October 23-29, 2006
What I would really like is to have winter, but only outside the area that is my garden; my garden would be the West Indies, but only until spring. That is what I would really like.
-Jamaica Kincaid

The astronomical calendar for the third week of middle fall:
The Skunk Cabbage Moon waxes throughout the remainder of October, coming into its second quarter at 4:25 p.m. on Oct. 29. Rising near midday and setting late in the evening, the crescent moon will be overhead in the afternoon.

Daylight Savings Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 29. Set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed on Oct. 28. Some people set their wristwatch (but not their other timepieces) back 15 minutes at a time throughout the Saturday before the change. That practice helps to soften the psychological effect of the reversion to Standard Time.

The sun’s declination moves from about 65 percent of the way from fall equinox to winter solstice on Nov. 1 to more than 80 percent by Nov. 30.

Weather patterns
Oct. 30: The period between Oct. 23 and Halloween is often one of the mildest and driest times of autumn. Although the final October cold front is due on Oct. 30 or 31, the days following the arrival of that weather system typically extend gentle fall weather through the first few days of November.

Nov. 2: As the Halloween high-pressure system moves east, it is often followed by a brief, second Indian Summer, which can last into the first week of the eleventh month. When the November 2nd cold front does arrive, however, (sometimes it comes as late as Nov. 5), the major snow season begins for the North and the nation’s midsection.

Natural year
When the leaves of the Korean lilac turn yellow green and most of the sycamore leaves are down, then watch for young raccoons born in early fall to be crossing the road at night.

When mature aloe plants blossom in the greenhouse, then the leaves of the sweet gum and redbud trees are falling.

When pale brown Asian ladybeetles swarm near your house, looking for a place to spend the winter, then herring gulls migrate across the countryside.

When leaves come down on peach trees, then most potatoes have been dug, and the hay has all been cut for the year.

When the temperature falls to the low 20s, then look for the Osage and the white mulberry leaves to come down.

When the berries of the euonymus vine are white, then bittersweet berries are dark orange.

Mind and body
The S.A.D. Index, which measures the forces that contribute to seasonal affective disorders on a scale of 1 to 100, falls from the 50s down to a milder 40 two days before Halloween. The increasing odds for cloudy, chilly weather and the rapidly shortening day keep the Index relatively high, in spite of the moon’s weak position.

Best fishing and hunting
The waxing moon will be overhead in the afternoon this week, and if you hunt and fish after lunch as the barometer drops prior to the October 30th and November 2nd cold fronts, your chances for finding fish and game should increase.

Almanack literature
The Electric Pumpkin by Susan Perkins, Hardtimes Farm, Kentucky My dad was the world’s best practical joker. He was a true master at inventing jokes no one had ever heard of.

One Halloween he came home from work with the biggest pumpkin I had ever seen. He set it on the kitchen table and began cleaning it. He was very secretive as to his intentions for the monster pumpkin, but it was plain by the way he snickered and laughed to himself he was up to something big.

I grew up in St Louis and being a practical joker myself, I wondered why Dad would place such a huge target out on the front porch. I was confident the giant pumpkin would not survive the first hour of darkness and would end up in a splattered mess on the sidewalk.

After Dad finished cleaning the pumpkin, he went down to the basement and returned with a roll of thin copper wire. By now my mom, my brother Kenny and I were really caught up by Dad’s actions. It did no good to ask him what he was doing; our questions fell on deaf ears.

Dad wove the copper wire in and out of the pumpkin, starting at the top and working his way down till the pumpkin was a weave of copper wire. He got up from the table and returned to the basement. He came back with the electric fence charger.

Next, he went out on the front porch, down the steps and got the garden hose. He wet the ground beneath the banister where it was obvious the pumpkin was going to sit. On returning to the kitchen, he handed the charger to my brother, who knew to follow Dad to the front porch. Dad carefully picked up the pumpkin and everyone headed for the front porch. Once there, dad hooked the charger to the copper wire on the pumpkin.

Now I know this sounds awful, but kids tried all night to destroy that pumpkin. After getting their socks shocked off, they would holler and let go, throwing it into the air. By the end of the night, the pumpkin was severely beat up.

My brother and I spied from the upstairs window on the city kids who thought they would score on the giant pumpkin.

My dad died last February. Walt, my oldest brother, stood up at the funeral and told the story of the electric pumpkin. He was serving in Vietnam when this happened, but the story has been told so many times down through the years, it became one of his special memories of dad.

The room burst into laughter after Walt finished telling the story of the electric pumpkin. For a few moments, he lifted the sadness that had come into our lives.

Poor Will’s Scrambler
In order to estimate your SCRAMBLER 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.

DAFE, FADE
EADLG, GLADE
AAEDRP, PARADE
CHRDAAE, CHARADE
EDASURC, CRUSADE
ADEOCKTS, STOCKADE
CLNNDEAOO, COLONNADE
AEWD, WADE
DFRAAI, AFRAID
EARTD, TRADE

Here is this week’s rhyming Scrambler:

ABD
ADLG
DAMON
UADLCN
DDA
LCDNRIOA
DDNRTIIA
DIAMPLYO
AADDBG
ADP

This farm news was published in the Oct. 18, 2006 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.