov. 23 and full on Nov. 25 at 5:44 p.m., wanes throughout the remainder of November, entering its final quarter on Dec. 3 at 2:40 a.m. Rising after dark and setting in the morning, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the night. The fat moon not only makes cold fishing more fruitful at midnight but provides abundant light for nighttime hikes during the Thanksgiving period. Lunar position in Taurus on Nov. 23-25 and in Cancer Nov. 27-29 is especially promising for the seeding of bedding plants and for starting paperwhites and amaryllis bulbs. The natural calendar Nov. 23: In the greenhouse, it is aloe flowering season and Christmas cactus flower season. Along the West Coast, this week brings the annual crab harvest season. Crawdad season starts in Louisiana with crawdads moving into flooded rice fields to feed on the remnants of that crop. Nov. 24: In the woods, second spring, the late greening of the undergrowth, is often halted now by November’s most bitter weather. Nov. 25: The most stubborn leaves come down, the heads of the thimble plants explode in the winds and from now on, below-zero temperatures are always a possibility. Nov. 26: Aldebaran, the most prominent star of Taurus, lies close to the setting moon. Nov. 27: At midnight, the sky will have the look of the peak of winter, Orion in the south, Autumn’s Great Square on the western horizon, Spring’s Regulus leading Leo out of the East. Nov. 28: Average low temperatures fall below freezing in almost all of the northern and central states. Nov. 29: Sunset reaches to within 1 minute of its earliest time of the year. Note on close of ‘natural year’ In Poor Will’s Almanack, I have designated the end of what I call the "natural year" (or year-in-nature) to be the point at which most of the leaves have fallen from most of the trees in most of the continental United States. In average years, the new natural year of 2016 consequently begins around the end of November, when early winter starts a new cycle of growth deep along the Gulf of Mexico. |
