There are afternoons in late autumn or early winter, during that recessive period of the year when the sun is low in the southern sky…. Snow has not yet fallen, or has thawed and gone, the land is brown, dun-colored, grey, with every vestige of the vernal seasons vanished save only for the tight buds on the maples. But in this very drabness...the sunlight lingers; it falls at an angle which invests every blade and seed-head with a life it has at no other time.. – August Derleth

The Third Week of Early Winter

Phases of the Bedding Plant Moon And Pollinating Pinetree Moon

Dec. 8: The Bedding Plant Moon enters its second quarter.

Dec. 15: The moon is full.

Dec. 22: The moon enters its final quarter.

Dec. 30: The Pollinating Pinetree Moon is new.

The Planets

Venus in Sagittarius is the Evening Star, huge and bright in the western sky after sundown. Saturn in Aquarius is along the southern horizon at dusk. On the other side of the sky, Jupiter in Taurus rises before Orion after dark. Mars in Cancer follows Orion in the night.

Weather Trends

The third week of December almost always brings in a strong cold wave between the 15th and the 17th, and if this front arrives on its earliest date, the 15th, expect another front on the 19th or 20th. The coldest December days, those with better than a 35 percent chance of highs in the 20s or below, all come at this time of the month: the 17th, 18th, 19th, 25th, and 26th. The most bitter day this week in weather history is the 19th, with a 30 percent chance of highs only in the teens. And more below-zero temperatures occur between the 18th and the 26th than on any other December mornings. Precipitation is common throughout the period, with every day this week bringing a 50 percent chance of rain or snow except December 16th, which is typically the driest and the sunniest day between the 15th and 25th.

The Shooting Stars

Late in the second week of December, the Geminid meteors arrive out of the northern heavens near Castor and Pollux, the twins of Gemini, to the upper left of giant Orion. Several days after the Geminids, the Ursid Meteors fly out from the Little Dipper, a small constellation just to the east of the North Star.

Almanack Classics

Blizzard

By Jeff Crawford, Cedarville, Ohio

“My legs are all fuzzy and my feet are spiked.” That’s what my 5-year-old daughter said after I carried her on my shoulders across the frozen field. And why was I doing that? Well, because of the blizzard of ’77.

We lived at the end of a half-mile long lane off Port William-Paintersville Road. Rough weather was forecast for that Sunday and I spent the day watching NFL playoff games. As the snow started that evening, I went out to break a path down the lane with our 1965 Chrysler New Yorker. No Ohio snow could withstand that beast of a Motown car.

I got a running start and the New Yorker held its own for a bit. Then, like a whale on a beach, it came to a sudden stop. And there wasn’t going to be any backing up either, at least not until morning.

Before tackling the car, I decided to walk to Port William. I noticed that I was walking on top of the snow drifts. I could kick and jump up and down and not break through. These drifts were unlike any I’d seen: solid all the way down. I never knew snow could pack so tight you could walk on top of it. Inside light leather boots and thick wool socks my feet were dry and warm.

But the New Yorker still needed to be rescued. I popped the hood, and there was only snow, no sign of an engine at all. I dug out the engine and it started right up. In a few more hours, I got the car off the lane and out to the road through a cornfield. The cornfield had been combined and swept almost clean by the same wind that dumped all that snow on the lane. The lane didn’t thaw for a month and for most of February, we parked on the road and walked back and forth across the field. And that’s why I was carrying my daughter on my shoulders and why her legs were all fuzzy and her feet spiked.

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 another 15 points to your IQ.

SPAC CAPS

PSGA GAPS

APNS NAPS

SSPAN SNAPS

ASPY YAPS

HSCAP CHAPS

APSLP LAPPS

SPAR RAPS

PRSTSA TRAPS

SZAP ZAPS

This Week’s Rhyming Sckrambler

SPCLA

SALP

SSPA

ATSP

SEALP

SPARCS

PARTS

ASPLF

SAMP

LSPAS

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Copyright 2024, W. L. Felker