By Bill Felker I saw the morning when SPRING walked the land... Footprints greened the grasses, violets hidden there, Her smile a warm caress that made the ROBINS sing. A touch caused buds to swell, lilacs a royal bloom: A spate of rain, the promise of things to come: Mother Nature, the LORD’S HANDMAIDEN in the plan of things. – William Bailiff, Toledo, Ohio The Moon and Stars The Third Week of Late Spring The Warbler Migration Moon waxes full at 11:14 p.m. on May 15, and a total eclipse of the moon will take place late that evening. Lunar perigee, when the moon is closest to Earth, occurs at 10 a.m. on May 17. Full moon and perigee are likely to produce storms, followed by frost, throughout the northern half of the country. Rising late in the day and setting before dawn, the moon passes overhead in the night making that time the most favorable for scouting for game and fishing. By this time in May, Cassiopeia has moved deep into the northern night sky behind Polaris, and Cepheus, which looks a little like a house lying on its side, is beginning to come around to the east of Polaris. When Cepheus is due east of the North Star, then it will be the middle of July. When it lies due south of Polaris, then the leaves will be turning. When it lies due west of Polaris, winter will have arrived. Weather Trends This week’s weather is likely to be strongly influenced by full moon on the 15th so close to lunar perigee on the 17th. Expect changeable conditions and be prepared to protect newly planted vegetables and flowers from light frost. Have extra seeds on hand in the event the rain washes out earlier plantings. Zeitgebers: Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year Morel season peaks in Appalachia but is just beginning at higher elevations in the far West and along the Canadian border. Bass move to the shallows. Termites swarm. Cabbage butterflies visit the developing cabbage sets. When tulips are in full bloom in the North, the best of the spring wildflowers have all disappeared in the Southwest. But you can still find prickly pear cacti flowering in the desert. When all the petals fall from your crab apples, then the great spring dandelion bloom reaches far into the Northeast, trumpeter swans will be laying eggs near Yellowstone Lake, and goslings will be hatching throughout the Lower Midwest. Birders look for migrating white-throated sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, magnolia warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks and orioles. In the Field and Garden When multiflora roses come into flower, look for the bronze birch borer to emerge and oystershell scale eggs to hatch. And when American holly blooms (about the same time as the multiflora roses), then potato leafhoppers will be hopping in the potatoes. Orchard grass is heading up. Prune forsythia, quince, mock orange and lilac after flowering is complete. Carpenter bees continue to arrive, looking for nesting sites; seal and caulk your siding. Increase planting now: try to finish by the beginning of the Strawberry Rains late in the month. Remove seed heads from rhubarb. Alfalfa is budding; some farmers are cutting it to control weevils. Migrant workers move north. Excitement or stress caused by traffic or predators can increase feed requirements in your livestock and/or promote weight loss. Let sunlight into the barn and outbuildings when the weather is clear this summer. Give your chicken coops a thorough spring cleaning, too. Use silage and hay supplements to take up the feeding slack if pasture plants have an unusually high-water content. When clovers bloom, flea season intensifies for pets and livestock. Flea beetles come feeding in the vegetable garden, too. Mind and Body The S.A.D. Index (which measures on a scale from 1 to 100 the forces thought to be associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder) swells with the waxing moon during this period, reaching the disquieting 40s May 14-17. After that, however, it plummets into the gentle 20s once again. Almanack Classics One True Love By Leah McAllister Oldhome Farm, Ark. My husband of 30 years and I attended high school together. He arrived during our sophomore year. I had never dated anyone, even though I was asked out lots of times. But I was very picky, and had an ideal in my head that none of the boys I knew could measure up to. Not long after meeting Greg, I realized I had met my one true love. It took him until our senior year to ask me out, but once he did, there was never anyone else for either of us. A little over a year after our first date, we were married. Thirteen years ago, we got into the sheep business on a small scale. Our good friends and neighbors were the original owners of our first flock of mixed breeds comprised of Romney, Marino, and Suffolk. In that first flock we had a Romney ewe named Hilza, who was the lead sheep. She had a very stately air about her, and she refused to breed with any of our rams. Greg wanted to get rid of her, saying she was just a “dud” and a drain on the grain. But I loved Hilza and told him she was just like I used to be: she had yet met her ideal mate. Eight years later, we were building our Suffolk flock and culling our other breeds. I still refused to sell my Hilza. Then one day a friend of ours asked if we could keep her Jacob ram for a while. We agreed, and Jeffery the ram came to live with our boys for a while. One evening, as we were putting the girls into the barn lot for the night, Hilza refused to come. She stood by the gate to the boy’s paddock and pawed at the fence. She would look at us, bleated, and pawed at the fence. I told Greg “I think Hilza wants in there.” Laughing, Greg opened the gate for her, and she charged in and ran right up to Jeffery. They became constant companions, and she mourned his leaving when he went back to his home. That spring Hilza gave birth to her first lambs, one an exact duplicate of Jeffery. Some of us girls just know what they want, and refuse to settle for anything less. *** Send your memory stories to Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. Five dollars will be paid to any author whose story appears in this column. 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. RANY NARY ACSYR SCARY RYRHES SHERRY ADIYR DAIRY AYRM MARY NTOCRRYA CONTRARY DINROYAR ORDINARY YSEDTNRYE DYSENTERY IUIAYPTTR PITUITARY RTNLPYAEA PLANETARY TILRAYSO SOLITARY AUIOYRTB OBITUARY THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER MOHW UEMLP OMOD OOMRB EUEMSR OMOB EUMF EEUPRSM OLOBM EUEMFRP Copyright 2022 – W. L. Felker |
