Poor Will’s Almanack

By Bill Felker

 

 Dusk comes earlier, dawn later. The night offers more of itself for us to experience with all our senses. It is a feast of scents and sounds and sights and feelings. Memories seem no more than skin deep in fall; they catch us up suddenly, unaware. Our thoughts hurry to keep pace with the changes. The night is more available, more evocative. I wrap myself in a favorite jacket and stand dreaming in the crisp night air; I am content, and I know it. – Cathy Johnson

The Second Week of Middle Fall

The Moon and Sun

The Blackbirds in the Cornfields Moon became completely full Oct. 9 at 1:55 p.m., and it wanes throughout the period, entering its final quarter Oct. 17. It reaches apogee, its gentle position farthest from Earth, on the same day.

Rising late in the evening and setting in the middle of the day, this moon is overhead before. dawn, making mornings the best lunar time for hunting and fishing.

The approach of the Oct. 13 and Oct. 17 cold fronts will push down the barometer and encourage fish and game to feed in the days prior to the arrival of these weather systems.

By the end of October’s second week, the sun has reached the same declension it holds at the end of February. After dark, the Big Dipper hugs the top of the trees along the northern horizon. In the east, winter’s Pleiades are coming up ahead of Taurus and the first glimpse of Orion.

Weather Trends

The coldest morning so far in the season often occurs around Oct. 12 and 13, and chances of a low in the teens or 20s reach 20 percent in the northern half of the country for the first time since spring. The weather system of the 12th-13th often is the first front to bring a serious chance of snow flurries at average elevations along the 40th parallel. Highs below 50 degrees now occur about 30 percent of the time in the upper half of the United States.

After the passage of the October 17-18 front, the average amount of cloud cover increases markedly over that of last week, clouds being twice as likely to occur than in the first half of the month. Clouds mean slower drying time for hay and wool, not to mention an increase in seasonal stress. New moon on the 19th is expected to add cold to the clouds.

In the Field and Garden

Late pastures often contain less nutrition when soil temperatures drop near 40 degrees. Consequently, late autumn feeding can be tricky; your animals may have plenty to eat, depending on the weather, but their grazing may give them less nutrition and energy than in the summer months.

Most pumpkins are sold between September and January. Local markets are important until after Halloween, when commercial buyers replace them. If you have a little land, you may be able to sell around $2,000 worth of pumpkins per acre.

Almanack Classics

“When Did This Happen?”

By Ibbie Ledford

Willard, Ohio

Our first telephone was on a party line. Six families shared one line, which meant we often had to wait until another family was done with their conversation to make a call, and some listened to their neighbors’ conversations for the latest gossip. My first job was as a telephone operator. Facing a wall of numbers, we watched for a light to come on and then plugged the wire from that light into the number the caller received, creating the ring that connected the two. This may seem complicated, but for me, trying to use today’s cell phones is much harder to understand.

I have lived in a world without microwaves, computers, cell phones, DVDs and paper towels. (How did we ever live without paper towels?) Our first TV was a 13-inch black and white with only one channel and a very fuzzy picture, but I witnessed via TV the first landing on the moon.

I have lived through many wars. My husband, Willie, was a WWII veteran. My younger brother, Wallace, was killed during in 1944. Since then, there has been the Korean War, the Gulf War (my youngest brother Don was in that one), the Iraq War and now all the Middle East “wars.”

I have witnessed many heartbreaking tragedies: the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan; and the murders of more than 3,000 when terrorists flew into the Twin Towers in New York.

Now we live in what George Bush might call over-extra, extraordinary times, fearing that terrorists may be walking among us, not knowing where thy might strike next.

As I sit here now, I often ponder how many more wonders and tragedies I might witness in the years I have left.

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.

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INAPS SPAIN

EANW WANE

INAV VAIN

NIEV VEIN

ENVA VANE

INARD DRAIN

NIRAG GRAIN

ANITNCO CONTAIN

PAENGCHMA CHAMPAGNE

 

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

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 Copyright 2022 – W. L. Felker