Feb. 11-17, 2019 Now every motion of the day presents another portion of the Spring, the calling of the cardinal and the jay, the robin’s whinny, juncos on the wing. -Robert Ames The Skunk Courting Moon enters its second quarter at 5:26 a.m. on Feb. 12, waxes through its second quarter all week and reaches perigee (its position closest to Earth) at 4:06 a.m. Feb. 19. A few hours later moon is full, at 10:54 a.m. Perigee and full moon make a supermoon, the second of 2019. The moon will be overhead throughout the night, making that period the most fruitful for early fishing. The powerful moon is likely to increase migration and courting of birds, salamanders and small mammals. Weather trends Feb. 15 has the highest incidence of highs in the 50s and 60s of any time so far in February – a full 40 percent of the afternoons. That’s the first time since Dec. 15 the likelihood of mild temperatures has been so great. On the other hand, the second supermoon of 2019 occurs on Feb. 19, increasing the likelihood of severe weather and seasonal stress. Since the night has shortened considerably since January’s supermoon, however, the likelihood of seasonal stress should be much less than during full-moon time last month. The natural calendar Feb. 11: More than half the pussy willows have opened in a typical year. And all along the 40th Parallel, people are getting ready to tap maples for sap. Feb. 12: The day’s length is a full hour longer than it was on Dec. 26. Azaleas bloom in Alabama. In the lowlands of Mississippi, swamp buttercups, violets and black medic are open. In the lower Midwest, skunk cabbages are opening. Feb. 13: Owlets and young bald eagles grow inside their eggs. Riding the southwest winds, meadowlarks, starlings, cedar waxwings, snow buntings, eagles, killdeer and ducks of all kinds migrate, accelerating the appearance of spring. Feb. 14: When you see small brown moths on warmer afternoons, you know that ducks are looking for nesting sites. Striped bass are often biting in lakes across the lower Midwest as the sun warms the shallows. When you see tulip foliage emerging from the ground, horned owlets hatch in the woods and sweet corn is coming up along the Gulf coast. Redbuds and azaleas are in full bloom in northern Florida, rhododendrons just starting to come in. Feb. 15: Sometimes the weather doesn't change for the better in the middle of the year’s second month; sometimes the cold is worse than in the middle of January. But it's the sound that changes and fills the silence of dormancy, songs accumulating like spring leaves. Feb. 16: Fields of daffodils open in southern Georgia and, throughout the South, honeybees and carpenter bees collect pollen from yellow dandelions, silver and red maples, blue toadflax, white clover and mouse-eared chickweed. Feb. 17: When wild multiflora roses sprout their first leaves in the Ohio Valley, wildflower season has begun in the Southwest and bald eagles are laying their eggs in Yellowstone. Field and garden As the moon wanes, tuck a few radish, beet and turnip seeds into the garden. The waning moon is good for root crops, and when the weather warms up a few weeks from now, you may have the first sprouts in the county. Think about ordering roses, hawthorn, raspberry, tansy, hollyhock, peppermint, thyme and chamomile, all herbs that fight abortion in your flock and herd (and, of course, in humans too). Spray fruit trees with dormant oil when high temperatures climb into the 40s and freezing temperatures are expected to stay away for 24-48 hours. If you hear spring peepers (they sound like “peep peep”) or wood frogs (they sound like a flock of ducks), you really know it’s almost time to let the livestock out to the driest, greenest piece of ground. If you need a guard animal for your goats, consider getting a cow. If raised with goats, a single cow will think it’s a goat and will keep dogs and coyotes from threatening the herd. Don’t let your pigs, especially your piglets and weaner pigs, get caught in late-winter drafts. Wind chill can kill a young pig. In the countdown to spring, from now: •Just one week to the first significant snowdrop bloom and to major pussy willow-emerging season •Two weeks to crocus season, and owl-hatching and woodcock-mating time •Three weeks to the beginning of the morning robin chorus before sunrise •Four weeks to daffodil season and silver maple blooming season, and the first golden goldfinches •Five weeks to tulip season, and the first wave of blooming woodland wildflowers and the first butterflies •Six weeks until golden forsythia blooms and skunk cabbage sends out its first leaves, and the lawn is long enough to cut •Seven weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the dark and corn-planting time begins •Eight weeks until the peak of middle spring wildflowers in the woods •Nine weeks until the Great Dandelion and Violet Bloom begins •10 weeks until all the fruit trees flower Best of the Almanac The Dancing Stove By William Bidlack, Glad Acre Farm Oakwood, Ohio I remember a gentleman, Harvey something-or-other, telling about an adventure he had one cold winter morning with his Wilson Heater. Now, a Wilson Heater is an oval-shaped wood-burning stove with a cast iron top and bottom, but rather thin body. It has a replaceable inner liner. Seems that Harvey had been stretching his woodpile by cutting rubber tires into chunks and adding a chunk once in a while. That was a common practice back then, before the tire companies started putting cables inside the beads of the tires. I guess it worked well until one day Harvey came across an old, thin, warn-out front tire off his little AC tractor. It didn’t seem like more than his heater could ingest. But it was. Harvey said that stove huffed and puffed and snorted. The stovepipe got red clear to the chimney. “Why,” Harvey said, “that there heater got up and danced a jig all around the room.” He claimed the story was true, and I can believe it because my mom overfed ours one time with dry corncobs. If you have ever owned a Wilson Heater, you will also believe it. |
