Orion’s moves into western sky reinforce signs of early Spring

All of a sudden there’s a lot more light

And it’s a warm light – snow melts off the roof,

The first lambs are born in the barn cellar,

The hens start laying, the mare comes into season,

And I notice that the geraniums at the window

Have pushed their stalks up eight inches

And covered them with brickpink blossoms.

— Kate Barnes

The sky

The moon: The Cardinal Mating Moon, which became the new Snowdrop and Aconite Moon on Feb. 20, waxes throughout the week ahead, entering its second quarter on Feb. 27 at 3:06 a.m. Rising in the morning and setting the evening, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the day, especially favorable for fishing at that time.

The sun: The night has shortened by 90 minutes through the space of the last 60 days, and the speed of the change reaches real spring levels along the 40th Parallel,

a gain of 70 minutes occurring between Feb. 18 and equinox. The sun, which took 60 days to travel the first half of the way to equinox, suddenly doubles its speed, completing the second half of the journey in only 32 days. And in the next four weeks, the rise in average temperatures reaches its full springtime stride of one degree every three days.

The planets: Again moving retrograde in March, this time to Pisces, Venus and Jupiter are still the twin Evening Stars (Venus the brighter of the two).

The stars: By this week of the year, Orion moves into the western sky before midnight, reinforcing the other signs of Early Spring. Find Sirius, the Dog Star, shining along the southern horizon, the brightest light in that part of the heavens.

Weather trends

Snowdrop Winter arrived between Feb. 20-24, often one of the windiest times of the month, and colder temperatures return for up to 72 hours. While temperatures in the 50s and 60s each come 5% of the time, and 40s are recorded 35-40% of the years, highs only in the 20s or 30s occur the remaining 50%, and chances of highs in the teens appear for the last time this season. Feb. 25 is the last day that chances for snow get so high.

The natural calendar

Pussy willows are the calendar of Early Spring. Even in the coldest years, pussy willows squeeze out by the first week of March. They open well before the weedy henbit, partial to around a dozen thaw days, maybe five or six afternoons in the upper 40s, one or two near 60, and about three warm rains. The catkins generally reach their prime when crocuses bloom, and woolly bear caterpillars come out from winter hibernation.

Pussy willow time is the time that clover and wild violet leaves start to grow; horseradish stretches out to an inch or two, and red rhubarb unfolds in the sun. Honeysuckle buds are unraveling on the lowest branches. Bleeding hearts are pushing their heads from the ground as daylilies reach to the top of your boots, and white snow trillium blossoms appear in the bottomlands.

In the field and garden

Do late pruning on colder afternoons. Spread fertilizer after testing the soil. Graft and repot houseplants. Dig fence post holes while the ground is soft and wet. Put in oats or ryegrass for quick vegetative cover. Seed and fertilize the lawn. Lunar perigee, combined with full moon, should pull the maple sap into pails throughout the country.

Continue to keep plenty of lukewarm water available for your chickens when temperatures fall below freezing. And pigs, like people, sometimes catch cold if exposed to radical temperature changes — the kind of changes that occur quickly in late February and early March. Bee season has begun in the Deep South. Honeybees and carpenter bees collect pollen from dandelions, red maples, white clover and chickweed.

Mind and body

Even though Early Spring has arrived, promising milder conditions in the month ahead, lunar perigee this week, combined with new moon early in the period, reduces the likelihood of good weather as it increases the chances for seasonal affective disorder. As the moon approaches its mild second quarter, however, both the weather and S.A.D. will be more favorable for cheer.

Countdown to spring

■ Just a few days to major pussy willow emerging season and the season of salamanders mating in the warm rains

■ A week to crocus season and owl hatching time and woodcock mating time

■ Three weeks to the beginning of the morning robin chorus before sunrise.

■ Four weeks to daffodil season and silver maple blooming season and the first golden goldfinches.

■ Five weeks to tulip season and the first wave of blooming woodland wildflowers and the first butterflies

■ Six weeks until golden forsythia blooms and skunk cabbage sends out its first leaves and the lawn is long enough to cut

■ Seven weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the dark and corn planting time begins

■ Eight weeks until the Great Dandelion and Violet Bloom and the peak of wildflower season begin

■ Nine weeks until all the fruit trees flower

■ Ten weeks to the first rhubarb pie

Journal

February 20, 1995: To Jekyll Island off the southern coast of Georgia. It was cold and cloudy when we left Ohio, and the clouds stayed all the way to the island. Temperatures also remained fairly steady throughout the 840-mile trip, and our two days on the beach were rainy, with highs only in the 50s. We did find spring in spite of the cold. Buzzards were circling the Great Smoky Mountains, and miles of trees were budding between Knoxville and Asheville. Below Columbia, South Carolina, the first real sign of a new season, visible from the moving car, was growth on the wild onions (and on the way back, I found two swamp buttercups in full bloom at a rest area near Asheville).

The closer we came to Charleston, the larger the tree buds, and then by Savannah the trees were blooming, most of them an orange color, which turned to deep red by the time we got to Brunswick, Georgia. Just before our turnoff to the island, I spotted a redbud in full flower.

Then on Jekyll, there were azaleas and rhododendrons in early bloom, a few violets, some sprawling blackberry vines flowering. From all of this, it seems Jekyll Island is six to eight weeks ahead of the Miami Valley, about a 100 miles a week.