You see how you fit into this cosmic schema and you see how all is family from one side of the horizon to the other. It is clear to you how the cycles of morning to evening and evening to morning, from springtime to next springtime, from birth to death to birth, all follow similar and necessary trajectories. – Peter London, Drawing Closer to Nature

The Crow Moon wanes until it becomes the Cardinal Mating Moon at 3:55 p.m. on Jan. 21. This is a Supermoon since it reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth, the same day as it turns full. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the day.

The Sun: The sun enters the Late Winter constellation of Aquarius on Jan. 20. The sun’s declination passes 17 degrees 31 minutes on Jan. 31, one quarter of the way to spring equinox, just as the final weather system of January arrives.

The Planets:  Mars is in Taurus, preceding winter’s Orion across the night sky.

The Stars: The new moon will be setting in the west these dark evenings, following the Northern Cross (Cygnus the Swan) toward the horizon. As you watch directly above you, try to find Perseus (looking a little like a horse). In the east, Orion stands tall.

Weather Trends

The January Thaw period begins this week and often lasts through Jan. 28. The moon, entering its mild second quarter on Jan. 28, increases the chances of a significant thaw late in the month. January statistics show a warming trend that brings a 40 percent chance for mild weather on the 20th, 23rd and 24th. On the other hand, days when the temperature does not rise above zero occur more often in January’s third week than in any other week in the Lower Midwest, and morning lows below zero occur more in the third week of January than in any other week of the year.

The Natural Calendar: Autumn’s fruits are giving way to the weather, measuring the advance of the Northern Hemisphere back toward the sun. The feathery heads of virgin’s bower, soft and thick in late November, have blown away in the wind. Hosta pods are almost empty. The final rose of Sharon seeds lie precariously in their open calices. Worn tufts of ironweed are half gone.

The seed clusters of purple coneflowers and zinnias, tough and unyielding a month ago, crumble between your fingers. Some honeysuckle, bittersweet and euonymus berries still hang to their branches, but their flush and firmness are gone.  In the greenhouse, the blossoms have withered on the Christmas cacti.

After the January thaw arrives, remnants of the past year no longer point to the warmth of last October. The sharp yucca, tall and bright green, does not look back to June, but forward to June. In wetland ponds, wild iris spears that braved weeks of ice stand strong around the broken strands of lizard’s tail.

Dependable companions in the cold winter mornings, crows now become more boisterous; their migration typically starts this week. Sparrows and starlings court and build nests from now through the end of spring. Overwintering robins become more active in the daytime; opossums and raccoons and frolicking foxes become more active at night as Deep Winter wanes.

Asian ladybugs sometimes emerge in sunny windowsills this time of the month, foretelling the January thaw. In addition, they bring good luck; treat them well.

Hunt and fish prior to the Jan. 19 and 25 cold fronts, and make plans to take advantage of low barometric pressure during the January thaw period. The waxing first-quarter Moon will be overhead in the afternoon, making fish and game more likely to be active at that time of day.

In the Field and Garden 

New Moon on the 21st is a perfect lunar time for putting in all of your bedding plant seeds for spring. Try flats of greens and flowers for setting out in March; plant a second batch of everything at February’s new Moon.

Frost seeding typically begins at this time of the year. Broadcast crops such as red clover in the pastures, and scatter grass seed over bare spots on the lawn. The freezing and thawing of the ground works the seeds into the ground.

Prepare landscaping, garden and field maps, choosing plans for double cropping, intercropping and companion planting. Review records to plan for most efficient harvest management. Be prepared for possible drought by ordering sufficient potassium and phosphorus for your fields.

Christmas cacti can be divided and propagated throughout the months ahead. You might turn one cactus into a lucrative business if you’re willing to work at it for a few years.

Now is a good time to reserve a feeder pig for spring from someone who raises hogs. If you treat your piglet well throughout the summer and butcher it before Thanksgiving, you should have plenty of pork to get you through the winter. Along with your pig plans, order a few extra corn, pea, bean, and beet seeds for your new addition.

If you name your pig, it is more likely that you will treat it as a pet. Then you can purchase your bacon at the store.

Also reserve your spring chicks for March, April or May so they can gain weight throughout the summer and be ready to lay in the autumn. Naming your chickens makes it harder to eat them, of course, but not to steal their eggs.

Mind and Body: 

Even though the cold and gray skies of winter may be causing irritability and depression, the possibility of a January thaw opens the door to hope and optimism. Now is the time to pay special attention to even the smallest changes in the landscape around you; they measure the approach of warmth and sun.

Countdown to Spring

• One week until the traditional January Thaw and the beginning of Late Winter

• Two weeks until cardinals start to sing before dawn

• Three weeks until doves join the cardinals, and maple sap flows

• Four weeks until the first red-winged blackbirds arrive in the wetlands

• Five weeks to the first snowdrop bloom and the official start of Early Spring

• Six weeks to crocus season and major pussy willow emerging season

• Seven weeks to the beginning of the morning robin chorus before sunrise

• Eight weeks to daffodil time

• Nine weeks to the major wildflower bloom

• 10 weeks until the yellow blossoms of forsythia bushes appear

Journal

My daybooks for the third week of January, the second week of the Sun in Capricorn, record snow and cold but also thaws and warmth. I look for events that contradict the winter, and in January, many of those events not only anticipate spring but also expand the definition of the month.

Details of history show striations in January days, show this time to be as porous with change as it is dense with darkness and Arctic power. Year after year, openings in the seemingly monolithic wall of winter accumulate to soften the texture and body of the month. The dendrites of those spaces make fissures in the whole that allow in light and color and sound and movement antithetical to the otherwise harsh weeks that lie so close to solstice.

Unlike the imposing storms of January, the events that redefine the passage of Capricorn to Aquarius are plain and small: the occasional appearance of flies and lady beetles indoors; sightings of opossums at night and overwintering robins and bluebirds in the day; the rare appearance of a butterfly (like Rick saw in the Glen on the 8th); the songs of the titmouse, the laughter of the nuthatch; the frequent arrival of starlings in town (their murmurations disrupted by the snow); the increasing frequency of mourning dove and cardinal mating calls; the first blossoming of aconites and snowdrops and snow crocuses…..

All these events do not always happen in the same year, but together their radii pierce the rings of temporal space to offer precedent and promise that augment our understanding of the season. Perhaps best of all, their collective story reveals a simple and happy truth, that these dimensions are not hidden, that they have been here all along, and that they and so many others can appear and transform the meaning of our world in the blinking of an eye.

Almanack Literature 

Turning Sarge

By Samuel of Kentucky (Mount Sterling)

Now this couple was traveling in the mountains of a western state. One afternoon, while gong farther off the main road, they became lost. The afternoon went into evening, They tried trail after trail only to find no through trail. Eventually, they saw a light in the distance, and they headed that way.

When they pulled up to the house, they were met by a man, his wife, and their half-grown boy, Bill. The couple asked the family how to get back to the main road, but the man answered by saying, “Why not stay the night, then get back in daylight?”

The couple finally accepted after food and visiting. They were settling down and the light was out when out of the darkness was heard: “Maw, did you turn Sarge?”

“No, Paw, I did not. Bill, did you turn Sarge?”

“No, I did not,” the boy answered, “but I will.”

The sun was shining when the couple woke the next morning, and after a hearty breafkast, expressions of appreciation and good-byes, the couple was getting ready to leave. Before they went, however, the man said: “I have one question, Who is Sarge?”

“Oh,” answered the man of the house, “that’s our rooster that likes to roost on the flour barrel with his head turned out.”

***

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S SCKRAMBLER

SPYGUM GYPSUM

SSUMOOP OPOSSUM

LACCMUI CALCIUM 

YASMUL ASYLUM 

LAUUMMNI ALUMINUM

MUNGERRETNI NTERREGNUM

IMMAGNESU MAGNESIUM

MUINOLOP POLONIUM 

SHPGANUM SPHAGNUM

MMMUTOEN MOMENTUM

MUMEHTNASYRHC YSANTHEMUM

REFERENDUM  FEERRENDUM

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.

TERTUB

CUTRET

ULCTETR

LFURTET

RETTUG

RTETMU

TUPTRE

SHURETT

TETRLUSP

TRSUTETR

TUTRE

Poor Will’s Almanack for 2023 is still 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 2023 – W. L. Felker