Beneath this sense of cold’s enormity is an equally strong sense of its ability to make us sensitive to one another, to ourselves, to our world. – Susan Felch

The Third Week of Early Winter

The Moon, Sun, Meteors and Stars

The Goose Gathering Moon, having called many of the geese together for winter, becomes the Crow Moon on Dec. 23 at 5:17 a.m. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the moon is overhead (its most favorable position for hunting and fishing) in the afternoon this week. The most productive days should be those before the Dec. 25 front.

The month’s second meteor shower, the Ursids, will fall across the sky on Dec. 21 and 22 at the rate of just a handful every hour. Look for them near the North Star. The dark moon will create favorable conditions for seeing them.

Winter solstice occurred on Dec. 21 at 4:48 p.m. The Sun enters the Deep Winter constellation of Capricorn at the same time. Between the 19th and the 25th, the day’s length remains steady at about nine hours 20 minutes for most of the region, the shortest span of the year.

Except for the unusual star that shone down on Bethlehem, the sky of midnight on Christmas Eve is almost the same as the one seen by shepherds two thousand years ago: Orion due south, Leo with its brilliant Regulus in the east and the Great Square in the far west, the Milky Way dividing the heavens from the southeast to the northwest.

Weather Trends

Most high temperatures are in the 30s and 40s this week, but warm 50s and 60s come an average of 10 to 15 percent of the time. On the other hand, highs only in the teens or 20s can occur an average of one day out of 10. The 22nd is usually the mildest day of the week, bringing a 55 percent chances for a high above 50. The coldest day in the period is Christmas day; it only brings 50s or 60s once in 15 years. Every day this week has about the same chance for snow: a 20 to 25 percent chance. Add another 20 percent chance for rain. As for below zero mornings, they come more often on the 20th (three years out of 15) than on any other December day.

Zeitgebers: Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year

Milder December weather may open pussy willows and draw up snowdrops, crocus and aconites as the days expand, but along the Gulf of Mexico, the sun is already shortening the dormancy of trees and shrubs, hurrying the gestation of spring. Across coastal Georgia, sweet gums and yellow poplars finally lose their leaves, and their buds swell almost immediately to replace the loss. In central Florida, red maples open, and Jessamine produces its yellow blossoms. White-tailed bucks in gray winter coats drop their antlers as the old year comes to an end; see if you can find them.

In the Field and Garden

Collards and kale, and well-mulched carrots and beets may survive to this point in the season, but January’s cold spells eventually take them. Indoors, however, tomato and pepper plants, seeded in middle summer and brought inside before frost, should be continuing to produce fruit in a south window. Basil, parsley, rosemary, thyme and oregano may also be doing well. In the warmth of greenhouses, bedding plant seeding is fully underway, and some young plants scheduled to be sold in April and May have four to six leaves by now.

Continue your marketing plan right into 2023. Jan. 7 is Epiphany Sunday (Three-Kings Day): Many Christians celebrate this feast with a fine meal and religious services. Milk-fed lambs are often in demand for this market. Three Kings Day is also a traditional time of gift giving for many families. And plan to take advantage of the “hothouse market,” a winter period during which to market your fall lambs that are nine to 16 weeks old and weigh 20-50 pounds.

Mind and Body

Seasonal Affective Disorder afflicts many people at this time of year. One way to fight against the short days and long nights is to make your house a sundial. Mark the deepest entry of the Sun through one of your south windows today. A pencil mark or a piece of tape on the floor or wall will provide a comforting measure of the advance of spring as the sunlight recedes (as the sun grows higher in the sky) during the months ahead – not only in your home, but in all of North America. Even though you can’t control the weather or what happens in nature, you can at least follow along, keeping your finger literally on the path of the sun in your private observatory.

Almanack Classics

A Frightening Experience at 

Christmas Time

By Clarence Dinnen, 

Jamestown, Ohio

The year 1939-1940 was a memorable one for me. I was in the third grade at the Bowersville, Ohio, school. All 12 grades were in the same building. One morning, we were bused to Xenia to hear a symphony orchestra. The music had a lasting impression on me. And at Christmas time, the high school acted out Dickens’ Christmas Carol. I was genuinely scared of the ghosts of Marley, Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

But the most frightening experience happened one day unexpectedly. A high school girl came into our third-grade room and spoke with our teacher, Miss Vanami, and left. A few moments passed, and then our teacher said, “Clarence, you are to go upstairs to the superintendent’s office.”

A murmur rippled through the class. I stepped into the hall and the girl was waiting. She escorted me up the long flight of stairs to the second floor and the office. I was really frightened, much more so than of the ghosts in the Christmas play. There were rumors circulating that there was a paddling machine in the office!

The superintendent, Mr. Alfred, greeted me warmly with a big smile and asked me to sit down. (So far so good.) Then he said, “Clarence I hear that you have lost your dog.”

I said, “Yes, he was run over by a car.”

He said, “Well, I have found you a new puppy.”

Oh, I was greatly relieved! Then he told me to ask my parents about the puppy. I couldn’t wait to get home from school to tell them. I got the puppy and named him Mickey. He was a spaniel mix that grew into a fine, affectionate dog that I had for years.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S 

SCKRAMBLER

OMISSILARENEG     GENERALISSIMO

OIIAMSSVRB         BRAVISSIMO

AGOHIPELCRI         ARCHIPELAGO

TAIOHCUM         MUSTACHIO

IIOONCGNT         INCOGNITO

OOALVCN              VOLCANO

IOIRV         VIREO

TIOGRVE         VERTIGO

MOERO         ROMEO

OOETRML         TREMOLO

GAHHOTUL              ALTHOUGH

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING 

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. Yes, you are a genius.

OTULC

RHTGUOTUHO

UUALMT

TTHUOWI

ODUTB

TTBOUHREEA

TOUPSRETAW

RAUTERUAS

OBATU

TUDEOV

Poor Will’s Almanack for 2023 is now available. Order yours from Amazon, or, for an autographed copy, order from www.poorwillsalmanack.com. You can also purchase Bill Felker’s new book of essays, The Virgin Point: Meditations in Nature, from those sites.

Copyright 2022 – W. L. Felker