With lessons from daybook, you can go back, look at life

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

Astronomical information

The Great Groundhog Moon becomes the Robin Mating Chorus Moon on March 13 at 5:21 a.m. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead in the afternoon, telling the robins to sing, and encouraging creatures to be most active, especially as a cold front approaches near March 14. Lunar apogee, the moon’s position farthest from Earth, occurs at 12 a.m. March 18.

Mars moves retrograde from Aries to Taurus in March, and it continues to be the red Evening Star in the western sky. Another red object in Taurus is Aldebaran, the brightest star of the Hyades constellation within Taurus. On the evening of March 22, Mars and Aldebaran will appear to be almost side by side in the far west. Aldebaran will be the twinkling red object.

On March 14, Daylight Saving Time begins at 2:00 a.m. Set clocks ahead one hour.

Weather trends

After the cold weather that accompanies the arrival of the new Robin Mating Chorus Moon, temperatures should moderate through the remainder of the period. As the barometer falls in advance of the March 19-20 cold front, the chances of warmth above 50 degrees rise. Then, they fall again after equinox.

Zeitgebers

(Events in nature that tell the time of year)

Water striders appear on the ponds and sloughs, and woolly bear caterpillars come out from winter hibernation.

Red-tailed hawks, the horned grebe, the common snipe, all types of gulls, and black ducks migrate.

Horseradish leaves stretch out to an inch or two, and rhubarb is up to four or five inches. Honeysuckle buds unravel on the lowest branches.

Bleeding hearts push their heads from the ground as day lily leaves reach to the top of your boots, and snow trillium blossoms appear in the bottomlands.

The full spring robin chorus begins before sunrise. Male red-winged blackbirds sing in the swamps as females join them in their nesting areas.

Crows pair up. Purple martins arrive. Winter juncos depart. Peregrine falcons lay their eggs. Bald eagle chicks hatch. White tundra swans land along Lake Erie.

The migration period for Canadian geese peaks. Ducks arrive from the South. Fish become more active as the water gradually warms in the sun.

Countdown to spring

■ One week to the first wave of blooming woodland wildflowers and the very first cabbage white butterflies

■ Two weeks until golden forsythia blooms in town and skunk cabbage sends out its first leaves in the wetlands

■ Three weeks until the blooming of Middle Spring wildflowers in the woods

■ Four weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the night.

■ Five weeks until the Great Dandelion and Violet Bloom begins

■ Six weeks until azaleas and snowball viburnums and dogwoods bloom

■ Seven weeks until iris and poppies and daisies come into flower

■ Eight weeks until the beginning of clover bloom in yards and pastures

■ Nine weeks until the first orange day lily flowers

■ Ten weeks until roses bloom in town and thistles bud in the fields

Mind and body

The S.A.D. Index, which measures seasonal stress on a scale from 1 to 100, rises as the moon darkens, reaching a high 68 on March 12 and 13. It then falls into the gentle 40s by St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. For full S.A.D. statistics, consult Poor Will’s Almanack for 2021.

In the field and garden

This is a great lunar time for setting out pansies, cabbages, kale, collards and Brussels sprouts, and for seeding lettuce and spinach, too.

It never hurts to put a few corn and tomato seeds directly into the ground in the middle of March. You never know when the spring will develop into the warmest on record. If you make a few feet of experimental plantings every few days, you will probably be the one with the earliest of everything, no matter what the weather is.

Transplant shade and fruit trees, shrubs, grape vines, strawberries, raspberries, and roses while the ground temperature remains in the 40s and 50s. Complete all field planting preparations.

Your mares may come into heat as the day’s length nears twelve hours. Be sure they are up to date on their vaccinations. Check for bot eggs.

When the Great Dandelion Bloom is over, expect bees to swarm within two or three weeks.

New Year’s celebrations for immigrants from Cambodia, Thailand and Laos begin in a month. Earmark your lambs and kids for this market now.

Set flats of pansies and hardy vegetables out of doors on milder days to harden them for late March or early April planting.

Warm-weather crops such as tomatoes and peppers could be ready to set out on the first of May if you start them this week under lights.

On St. Patrick’s Day (March 17), tradition suggests you to plant peas and potatoes as conditions permit. This is also the time to watch for termites to swarm near old barns and outbuildings.

Weed seasons

The following dates indicate the approximate periods during which some of the more common weeds bloom and go to seed in the Miami Valley.

■ Great Mullein Season: June 13 - August 30

■ Sow Thistle Season:

June 14 - Frost

■ Pokeweed Season: June 19 - September 1

■ Tall Nettle Season: June 25 -August 1

■ Teasel Season: July 3 - August 10

■ Wood Nettle Season: July 3 - August 15

■ Wild Lettuce Season: July 5 - September 1

■ Horseweed Season: July 7 - September 1

■ Velvet Leaf Season: July 15 - September 1

■ Burdock Season: July 21 - September 15

■ Jimson Weed Season: July 23 - September 10

■ Field Thistle Season: July 24 - September 15

■ White Snakeroot Season: July 28 - Frost

■ Ragweed Season: July 30 - September 15

■ Goldenrod Season: August 12 - October 10

■ Beggarticks Season: August 29 - October 15

■ Aster Season: September 3 - October 20

Journal

Since I started my record of the weather and natural history, I have kept my notes together for each day of the year — for example, all the March 15ths from 1979 through 2020 in one place. With that organization, I’ve been able to see how, in spite of the separate character of each 12-month cycle, the progress of the seasons remains nearly identical from one year to the next.

That arrangement of observations also makes clear the replicable nature of the days themselves instead of their linear succession away from one another. In my daybook, the notes from one afternoon are often interchangeable with those of another afternoon, the same day years later.

Out in the country, walking the woods, it is hard to see the earth is older, or that I am a specific number of days closer to my death than I was in 1990. Even generations sometimes seem like seasons repeating, coming back like thistles or milkweed every May.

After my father died years ago, I began to look at time in a different way. Dad was no longer physically aging, no longer becoming more remote. Instead, with his death, all the phases and periods of his life took on the same distance from me. His childhood seemed no more remote than his middle age or dying. Taken off the track of horizontal time, his complete life became more accessible.

For so long, I concentrated on growth, and on the leaving behind and the progress toward, as if that process would culminate in something other than its specific decisions and actions. Time was a series of independent steps on top of and away from what I had done before. Instead of living on the spinning earth, I was riding a meteor into space, never passing the same place twice.

With the lessons from the daybook, I go back and I look at my life; the crises of the years have gone by like so many storms in the weather record. I am like the woods, anchored in the seasons.

“Poor Will’s Almanack for 2021” (with the S.A.D. Index) is still available!

For your autographed copy, send $20.00 (includes shipping and handling) to Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387.