Once more the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, And domes the red-ploughed hills With loving blue…. Alfred Lord Tennyson

Astronomical Information

The Robin Mating Chorus Moon waxes through its second quarter this week, becoming completely full on March 28 at 1:48 p.m. Two days later, it reaches perigee, its position closest to Earth at 1:00 a.m. Full moon and perigee so close together create significant lunar effects on tides, the atmosphere and on animals and people. The moon enters its last quarter: 5:02 a.m. on April 4. Lunar influence on fish and game will be greatest when the moon passes overhead in the middle of the night, especially as the cold fronts of March 24 , 29 and April 4 approach.

Weather Trends

The last quarter of March often brings dramatic changes. On the 30th, for the first time since October 22, there is a five percent chance for 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.

This year, however, full moon and perigee are likely to bring a stormy close to the year’s third month. The cold fronts of March 24 and 29, usually relatively mild, will bring the threat of frost and snow all across the northern tier of states.

Zeitgebers

(Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year)

Watch for May apple plants to push out of the ground in parks and woodlots. When May apple “umbrellas” open, then the morel mushrooms should be swelling in the dark.

In central Minnesota, robins finally arrive; between Tennessee and Wisconsin, red-winged blackbirds are nesting along the fencerows; sugaring is in full swing throughout Vermont.

When you see bumblebees and carpenter bees working in the flowers, then you know it’s time for termites to swarm. And white cabbage butterflies in your back yard announce that bass and sunfish are moving to spawn in shallow waters.

When forsythia blooms, then farmers seed the first of the oats and field corn. In town, the lawn is almost long enough to cut. Then nettles, chicory and leafcup are six to eight inches tall, Asiatic lilies and columbine three to five inches. Ragwort and garlic mustard are forming clumps; some sweet rockets and money plants are getting ready to send out their flower stalks.

Japanese knotweed catches up with the rhubarb (just about big enough for a small pie). Water rushes and purple loosestrife, water lilies and pickerel plants suddenly produce foliage in the ponds and streams, where small diving water beetles hunt for food.

Countdown to Spring

•One week until Middle Spring wildflowers blossom in the woods

•Two weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the night.

•Three weeks until the Great Dandelion and Violet Bloom begins

•Four weeks until azaleas and snowball viburnums and dogwoods blossom

•Five weeks until iris and poppies and daisies come into flower

•Six weeks until the beginning of clover time in yards and pastures

•Seven weeks until the first orange day lily flowers

•Eight weeks until roses bloom and thistles bud

•Nine weeks until the high tree canopy begins to shade the garden

•Ten weeks until cottonwoods bloom and send their cotton through the air

Mind and Body

The S.A.D. Index, which measures seasonal stress on a scale from 1 to 100, climbs from the 40s into the high 50s this week, thanks to full moon at perigee (close to a Supermoon). That being said, the day continues to lengthen, and the likelihood of sun and mild temperatures increases, keeping S.A.D. from surging.

For full S.A.D. statistics, consult Poor Will’s Almanack for 2021.

In the Field and Garden Spring is a good time to give your chickens a quick check-up. Inspect the vent, examine the keel and beak for sores, cut toenails, and clear the nostrils. Also take a look at the waterers. If the waterers have rust, many people feel that they should be replaced.

The field and garden day is now increasing at the rate of two minutes per day across the nation’s midsection.

Passover lasts from March 27 through April 4: The Jewish market typically is best after religious holidays come to a close.

Be ready for carpenter bees: Seal their last year’s entry points and treat the wood with insecticide. Do it in the cool of the morning

The graduation cookout market begins in early April. Have kids and lambs ready to sell for those celebrations throughout the spring. The Happiest Moment of My Life This narrative was submitted by Bob Christiansen of Salvisa, Kentucky. “I do not know who the author was,” Bob says, “but the story was in with some of my deceased folks’ personal things. It is handwritten in soft pencil on the back of a calendar leaf (February 1936).”

My story goes back fourteen yeas ago last Christmas Eve. I was sixteen years old and my cousin was twenty-one.

My cousin was never more satisfied than when gunning for wild game, and from the time I was old enough, he would take me along on the hunt.

On this particular occasion, we were on our way to feed some stock for a neighbor so that he might spend Christmas with his mother.

My cousin insisted that I carry his shotgun and shoot any game that we might scare up. We were soon nearing the neighbor’s barn, and as I had been carrying the gun cocked ready to fire, I decided to uncock it. But just as I let the hammer down, it accidentally went off, and my cousin stepped around me to take the load of shot in his leg just above the ankle.

When I saw what had happened, I was horrified, and when I finally recovered my senses, I heard him telling me to run for help. I ran home, and Father and I were back in no time, it seemed, and rushing him to the doctor. Father and the doctor rushed him on to the nearest hospital where Doc said they might have to amputate his foot.

I returned home heartbroken, thinking I had badly crippled my cousin whom I dearly worshipped. Early Christmas morning, Father returned from the hospital telling me they had not only saved my cousin’s foot but that he would not even suffer a limp.

I believe to this day that was the happiest moment of my life. The Drying Rack

“You are still asking for true stories,” writes Elsie Kerr of Lafayette, Indiana. “I have a funny little story pertaining to my granddaughter.

“One day in 2017, I was hanging my laundry outside on the clothesline. My seven-year-old granddaughter, Juliette, was watching me. She asked: ‘Is this your drying rack?’

“I can understand why she would ask this. Modern days with dryers and a small drying rack are what these kids are used to!”

Poor Will Wants Your Stories! Poor Will pays $4.00 for unusual and true farm, garden and animal stories, and for “The happiest moment of my life” stories used in this almanack! Send yours to Poor Will’s Almanack at the address below.

Copyright 2021 - W. L. Felker Almanack Classics