Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run. – John Keats

The Third Week of Middle Fall

The Moon, Sun, the Meteors and Stars

The Blackbirds in the Cornfields Moon, reached its final quarter at 12:15 p.m. on Oct. 17, waned throughout the period, becoming the Robin Migration Moon at 5:49 a.m. on Oct. 25. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon moves overhead in the middle of the day.

Oct. 24 is Cross Quarter Day, the halfway mark between autumn equinox and winter solstice. The sun enters the late autumn constellation of Scorpio at the same time. Within a little more than a month of equinox, the sun has sped half the distance to winter.

Late in the evening, Hercules sets in the west, Taurus rises from the east, the Big Dipper lies along the northern horizon, the Great Square (Pegasus) is overhead, and the Milky Way crosses the sky from east to west.

The Orionids, children of Haleys comet, are active much of the month and reach their peak on Oct. 21-22 at the rate of about two dozen in an hour. Watch for them as giant Orion climbs from the east after midnight.

 

Weather trends

Along the 40th Parallel, afternoon temperatures in the 50s and 60s usually accompany the Oct. 23 front, and cold days only in the 30s or 40s occur one year in five. One year in three brings frost with this front everywhere above the Border States, and new moon on the 25th makes frost more likely this year.

Zeitgebers: Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year

As October deepens, the golden hickory trees reach their finest color then shed suddenly in the cold waves that sweep more violently across the region.

As those leaves come down, high mapleturn moves across the region, producing some of the brightest oranges and scarlets of the season. When the most intense leaf color appears in the maples, then yellowjackets often swarm on the windfall apples, New England asters reach the end of their blooming cycle and wild asparagus yellows by the roadsides.

The last warblers and swallows leave the region now, along with almost every butterfly except the cabbage whites. Rutting time approaches for white-tailed deer.

In the field and garden

As cold weather threatens, check to make sure that you are adjusting ventilation in the hen house to compensate for seasonal changes. But don’t close buildings up too tight: adequate ventilation is still required in the coldest conditions. Continue planting shrubs, trees and spring bulbs under the dark moon.

Mind and Body Time

The S.A.D. Stress Index (which measures the forces thought to be associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder on a scale from 1 to 100) rises throughout the week, reaching the 60s by the time of the new moon on the 25th.

The first signs of seasonal affective disorders may occur in some people at this time. The shortening day, colder weather and the increased likelihood of cloud cover combine with lunar influence to challenge those who are sensitive to seasonal mood swings. On the plus side, the shorter days bring a surge of autumn energy to some animals and people; if you feel it, take advantage of that energy to speed through your autumn tasks; you may begin to slow down in November and December.

The Autumn Outlook

At this point in the year, the most temperate weather of the year is gone, and it is time to count the days left for autumn chores and harvest. Of course, uncertainty is predictable at the end of Indian Summer. There is some mild, dry weather left, but now much?

The day is a little more than 11 hours long. But it will lose more than 40 minutes in the last two weeks of October, and then on Nov. 6, Daylight Saving Time ends. Evenings will suddenly be dark. And as the sun retreats, the odds for cold and precipitation rise.

Now average high temperatures are in the middle 60s, with lows near 45. Of the remaining October days: two or three should be in the 70s, four or five in the 60s, four or five in the 50s and one or two in the 40s or 30s. One of every three will be cloudy and rainy; one in three averages a freeze.

After Halloween, the workday begins to shrink more quickly, losing two minutes every 24 hours, and the odds for decent temperatures plummet. In all November, there is an average of only one or two days in the 70s, just six in the 60s and only eight in the 50s. That makes just half the month with moderate afternoons, and many of those fall within a week of Halloween.

If there will only be two weeks of moderation in November, and just seven days of really mild weather, odds are even that most of those warmer days will be cloudy (the sun is hidden on 18 out of November’s 30 days). The sky becomes especially gray after the 14th of the month, the solar pivot time after which the region darkens until May. And then the first snow almost always arrives between the 10th and the 20th.

The last week of late fall is the first week of December. By then, average highs have fallen into the 40s. There is only a one-in-10 chance that 60 degrees will come again after Dec. 1, and only a one-in-three chance that temperatures will break 50 (there are usually only five to 10 days above 50 in the entire month of December). Snow or sleet falls eight years in 10 that first period of the last month, and it almost always rains besides.

So, when you finally sit down to add up all the nice days, subtract the cold, damp ones and divide by the number of chores left to do this fall, the time seems pretty short.

Figure there are 50 days left to autumn: maybe six or seven mild and pleasant ones remain in October; November, with its nine periods of rainfall, has only 20 dry days, and just half of those are even close to 60 degrees. You eliminate all but one or two days in the first week of December and you end up with a total of maybe 19 or 20 benign days between now and the arrival of early winter (Dec. 8) for fertilizing, harvesting, wood cutting, planting winter wheat, raking leaves, transplanting and digging spring bulbs.

Or you can ignore the weather, and just work when you can!

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S 

SCKRAMBLER

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SSSHHPDREEE      SHEPHERDESS

 

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

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Copyright 2022 – W. L. Felker