The vale shall laugh in flowers, the woods

Grow misty green with leafing buds,

And violets and wind-flowers sway

Against the throbbing heart of May. — John Greenleaf Whittier

The Moon: The Tulip Moon, full on May 5, reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth on May 11 and enters its final quarter at 12:20 a.m. on May 12. It becomes the new Strawberry Moon at 11:55 a.m. on May 19. Rising in the middle of the night and setting in the middle of the day, this moon passes overhead in the morning.

The Stars: After dark, look for the tail of Scorpio along the southwestern tree line. Then look for the parallelogram shape of Libra right next to it.

The Shooting Stars: The Eta Aquarid meteor shower continues throughout the month. Look for those shooting stars in Aquarius, low in the southeast before first light. The dark Moon will favor your vigil.

Weather Trends: The cold front that arrives this week is one of the last frost-bearing fronts to move across the nation. Although gardens in the North are not immune to a freeze throughout the entire month of May, the greatest danger of loss from low temperatures recedes quickly throughout May. Typical highs usually reach above 60 degrees after May 10, and they rise to 70 or above at least 60 percent of the afternoons. 

The Natural Calendar: When azaleas lose their petals, daisies and clematis and the first cinquefoil open all the way, the first strawberry ripens, and the first swallowtail butterflies visit the star of Bethlehem and bleeding hearts. The last quince flowers fall, and lilacs decay. The yellow heads of meadow goat’s beard appear along the roadsides next to the sweet clover foliage spreading out for June. 

The pink and violet of sweet rockets replace the purple wild phlox in the woods and pastures. Horseradish and comfrey are budding. The shy lesser stitchwort blooms in the alleys. Buttercups blossom, and by the end of the week, the first pyrethrums parallel the poppies. 

Birders look for migrating white-throated sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, magnolia warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks and orioles. 

In the Field and Garden: When the first day lily opens, you should have all your corn in the ground, and it should have sprouted, too. If you don’t have day lilies, the first thistles bloom around the same time. Winter wheat is at least a foot high across Lower Midwest and will soon be pale golden green below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Throughout the fields, alfalfa weevils, corn borers and cutworms attack the crops. In the garden, slugs come out in force, and bean-leaf beetles and aphids stalk the garden plantings. When your animals move out into the fresh pastures, make dry hay available to them beforehand in order to prevent bloat. 

Mind and Body: Late Spring continues to change your winter patterns: You may 1) have an easier time waking up, 2) have more energy, 3) be able to pass up carbs more easily, 4) lose weight more easily, 5) have an easier time concentrating, 6) feel more sociable, and 7) generally feel more optimistic.

Countdown to Summer 

• One week until the first orange daylilies blossom

• Two weeks until roses flower

• Three weeks until the first mulberries are sweet for picking and cottonwood cotton drifts in the wind.

• Four weeks until wild black raspberries ripen

• Five weeks until fledgling robins peep in the bushes and fireflies mate in the night.

• Six weeks until cicadas chant in the hot and humid days

• Seven weeks until thistles turn to down

• Eight weeks until sycamore bark starts to fall, marking the center of Deep Summer

• Nine weeks to the season of singing crickets and katydids after dark

• Ten weeks until ragweed pollen floats in the wind

Almanack Classics

On the Roof

By Sam J. Eicher, Berne, IN

This couple went on a trip and had the neighbor’s children feed their cat and keep an eye on Grandmother while they were gone.

So after they were gone for a week, they called home, and they asked, “How is the cat?”

The kids said that the cat died, and the couple about had a fit when they heard the news. 

The couple told the children that they should’ve said that on the first day, the cat was on the roof, and then the next day, she fell off, and the third day she’d died. 

Then it wouldn’t have been so much of a shock.

And then they asked, “So, how is Grandmother?” 

And the kids said, “She’s on the roof.”

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S 

SCKRAMBLER

CCOBOTA TOBACCO

OTMATO TOMATO

OUEDNGR UNDERGO

AEOWLGRTF AFTERGLOW

OOINMD DOMINO

HODAI IDAHO

XMCEIO MEXICO

OHLYLAT TALLYHO

IIGODN INDIGO

VOREGRWO OVERGROW

TOTELAFL FALSETTO

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER NEGARELISMISO

SUMCATOIH

TONIRAO

SIPCATOIH

NGAMIFCOI

VLCNOAO

EORVI

REVGITO

AAIOGD

OOEMR

OOIH

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.

Follow the summer with Bill Felker’s A Daybook for May and A Daybook for June. These daybooks contain all the nature notes used to create Poor Will’s Almanack. Order yours from Amazon, or, for an autographed copy, order from www.poorwillsalmanack.com. You can also purchase Bill Felker’s new book of nature essays, The Virgin Point, from those sites.

Copyright 2023 – W. L. Felker