Heap on more wood! The wind is chill,

But let it whistle as it will,

We’ll keep our Christmas merry still. – Sir Walter Scott

The Fifth Week of Early Winter

Phases of the Pollinating Pinetree Moon

Dec. 30: The Pollinating Pinetree Moon is new.

Weather Trends

Highs in the 50s or 60s are more likely on the 23rd and 24th than on most December days, such warmth occurring 20 percent of the years. Christmas Eve brings precipitation 50 percent of all the years, but a white Christmas comes more like 35 percent of the time (since sometimes that precipitation arrives in the form of rain). Christmas day is generally cold and partly sunny, snow remaining on the ground three to four years in 10. The arrival of the fifth high pressure system of the month on or about the 25th often brings snow accumulation (or at least flurries), and chances for highs in the 50s or 60s are only 5-10 percent. One Christmas in a quarter century remains below zero.

The 25th and 26th are historically some of the brightest days of December. It is not unusual for the 27th to initiate a slight warming trend; as the New Year’s weather system approaches, however, the sky usually grows cloudy, making the 28th one of the year’s gloomiest days.

The Seasonal Calendar

But let the months go round, a few short months,

And all shall be restored. These naked shoots

Barren as lances, among which the wind

Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,

Shall put their graceful foliage on again,

And more aspiring and with ampler spread

Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost. – William Cowper

 

Deep Winter, the coldest period of the year throughout North America, generally last until Jan. 28. Sunrise reaches its latest time of the year on this date.

The outside garden is almost always gone by now. Collards and kale, and well-mulched carrots and beets can survive to this point in season, but January’s cold spells eventually take them. Indoors, however, tomato and pepper plants, seeded in middle summer and brought inside before frost, could still be producing fruit in a south window. Basil, parsley, rosemary, thyme and oregano may also continue to provide fresh seasoning. And the seeds of bedding plants sprout under lights, softening winter with their April green.

Tonight, Orion is almost overhead at bedtime, and Gemini towers behind it. The evenings of early spring push Orion deep into the west, bring Cancer and Leo overhead, and by the time late spring reaches the 40th Parallel, Orion will have disappeared from the dark sky, and boxy Libra will be rising in the southeast, the Corona Borealis above it.

Journal

My diaries have become timetables, lists of annual events in nature. The obsession with detail is sufficient in itself; it is a peaceful neurosis of record taking. But I often think the notebooks ought to be useful for something other than tracking the seasons.

I have had plenty of practice at taking notes. My former work in academe promoted the illusion that individual, unconnected pieces of information all have their places in a grand context of history.

So, it’s not unusual for me to feel that the length of comfrey leaves on April 16th of a given year should somehow hold significance. In fact, the size of my comfrey on that day in 1983 was eight inches. The following year, after a very cold spring, it was only two inches. In 1985, it was six inches. In 1986, nine inches. This past year, seven inches.

It is true that the length of a comfrey leaf, like the state of any leaf, can measure the quality of a season as precisely as a scientific instrument. And that ought to provide rationale enough for anyone who feels the need to measure leaves.

But for me, there is more. I think it comes from growing up with the old Catholic notion of indulgences. I miss indulgences. I miss being able to say a few power-laden words and, in seconds, create ultimate meaning with ultimate practical application in heaven.

These days, indulgences are out of favor and I just keep on writing things down. My notes, I realize, seem to carry few matters of ultimate concern. Who knows if the angels read them. On the other hand, even they may not get me a higher place in heaven, little by little, they are helping me figure out where I am on earth.

Almanack Classics

Good Memories

By Hallie Moser, Defiance, Ohio

I am old enough to remember the horse and buggy days, and I also am old enough to remember the first car we had.

My father came in the house and hold my mother he was going to Sherwood and buy a car. She told him to buy a new one, not one someone else had. Anyway, one of my brothers took him to town to Moat’s Ford, and he bought a 1918 Ford touring car. They told him how to start and stop the car and sent him on his way.

We lived down a lane, so we all went outside to see him and his new car. He came driving down the lane, and when he got to the barnyard, he leaned back, gripped the steering wheel and yelled, “Whoa! Whoa!”

He finally came to his senses and put on the brakes before he hit the barnyard gate.

We had the car until 1926 and sold it at auction after Dad passed away. It was a good car, and Dad took good care of it.

Good memories!

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.

FITG GIFT

TRDIF DRIFT

FEDFINS SNIFFED

TRIF RIFT

WSTFI SWIFT

TTHRFI THRIFT

TILF LIFT

FIRSTH SHRIFT

FEDWHIF WHIFFED

FIFEDM MIFFED

This Week’s Rhyming Sckrambler

RAYE

REEHSP

RIPI

EJRE

EHCER

PSREA

RVEE

RACLE

RESTE

AMSER

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Copyright 2024, W.L. Felker.