The grass of spring covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches…. – Walt Whitman

The Moon and the Sun

The Cottonwood Cotton Moon was new at 2 p.m. on May 11 and reached apogee, its position farthest from Earth, at 5 p.m. the same day. It waxed throughout the week, and will enter its second quarter at 2:12 p.m. on May 19. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the afternoon. Fish and animals should be more active with the moon above you before the cold fronts of May 15 and 20.

Weather Trends

May 15 is a good target date for having fields and garden plots planted in order to avoid a serious delay in seeding. As May comes to a close, the “Strawberry Rains” often reduce time available for outdoor work.

Zeitgebers

(Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year)

This is the time when the 17-year cicadas (with their distinctive reddish bodies) emerge in locations throughout the Ohio Valley. Watch for them to swarm during the next two weeks, buzzing in their mating frenzy.

Poppies are open in the garden, and the great spring dandelion bloom, which just departed the Ohio Valley, is traveling toward the Canadian border.

Summer hosta leaves are about full size. Ferns, nettles, day lilies, comfrey and summer phlox have reached almost 2 feet. Wild cucumber sprouts along the rivers.

After apple blossoms fall, the best time of all arrives for forget-me-not, ragwort, watercress, wild geranium, swamp buttercup, late winter cress, white spring cress and the wild purple phlox. Flea season has begun for dogs, cats and farm livestock.

Spitbugs hang to the parsnips. Half of the season’s new ducklings and goslings swim the creeks. Poison ivy – like the Virginia creeper and wild grapes – develops to a third of its June size. Rose of Sharon and the green ash finally begin to leaf. The foliage of ginkgoes, sycamores, witch hazels and sweet gums is all a third to half of full size. Maples fill out quickly. All the sweet gum flower clusters fall as chives blossom.

Bullfrogs and green frogs call. Minnows and chubs have turned a reddish-gold for their mating seasons.

Countdown to Spring

• One week until roses bloom and thistles bud.

• Two weeks until the first strawberry shortcake.

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

• Four 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 into the harmless 20s on May 15, then reaches into the teens by the 18th. No one should suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder this week. On the other hand, the likelihood of spring fever increases.

In the Field and Garden

Farmers have often planted about half the field corn throughout the region, and a fifth of the seeds have emerged. About 20 percent of the soybean crop is usually sown by now.

A fifth of the processing tomatoes are typically in the ground, and four out of every ten stalks of winter wheat have jointed. Alfalfa is budding, and cutting begins in southern counties of the Ohio Valley. Strawberries have set fruit. In the warmest Mays, some berries are ripe. Insect activity nears the economic threshold in the field and garden.

ALMANACK  LITERATURE

So Many Memories

By Stan Thomas, Ashville, Ohio

This letter is in response to your March 4 article by Shirley Crawford about attacking roosters and outhouse times.

I too grew up on a farm, one of 160 acres, in Illinois with no bathroom. We didn’t have chickens, but the neighbor did, and I got chased by them a time or two. I can still see the neighbor chopping heads off chickens and having them flop around the barnyard.

The outhouse was another experience and not fun. I never could sit down on a cold seat and was afraid of snakes waiting on ledges down below.

I never forgot those outhouse experiences. And it was hard being without what these days we think of as “modern” bathrooms. Back then, we got sink baths in the kitchen during winter and then we huddled by the oil-fired floor furnace.

We moved off the farm to another rural home when dad couldn’t make it on 50 percent sharecrop income. I was 13 then in 1959. So many memories of those days growing up on a farm!

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TERTUB BUTTER

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