Within days, goldfinches will be all gold, fat toads sing
In the Sky
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
Mars and Saturn in Aquarius are the earliest Morning Stars this coming month, followed by Venus in Pisces, which is the brightest of the Morning Stars. Jupiter in Aries is difficult to see morning or evening.
The stars at bedtime tell that the danger of frost is almost past. June’s Arcturus still hangs a little to the east of the center of the sky, and that means a light freeze can happen one year in 10. But as that star shifts into the west, it pushes away the chances of freezing mornings with it. When Arcturus is well into the west at bedtime, any tender vegetable or flower can be planted without risk.
By April 1, the sun will have reached a declination of four degrees, 52 minutes, almost 60 percent of the way to summer. Prepare now for the total eclipse of the Sun coming to central Ohio on April 8.
The Moon in April
April 1: The Termite Migration Moon enters its last quarter.
April 8: The Tadpole Moon is new.
April 15: The moon enters its second quarter.
April 23: The moon is full.
Weather Trends
Seven major cold fronts move across the nation in an average April. Snow is possible in
Northern areas with the arrival of the first three fronts. Average dates for the weather systems to reach the Mississippi: April 2, 6, 11, 16, 21, 24 and 28.
Major storms are most likely to occur on the days between April 1 and 11, and between April 19 through the 27. Although the intensity of the high-pressure systems moderates after the 22nd, be alert for frost at least two days after each system pushes through your area.
New moon on April 8, perigee on April 7 and full moon on April 24 can expected to intensify the weather systems and bring frost and flurries near those dates. In general, most precipitation usually occurs during the first two weeks of the month.
Peak Activity Times for Creatures
When the moon is above the continental United States, creatures are typically most active. The second-most-active time occurs when the moon is below the Earth. Activity is likely to increase at new moon and full moon and at perigee (when the Moon is closest to Earth), especially as the barometer falls in advance of cold fronts near those dates.
Date: Best, Second-best
April 1: Midnight to Dawn, Afternoons
April 2-7: Mornings, Evenings April 8-14: Afternoons, Middle of the night
April 15-22: Evenings, Mornings
April 23-30: Midnight to dawn, Afternoons
The Natural Calendar
Buds form on wild raspberries, a sign that it is time for gall mites to be working in the ash trees and pine weevils and moths in the evergreens.
Water striders mate. Ragweed
sprouts. Allergies intensify as pollen and mold begin to become significant.
May apple spears are up in the woods, prophesying morel mushroom season. The first buckeyes, apple and peach trees leaf out. Eastern tent caterpillar eggs hatch between now and the middle of April. Look for their webs, especially on fruit trees, throughout your property.
Countdown to Summer
Within a few days, goldfinches will be all gold and the fat toads sing
Two weeks until lilacs bloom in your dooryards
Three weeks until all the honeysuckles flower
Four weeks to morel and May apple blooming seasons
Five weeks to the first rhubarb pie
Six weeks to the great warbler migration through the Lower Midwest
Seven weeks to the first peas from the garden
Eight weeks until the first orange daylilies blossom
Nine weeks until the high canopy begins shades the garden
Ten weeks until the first mulberries are sweet for picking and cottonwood cotton drifts in the wind.
In the Field and Garden
Remove mulch from around rose bushes. Spread manure or other fertilizer before the major growing season gets underway.
Complete all field planting preparations. Seven weeks remain until the most tender vegetables and flowers cane set out in the garden.
Under the dark moon in the first week of April, put out broccoli, cabbage, collards and kale sets.
Commercial potato planting is typically underway, and farmers are band seeding alfalfa.
Be sure your boars are getting enough vitamin E and selenium so they will be ready for breeding.
Plan ahead to serve the graduation cookout market – high school and college graduations can start as early as the first week in April and extend into the middle of June.
Journal
As a neurotic parent, I have always been unusually worried about my children. On the one hand, I know there is risk in everything, and on the other hand, well, really there is no other hand. It has been no different for me with the tadpoles.
Between the second week of April and the third week of May, our backyard pond was full of American toad tadpoles. The male had called in his mate at the end of March; we watched them breed and lay black strands of eggs early in April. By the 15th, the eggs had hatched, thousands of them coming to life, tiny black sperm-shaped creatures emerging to explore the water.
Throughout the rest of April and the first three weeks of
May, the tadpoles were busy eating algae and cleaning the pond of its fall and winter debris. At night, they retreated to the deeper water, and in the day, they came out to feed and swim. Around the 20th of May, however, their habits started changing. First they began to feed together in three or four large groups instead of all spread out across the pond. In place of their earlier haphazard independence, each going in its own direction, they seemed to have developed a sense of solidarity and a sense of caution. In April they had accepted my hand in the water beside them; by the third week in May they fled from it.
By the 25th of May, they had, almost like teenagers, become secretive and even more skittish, suddenly moving to the edges of the pond and hiding and feeding in the algae there. The bigger siblings were turning brown then, and their legs were growing bigger. By the 27th, almost all of the tadpoles had disappeared, and I began to wonder if they had died from a suburban plague, or whether they were succumbing to a voracious predator in the night.
On the 27th, my fears were given substance when the pond’s green frog, which had been silent for six weeks, started calling again. Had the frog left until the babies became fat and tasty enough? Had he come back now to vengefully devour the offspring of the macho singing toad who had seduced his mate with just a day or so of melody back at the end of March?
By the 30th of May, almost no tadpoles remained. I was convinced they had come to a terrible end. Then a friend called to say that some of the tadpoles we had given to her, and which she had kept in an aquarium, had turned into small brown toads, had left the water to sit on a stone in the middle of the water.
I had been expecting all along to be able to watch this metamorphosis, but giving the toads free rein in the pond, not putting them under glass, I lost my chance to see them leave their birthplace. And so everything probably turned out all right. The disappearance of the tadpoles was logical enough: like my children, they grew up and left home.
Or maybe, I and my insecure parent self still wonder at night, listening to the green frog growl and bark for love, maybe they were eaten alive as I had always feared they would be.