At dawn the chorus begins. I awake early, and from my bed listen to the announcement of spring, and count the number of bird songs I can hear. – Eliot Porter

The First Week of Middle Spring

The last front of early spring introduces tornado season to the nation’s midsection, and the likelihood of a thunderstorm is six times greater this week than it was last week. As this front moves east, a significant chance for a high in the 80s occurs for the first time this year in the lower Midwest.

Countdown to Spring

• About a week until golden forsythia blooms and skunk cabbage sends out its first leaves and the lawn is long enough to cut, when question mark, tortoise shell and cabbage butterflies look for nectar

• One or two weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the evenings and corn planting time begins. Watch for morel mushrooms to swell in the dark and the first buckeyes, apple and peach trees to leaf out

• Three weeks until the peak of Middle Spring wildflowers in the wood and the full bloom of flowering fruit trees

• Four weeks until the first rhubarb pie

• Five weeks until the first cricket song of Late Spring

• Six weeks to the great warbler migration through the Lower Midwest

• Seven weeks until the first roses and orange ditch lilies open and until all tender vegetables and flowers can be set out in the garden

• Eight weeks until the high canopy begins shades the garden

• Nine weeks until mulberries are sweet and cottonwood cotton drifts in the wind

• 10 weeks until wild black raspberries sweeten

In the Field and Garden

Remove mulch from around rose bushes. Spread manure once again.

When the soil temperature reaches into the middle 50s, crabgrass germinates in the garden – about the same time that yellow forsythia flowers and daffodils open. Try to apply your crabgrass herbicide (or deep mulch) just before germination.

Plant sets of broccoli, cabbage, collards and kale. Transplant shade and fruit trees, shrubs, grape vines, strawberries, raspberries, and roses while the ground temperature remains in the 40s.

Complete all field planting preparations. If the ground is dry enough, put in first field corn, potatoes, sugar beets, carrots and red beets. Top-dress winter wheat.

Three more weeks of relatively mosquito-free gardening remain. Japanese beetle grubs move to the surface of the ground to feed. Cabbage butterflies are out, laying eggs on the cabbage, kale, collards, and Brussels sprouts that you just planted!

Now the field and garden day is increasing about two minutes every 24 hours. Plan to do as much of your summer mulching as possible in April since most weeds – even August’s ragweed – have sprouted in the garden.

Almanack Literature

How I Saved a Mouse

An Almanack Favorite

By Lou Beard, Shelby, Ohio

Living in rural area of Ohio, we had an old ’97 Ranger, and we had bought it to take our dog for rides around the farmland. One day I went out to start the truck, and it would not start. I opened the hood to see what was wrong. A mother mouse ran out as I cracked the hood and scared me to death.

On top of the distributer cap, nestled in a small little nest, were three blind mice, no more than a week old. I waited for the mother mouse to return after the scare, but after many hours, I knew that she had abandoned her babies.

I carried them into the house and made them a nice soft bed in the bottom of a basket in which I had cut strips from an old red flannel shirt. I installed a light about 12 inches above the basket to keep them warm.

I tried to open their mouths to feed them from a tiny baby bottle, but even an eye dropper was still too big for their tiny little mouths. Nothing worked, and I felt frustrated.

The next morning, I ran to see if they were still alive, and they were. But they were hungry and weak, and I was determined to save them. I decided to soak the strips of red flannel in a dish of warm milk. I offered the soaked strip to the littlest mouse. Within seconds he put his front legs around it and hung on to it and sucked out the milk. I offered it to the other two and the same thing happened. I felt like I had just experienced a miracle!

After a few days, the mice started to grow fur and were eating every two hours day and night. Soon they were running around in the little basket and playing with each other. I felt in my heart that I had done the right thing.

I made a home in an empty aquarium for the largest little mouse, and the other two I set free to live their lives on the farm. I called the one I kept, “Little M,” and he became my friend and pet for over nine years.