I walk about, taking stock of the innumerable changes on the hillside. The clump of golden asters is now dry and brown, the milkweeds, stripped of their leaves, are straight spikes thrusting up from the ground and holding the browning seed pods. Seeds are everywhere....  Autumn is a time of accounting, summing up, harvest and inventory. – Edwin Way Teale

The Third Week of Middle Fall

The Moon and Stars

The Blackbirds in the Cornfields Moon became the Robin Migration Moon on Oct. 25 at 5:49 a.m. It reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth, at 10 a.m. on the 29th and enters its second quarter at 1:37 a.m. on Nov. 1. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the new moon passes overhead near the middle of the. day, making lunch time a favorable lunar time for hunting and fishing.

Before sunrise, Orion fills the east, Sirius, the Dog Star, lying due south. Castor and Pollux, following along behind. The Milky Way forms a band from the southeast up into the northwest. Far in the northeast, the Big Dipper will be pointing to Polaris, the North Star. Now sunset time is only half an hour away from its latest time of the year.

 

Weather Trends

After the last high-pressure system of October comes across the country, milder but rainier weather typically follows for the first few days of November. The moon’s strong position at the end of the month, however, will likely bring chilly temperatures for Halloween activities.

Zeitgebers: Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year:

In this third week of middle fall, the oaks and the Osages, white mulberries, magnolias, ginkgoes and the late black and sugar maples move toward full color, and many woodlots shine in the morning, red, gold and green.

Spruces are growing new needles in the parks. Hepatica sends out new leaves on the hillsides. Fresh chickweed, which sprouted at the end of the summer, is blossoming. Catnip grows back beside thistle, moneywort, wild geranium, leafcup, henbit and yarrow, impervious to the falling leaves.

Quickweed still provides a deep green border to the paths. A few lance-leaf and zigzag goldenrod still hold. A few asters, chicory and Queen Anne’s lace plants still flower by the waysides. And in the swamps, skunk cabbage can be two inches high, waiting for February.

Starlings cackle and whistle in the bright trees. The last white cabbage butterflies look for cabbages in the garden. The last daddy longlegs hunt the flowerbeds. At night, crickets fill in for the silent katydids. Deer become more reckless as mating season deepens. The high canopy thins, and squirrels become easier to find.

In the Field and Garden

Wrap new trees with burlap to help them ward off winter winds. Complete fall field and garden tillage before November’s chill and rains. Destroy foliage of plants that were infested with insects.

Think about Easter: Mardi Gras takes place on Feb. 21 next year, and Roman Easter is April 9, Orthodox Easter April 16. Considering that the month before Mardi Gras is a time for parties in many areas of the country, and that the Easter Season is the most profitable time of year for marketing lambs and kids. Planning your approach to the new year should begin early, well before the farmers markets of late winter, spring and summer.

Contact markets for your turkeys and your left-over gourds and pumpkins as Thanksgiving approaches. Plan to sell your goat and sheep cheese, Christmas cacti, dried flowers and grasses, poinsettias, mistletoe and ginseng during between now and Jan. 1.

Mind and Body

The increasing odds for cloudy, chilly weather and the rapidly shortening day keep the threat of seasonal affective disorder relatively high. Consider finding time to cook and bake as the evenings grow longer. That activity, combined with good food and the aromas of home may help to ward off late autumn blues.

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) reached the 60s by the time of the new moon on the 25th, continues to climb toward Halloween, reading 76 by the 29th. After a slight dip in the first days of November, it once again surges, reaching 80 by the 7th.

Almanack Classics

The Electric Pumpkin

By Susan Perkins, Hardtimes Farm, Kentucky

My dad was the world’s best practical joker. He was a true master at inventing jokes no one had ever heard of.

One Halloween he came home from work with the biggest pumpkin I had ever seen. He set it on the kitchen table and began cleaning it. He was very secretive as to his intentions for the monster pumpkin, but it was plain by the way he snickered and laughed to himself he was up to something big.

I grew up in St Louis and being a practical joker myself, I wondered why Dad would place such a huge target out on the front porch. I was confident the giant pumpkin would not survive the first hour of darkness and would end up in a splattered mess on the sidewalk.

After Dad finished cleaning the pumpkin, he went down to the basement and returned with a roll of thin copper wire. By now my mom, my brother Kenny and I were really caught up by Dad’s actions. It did no good to ask him what he was doing; our questions fell on deaf ears.

Dad wove the copper wire in and out of the pumpkin, starting at the top and working his way down till the pumpkin was a weave of copper wire. He got up from the table and returned to the basement. He came back with the electric fence charger.

Next, he went out on the front porch, down the steps and got the garden hose. He then wet the ground beneath the banister where it was obvious the pumpkin was going to sit. On returning to the kitchen, he handed the charger to my brother, who knew to follow Dad to the front porch. Dad carefully picked up the pumpkin and everyone headed for the front porch. Once there, dad hooked the charger to the copper wire on the pumpkin.

Now I know this sounds awful, but kids tried all night to destroy that pumpkin. After getting their socks shocked off, they would holler and let go, throwing it into the air. By the end of the night, the pumpkin was severely beat up.

My brother and I spied from the upstairs window on the city kids who thought they would score on the giant pumpkin.

My dad died last February. Walt, my oldest brother, stood up at the funeral and told the story of the electric pumpkin. He was serving in Vietnam when this happened, but the story has been told so many times down through the years, it became one of his special memories of dad.

The room burst into laughter after Walt finished telling the story of the electric pumpkin. For a few moments he lifted the sadness that had come into our lives.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S 

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THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

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