Morning bird song reaches peak, led by robins
shines open.
- Virgil (bf )
In the Sky
Before midnight, Leo and Regulus are overhead. The Pleiades and Taurus lead Orion into the far west. The Big Dipper protrudes deep into the center of the sky. By six o’clock in the morning, the stars have become a prophecy of Late Summer, August’s Vega almost above you, Hercules a little to its east, the Northern Cross to its west.
As Early Spring deepens, the Termite Migration Moon grows rounder and rounder, becoming a full moon on the 25th. This lunar phase occurs at a stirring time in the season when morning bird song reaches its peak, with the robin chorus leading the way, and cardinal song, mourning dove song and song sparrow song fill the day’s first light. And if the weather is mild, termites will join the awakening insects and mammals of
March to search for new nesting and breeding locations.
Weather Trends
The last quarter of March brings dramatic changes. For the first time since Oct. 22, there is a five percent chance of highs to reach 80 degrees. And on the 31st, those chances double. On the 23rd, the odds for morning frost are about one in two, but on the 29th, those odds fall to just one in four. In the warmest years of all, frost can be gone until October or November (but an average season brings 20 more dawns below the freezing mark).
The Natural Calendar
When pussy willows emerge all the way, pick succulent leaves of nettles for greens, and find chickweed blooming in the woodlots and alleyways. Wild parsnips grow back. Mock orange leafs out.
Clematis leaves unfold beside new growth of the dodder. Comfrey leaves reach two inches long. Motherwort swells into clumps, and purple deadnettle is in full bloom. Lamb’s quarter, beggarticks, pigweed and amaranth sprout, and the first periwinkle flower petals unfold.
Canadian geese nest and lay their eggs. Ragwort develops buds, and touch-me-nots sprout in the swamps. Willow trees glow yellow-green with new foliage.
White cabbage butterflies now come out to lay eggs on your cabbages in the milder afternoons.
In average years, violet periwinkles bloom in the garden, snow trillium and violet cress along the rivers. Question mark and tortoise shell butterflies join the cabbage butterflies to look for nectar. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers arrive seek insects in your yard.
In the Field and Garden
Plant the first sweet corn for the earliest ears (if they survive the frosts).
And it is now pea planting time almost everywhere the snow has melted.
Black raspberries should be thinned to about three of the largest diameter canes, and side branches should be trimmed.
Transplant shade and fruit trees, shrubs, grape vines, strawberries, raspberries, and roses while the ground temperature remains in the 40s, after full moon next week. Cut raspberry leaves for tea. The first comfrey leaves may also be ready for tonic.
Also after full moon, worm livestock and pets. Perform annual vaccinations and do blood work. Check hooves/ feet. Protect pet rabbits from spring weather extremes. Close-graze pastures to encourage later growth. Don’t forget the paperwork for registering the animals you intend to sell or show.
Journal
(This poem is from my latest collection, “The Virgin Point.” It explores the emotional passage of the year that leads to the excitement of “the virgin point,” of earliest spring.)
A Litany in Virgin Time
You white sky of snow:
Pray for us.
You hard killing freeze: Pray for us.
All of you seeds, scattered and hoping:
Pray for us.
All of you leaves taken from summer:
Pray for us.
Pray for us.
All of you shriveled colors and scents,
petals and blossoms and berries and fruits:
Pray for us.
Pray for us.
All of you ragweed, ironweed, goldenrod,
burdock and pokeweed, hollow and empty,
sweet rocket, ragwort, celandine, poppies and thistles
curling and waiting:
Pray for us. Pray for us..
All of you frogs and all of you toads,
burrowed and patient, hidden and still:
Pray for us.
Pray for us.
Graciously hear us.
All of you silenced cicadas and katydids,
all of you crickets still prowling the dark,
all of you ravenous mice in the cupboards:
Pray for us. Pray for us. Graciously hear us.
All of you creatures gone or to come,
all of you wings of the birds that have vanished, all of you mating calls yet to be sung:
Pray for us. Pray for us. Graciously hear us.
All of you snowdrops, ready to rise,
hepaticas, twinleaf and bloodroot,
all of you cresses, anemones, bluebells and squills, all of you secretly longing for spring,
Pray for us.
Pray for us.
Graciously hear us.
Pray for us.
Pray for us.
Graciously hear us.
Bill Felker lives with his wife in Yellow Springs. His“poor Will’s Almanack”airs on his weekly NPR radio segment on WYSOFM (91.3).