Like the moment just before someone first told you they loved you: Spring is like that. – Catherine O’Kane

The Moon and Planets

The Robin Mating chorus Moon wanes throughout the week, entering its final quarter on April 4 at 5:01 a.m. Rising after midnight and setting in the middle of the day, this moon passes overhead in the morning, stimulating creatures to be more active at that time, especially as the barometer falls in advance of the April 2 and 6 cold fronts.

Jupiter and Saturn are the earliest planets to rise on these April mornings, continuing their residence in Capricorn. Find them seeming to almost touch the moon on the 6th and 7th after midnight. Once again, Venus moves east (retrograde), continuing to be the brightest but latest Morning Star in Aries. Mars stays in Taurus, the red Evening Star deep in the west after dark.

Weather Trends

In the year’s fourth month, the average arrival dates for weather systems are April 2 (the most likely to bring tornadoes), 6, 11 (the most likely to bring frost to fruit trees in Appalachia and the Lower Midwest), 16, 21, 24 and 28. Full Moon on April 26 (combined with perigee on the 27th and the April 28th cold front) and new moon on April 11 are likely to increase chances of frost and for storms.

Zeitgebers

(Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year)

May apple spears are up in the woods. The first buckeyes, apple and peach trees leaf out. Flickers and pileated woodpeckers call. Termites are swarming, looking for new nesting sites.

The first green-bottle flies hatch in the sun and a few mosquitoes emerge from warm sloughs.

Monarch butterflies have usually reached the Deep South from Mexico, moving across Texas, then to Louisiana and Georgia.

From North Carolina into Oklahoma, plum trees are full of flowers, and the pears start to open.

Loons return to the lakes of the Midwest and Northeast after the ice melts.

In the Ohio Valley, buckeye leaves are unraveling. May apples are spreading their wings.

Countdown to Spring 

• Less than a weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the night.

• Two weeks until the Great Dandelion and Violet Bloom begins.

• Three weeks until azaleas and snowball viburnums and dogwoods blossom.

• Four weeks until iris and poppies and daisies come into flower.

• Five weeks until the beginning of clover time in yards and pastures.

• Six weeks until the first orange day lily flowers.

• Seven weeks until roses bloom and thistles bud.

• Eight weeks until the first strawberry shortcake.

• Nine weeks until cottonwoods bloom and send their cotton through the air.

• 10 weeks to the first mulberry pie.

Mind and Body

The S.A.D. Index, which measures seasonal stress on a scale from 1 to 100, falls from the lower 50s down to 36 on April 4, then rises back into the 40s for the remainder of the period. As the day grows in length and the weather softens, the likelihood of S.A.D. lessens considerably for most people.

In the Field and Garden

Haying has begun throughout many southern states and some new hay moves north. Transition your livestock slowly from the last of the old hay to the first of the new.

Seven weeks until the most tender vegetables and flowers can be set out in the garden. The field and garden day is increasing at the rate of two minutes per 24 hours.

Barn swallows arrive as 10 percent of all oats are in the ground and barred owls hatch. Potato planting is underway when forsythia blooms and buckeyes leaf.

New calves, kids and lambs are out in the fields. Pollen forms on the pussy willow catkins as gold finches turn gold.

Dig in new strawberry, raspberry and blackberry plants. Put in early sweet corn, head lettuce and peas as soon as possible. Only six to seven weeks before the most tender plants can be placed outdoors.

Carpenter bees bore holes in your siding. Field corn planting is in full swing throughout the South and the central states, cotton planting along the Gulf.

FROSTWATCH

Between April 1 and June 1, close to 10 frosts occur in this part of the state. Chances of frost to strike after the dates listed below are:

April 5:  95 percent

April 10: 90 percent

April 15: 80 percent

April 20: 75 percent

April 25: 65 percent

April 30: 50 percent

Almanack Favorites

A Gentle Farmer

By Lou Beard, Shelby, Ohio

I was raised outside of a small, quaint town in Ohio by the name of Sycamore. It was a peaceful town where the Sycamore trees grew wild by the small creeks. My father was a loud-spoken, large-frame, strong farmer, but a gentle one. He did not appear that way, nor did I think if him in the way when I was young. But now, I, as an adult older than he was when he died, realize how gentle and compassionate he was.

When the sows on the farm were ready to have their babies, he would sleep in the bar with them. He put them in individual pens by themselves, and he would sleep outside on a cot, waiting for the right time. The “cot” was a bed made from bags of hog feed stacked up and a bale of straw. When the time came, he was right there to help deliver the little ones. As they appeared, he would clean them, wrap them in a clean, dry feed sack and lay them aside until all the babies were born. Sometimes 12 or so, if one appeared weak, it would be taken to the house for extra care. He knew that if it were left behind in its weakened condition, it would not survive. After he analyzed all the little ones, he would put them back in the care of their mother. He would check on them often. I can remember two sows delivering at the same time, and Dad jumping over the divider between the sows to help both mothers deliver their babies. Most of the mother sows would deliver within a few weeks of each other, so he stayed out in the barn for weeks until it was all over.

He knew that every animal was important to his livelihood and to the welfare of the family. He did the same thing with the cows and sheep. By the time the birthing season was over in the spring, we had a bunch of healthy animals in the barn and a few, sometimes more than a few, frisky rambunctious healthy pets in the basement room we called the furnace room because it was so warm. My sister and I raised the weak babies on bottles. She warmed the milk and fed them in the middle of the night and in the mornings before school.

I can’t remember ever losing a little pig or lamb. Every year it was the same thing. We got so accustomed to having little ones in the basement that it seemed strange to have an empty furnace room. I can remember crying when Dad would say, “It’s time for them there babies to go out and face the real world,” That was the day Mother was more than happy, but for us, it was a sad day.

Poor Will Needs Your Stories

Poor Will pays $4.00 for unusual and true farm, garden, animal and even love stories used in this almanack! Send yours to Poor Will’s Almanack at wlfelker@gmail.com or to the address below.

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.

IVEPR VIPER

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This Week’s Rhyming Sckrambler

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Copyright 2021  - W. L. Felker