And the Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

The snowdrop and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet; - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Phases of the Robin Chorus Moon

And the Goose Nesting Moon

April 1: the Moon is full.

April 10: The Moon enters its final quarter.

April 17: The Goose Nesting Moon is new.

April 24: The moon enters its second quarter.

May 1: The Moon is full.

The Weather of the Week Ahead

Two major weather systems, one arriving on the 2nd and another coming in on the 6th, usually dominate the first quarter of April in the Lower Midwest, increasing the chance of precipitation. Snow is most likely to fall on the 3rd, 4th and 5th. There is a 20 percent chance of a high in the 80s this week, and there is more than a 50 percent chance of an afternoon in the 60s or 70s. Still, the first quarter of the fourth month is its coldest quarter, and daily chances of frost remain steady at an average of 40 percent throughout the period.

Natural Calendar

Middle Spring begins at the opening of Field Corn and Sweet Corn Planting Seasons, Lettuce and Spinach and Peas, Carrot, Beet, Turnip, Onion, Collard, Kale, Brussels Sprouts and Potato Planting Seasons, Middle Spring Wildflower Season (violets, bluebells, twinleaf, bloodroot, purple cress, swamp buttercup and hepatica in flower most years).

Oats Planting Season is getting underway.

Forsythia Blossom Season and Weeping Cherry Flowering Season color the streets. It’s American Toad and Green Frog Song Season, the first week of Duckling and Gosling Hatching Season, the first week of Barn Swallow Season and House Wren Mating Season.

In cooler springs, Daffodil Season has started in the dooryards pacing bright blue Squill Season, filling in at the end of Early Spring’s Aconite and Snow Crocus Seasons. Throughout the Northern Hemisphere, all these seasons of Middle Spring may occur in different weeks or months, but most often, they appear together.

Average Blooming Dates for Wildflowers and Weeds

March 29: Spring Beauty, Hepatica, Bloodroot, Dutchman’s Britches

March 30: Small-flowered Bittercress

March 31: Virginia Bluebell, Cut-Leaved Toothwort

April 1: Early Season Daffodils, Grape Hyacinth, Ground Ivy

April 2: Forsythia, Box Elder, Yellow Violet, Rue Anemone

April 3: Small-flowered Buttercup, Creeping Phlox

April 4: Swamp Buttercup, Shepherd’s Purse

In the Field and Garden

Remove mulch from around rose bushes. Spread manure or other fertilizer before the major growing season gets underway. Complete all field planting preparations. Seven weeks remain until the most tender vegetables and flowers cane set out in the garden.

Commercial potato planting is typically underway, and farmers are band seeding alfalfa. Be sure your boars are getting enough vitamin E and selenium so they will be ready for breeding.

Plan to serve the graduation cookout market – high school and college graduations can start as early as the first week in April and extend into the middle of June.

Countdown to Summer

• Within a few days goldfinches will be all gold and the fat toads sing

• Two weeks until lilacs bloom in your dooryards

• Three weeks until all the honeysuckles flower

• Four weeks to morel and May apple blooming seasons

• Five weeks to the first rhubarb pie

• Six weeks to the great warbler migration through the Lower Midwest

• Seven weeks to the first peas from the garden

• Eight weeks until the first orange daylilies blossom

• Nine weeks until the high canopy begins shades the garden

• 10 weeks until the first mulberries are sweet for picking and cottonwood cotton drifts in the wind

Almanack Literature

The Most Amazing Fish Story (And It Is True)

By Donald Michael, Xenia, Ohio

When I was discharged from the Army after World War II, we were sitting around the supper table on our farm south of Bellbrook, Ohio. We were talking about all the things that are missed when you’re gone.

Dad said to me, “Let’s go fishing.” It was starting to get dark, so we went out behind the barn and dug some worms.

Taking a lantern, we went to the Little Miami River between Spring Valley and Waynesville. We both baited the hooks and I cast out.

There were tree limbs hanging out over the water, so dad decided to pull some line out and spin the bait around like a lasso, and it went out over the water and got caught on a tree limb.

He yanked on the line, and it broke.

He put on a new hook, baited up and tossed it out again the same way. It got caught again.

After several yanks, it let loose. When he pulled it in, both the hooks and bait came in. The barb of the second hook went into the eye of the first hook and both came back.

Dad belonged to the Lion’s Club in Bellbrook. They have what is called a Liars’ Club. Whoever could tell the biggest whopper would win a small prize. Nobody would believe that catching one fishhook into the eye of another hook could happen. If I hadn’t been with him and seen it happen, I would not believe it either. That is only one of the many things I remember about my dad.