A spoonful of paprika and molasses can help with winter’s rheumatism
Beauty has no set weather, no sure place. Her careful pageantries are here as there, With nothing lost. Lizette Woodworth Reese
THE THIRD WEEK OF LATE FALL Lunar phase and lore
The Sleeping Frog Moon darkens all week, reaching perigee, its position closest to Earth, at 2:54 a.m. on November 23, and becoming the new Silent Cricket Moon on November 26 at 10:06 a.m. Rising in the early morning and setting in the afternoon, this moon encourages crickets to become silent, fish to bite and birds to migrate in the middle of the day.
Weather trends
The cold ordinarily intensifies in the third week of November. Chances of weather in the 60s are still 50/50, but a high in the 70s only happens once in 20 years, and days in the 30s and 40s are becoming common. According to weather history, there is better than a 50 percent chance of snow on the 23rd. Lunar perigee on that day and the new moon on the 26th, so close to perigee, may keep the nation in overcoats and could complicate Thanksgiving travel.
The natural calendar
November 22: Raspberry and black raspberry foliage is typically gone when the sun comes into its early winter sign of Sagittarius today. Hepatica and ginger foliage is brown from frost. Wild asparagus stalks have lost all their color. Comfrey has withered in the garden.
November 23: Clement’s Day, November 23rd, was the traditional beginning of Winter in medieval Europe; the fifth cold front of the month ordinarily keeps that feast in the Ohio Valley and chills the cloudy skies. As a rule, three out of the next seven days show no sun at all.
November 24: As the weather gets colder, wild game moves to areas where cover is thickest. For deer, mating season is usually over. White-tailed bucks have their gray winter coats now, and they are starting to drop their antlers.
November 25: Fed by honeysuckle berries, robins linger in town and in the woods. Starlings cluck and whistle at sunrise, and cardinals and pileated woodpeckers and bobwhites sing off and on throughout the day. Finches work the sweet gum tree fruits, digging out the seeds from their hollows. Sparrow hawks appear on the fences, watching for song birds and mice.
November 26: The beeches and the pears have lost their leaves, and the silver maples and the oaks thin out. Bittersweet is wide open along the fencerows. Bright pink coralberries shine through the undergrowth. Seed tufts of virgin’s bower complement tufts of milkweed, thimble plants and cattails.
November 27: Today is Thanksgiving Day – the same day as lunar perigee (when the moon is closest to Earth). Expect cold and storms, especially since tomorrow typically brings one of the most dangerous weather systems of the month.
November 28: Thanksgiving
In the field and garden
As the weather becomes colder, watch for declines in livestock milk production that are not related to feed changes or drying off; these declines could be due to health or other stress factors.
If you are planning to use young trees or shrubs for fodder, consider planting now before deep cold strikes or order now for setting out in early or middle spring.
Rheumatism in livestock and people increases during the cold and damp weather of winter, especially prior to the arrival of cold fronts. A tablespoonful of paprika and one of molasses per day are considered helpful by some in reducing joint stiffness.
Cool-weather pastures (like many warm-weather pastures) may or may not produce the kind of nutrition you need for your livestock. Just because a pasture is green doesn’t mean it will let you get by without feeding grain.
Carefully monitor nutrition of your pregnant animals - that’s one of the major ways to prevent abortions.
It’s time to plug in the electric bucket heaters and try to keep the water near 50 degrees for your livestock.
Journal
While global projections are dire for the decades ahead, it may be that the climate of southwestern Ohio will change in only minor ways.
It is likely that by 2030 summers will be a little warmer and drier, springs a little earlier and wetter, autumns and winters milder. The possibility of a tornado is somewhat more likely, as Tornado Alley moves east. Weather events like the one that occurred when Hurricane Ike arrived from the Gulf in 2008 will probably strike the village at least once or twice in the next decade as hurricanes become more frequent in the Caribbean.
Other changes might be expected, due not only to weather events but also to cumulative habitat destruction and pollution. Studies suggest that is likely that the insect population will continue to fall rapidly. Butterfly numbers have declined by 20 percent since the end of the 20th century, and it would not be surprising if that rate continued. Pollination of local vegetables, flowers, shrubs and trees has already started to be affected. The number of bird species visiting the Miami is quite likely to fall, perhaps as much as 50 percent by 2030.
Most disheartening to many local residents might be a sudden increase in nights without fireflies or crickets, a silent spring and summer in which robins and song sparrows and cardinals may no longer greet the dawn in March, grackles and starlings no longer breed in the trees in April, hummingbirds no longer grace local feeders between May and September. And these would also be warnings of even more drastic transformations to come.
On the other hand, while it may not be possible to counter the global climatic momentum that will affect this region, individual and community efforts could help to keep the natural environment more stable. If the Miami Valley became a dedicated sanctuary for all wildlife by, for example, eliminating the use of pesticides and herbicides, increasing the planting of trees, shrubs and flowers, providing water for birds and small animals, it might be able to offset some of the developments that lie ahead.
In such an adventure, each person and place of compassion matters. An oasis of intent and effort is a force of resistance. Such resistance becomes more precious the greater the odds that press against it.