Under morning frosts the maple leaves turn scarlet,

In the evening dusk, the mists grow shadowy. – Hsieh Ling-yun (5th Century A.D.)

The Moon: The Pumpkin Moon, new on October 16, waxed throughout the week, entering its second quarter on Oct. 21. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead in the afternoon.

The Sun: Oct. 23 is Cross-Quarter Day, the halfway mark between autumn equinox and winter solstice. The Sun enters the sign of Scorpio at the same time.

The Planets: Saturn rises in the afternoon in Aquarius and precedes Jupiter in the night sky. Coming up from the east near sundown in Aires, Jupiter is visible throughout the night.

The Stars: The Milky Way crosses the sky from east to west these evenings. The Summer Triangle lies along its western edge as Orion peers over the eastern horizon. Overhead, the Great Square of Pegasus separates Delphinus from Andromeda.

Weather Trends: Lows in the 20s or 30s are most likely to occur on the mornings of the 19th, 20th, with the latter date carrying the highest chances of a freeze so far this season: a full 30 percent chance of a light frost, and an additional 20 percent chance of a hard freeze. Keep watching for frost as the moon grows more and more gibbous until it becomes full on the Oct. 28. Oct. 25 is the average killing frost date for most of the region, and full moon, along with lunar perigee on the 26th, is likely to bring at least light frost this year. The times most likely to produce snow are the 18th through the 20th (but only five to 10 percent of all the years).

The Natural Calendar: As Early Fall becomes Middle Fall, the locust and hickory trees reach their finest color and then shed suddenly in the cold waves that sweep more violently across the Great Plains. When those leaves come down, high mapleturn moves into the Midwest, producing some of the brightest oranges and scarlets of the season.

Following a hard freeze, and among the most spectacular doorways between Middle Autumn and Late Autumn, is the collapse of the foliage of the ginkgo tree. Often after a cold spell in late October, the ginkgo leaves turn deep gold all at once, and then in a day or so, they shatter suddenly into a gilded coverlet of the ground below.

The steady advance of high-pressure systems across the area accelerates the movement of green herons, sandhill cranes, sandpipers, terns, nighthawks, chimney swifts, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, phoebes, mockingbirds, catbirds, brown thrashers, wood thrushes and vireos. Great flocks of blackbirds and robins migrate down the rivers. Insect numbers decline, and spider webs gradually disappear from the woods.

In the Field and Garden: The sugar beet harvest begins near this date across the northern states at the same time that grape harvest is done along Lake Erie. The third and final cutting of alfalfa is complete throughout the Midwest (although farmers take a fourth cut in the most favorable years). Winter wheat and winter rye are often in the ground by now.

Mind and Body: The approach of the full moon is likely to strengthen cold fronts as well as increase restlessness in humans, birds, frogs, toads and butterflies. Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) becomes more pronounced among those who spend most of their time indoors. Symptoms of the approach of this syndrome include irritability, vague depression, increased hunger and thirst and a slight rise in blood pressure.

Almanack Classics

Duck Killer

A True story by Susan Perkins from Hardtimes Farm, Ky.

Two summers ago, my daughter-in-law Brandi came running into the house screaming, “I think a snake is getting the baby ducks!”

My daughter Laurie and I jumped up and ran out to the shed where Brandi said she heard a bunch of glass breaking. There was a mother duck who had made her nest in a cardboard box stored on the top of some wooden shelves used for storing my canning jars.

It was real dark in the shed, but I could make out part of a snake in the filtered light that made its way through the oak boards covering the building. When our eyes became adjusted to the dark, no one could believe what we saw.

A huge - and I mean huge - cow snake had the mother duck coiled around her twice and was squeezing the life out of her. His intention was not to eat her, but all her newly hatched babies. She must have fought him like the devil to cause him to try and kill her. And kill he would have, if I hadn’t grabbed his tail, startling him enough to uncoil, allowing the duck to break free. The snake disappeared through the cracks in the floor, falling beneath the building.

Three of the babies were dead, crushed from the fight that had taken place. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed a snake could kill a big duck by playing python. We moved mother and babies to a safe location, as I was sure the snake would return to finish the job.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S SCKRAMBLER

LULF FULL

ULPL PULL

LOWO WOOL

UIUAELFTB BEAUTIFUL

LUFREDNOW WONDERFUL

RRSWLFOOU SORROWFUL

SAMRETLUF MASTERFUL

IIULFTP PITIFUL

ELPNTILFU PLENTIFUL

OUNBTIFUL BOUNTIFUL

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

LUECITER  

EUPL

AEULPM

LOMCELELU

LCDRIIEU

LEBUTISVE

UFEL

OFOL

LOPO

LWME

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.

Copyright 2023 – W. L. Felker