Poor Will's Almanack

The Big Dipper at midnight tells the progress of the year. When its pointers, Merak and Dubhe, point north-south, and the Dipper lies tight against the northern horizon, the northern hemisphere has left summer behind. Leaves are turning, birds migrating, wildflower time closing, the farm and garden take their harvest. The seasons of early, middle and late autumn pass through your habitat. When, Merak and Dubhe, (over in the eastern half of the sky) point east-west at midnight, the corn and

Between full summer and the final leafdrop of early December, many separate micro seasons blend with one another, the flowers of August sometimes lasting into early fall, the flowers of September sometimes blooming out of turn before late summer, sometimes the trees keeping their green and leaves well toward middle autumn. Markers of this third week of early fall can sometimes be the same as those of the second or fourth week. If I calculate time by what occurs in the landscape, then progress

When autumn leafturn starts near equinox in the Midwest, the deciduous trees are bare in northern Canada. In Oregon and Maine, foliage colors are approaching their best. In the Rocky Mountains, bull elks are mustering their harems, and snow is falling. Along the 40th parallel, the smoky tint of last week’s canopy quickly becomes clear and bright. Now the soybean fields are yellow. Touch-me-nots are popping. Wood nettle seeds are black. Wingstem, clearweed and ironweed complete their cycle.

Fall doesn't come all at once with equinox; it's been coming since the 26th of June when the days started to grow longer again, the Northern Hemisphere tilting away from its source of heat. The sun rose from the east northeast and set west northwest three months ago; now it rises almost due east, sets due west. Dawn and dusk continue to move south at the rate of about one degree every 72 hours until December solstice. The night sky is changing too, the stars predicting winter. By nine o'clock,

In this fifth week of late summer, the final tier of wildflowers starts to open. White and violet asters, orange beggarticks, burr marigolds, tall goldenrod, zigzag goldenrod and Japanese knotweed come into bloom, blending with the brightest of the purple ironweed, yellow sundrops, blue chicory, golden touch-me-nots, showy coneflowers and great blue lobelia. Deep in the woods, the late wildflowers of this year coincide with the first growth of second spring, actually the first days of next

In matters of global economics, the concepts of millions and billions and trillions seem disconnected from day-to-day budgeting. Who knows, I wonder, what all those zeros at the end of whole numbers really mean As I watch the season progress, I realize that my sense of numbers in the world around me is equally as confused. In the middle of May, the hundred days of summer feel like a zillion days to me. My body senses a limitless promise in that span of time. When I have just emerged from winter,

I settled in to watch like I used to do when I went fishing. I used to sit for hours then, focused on my bobber and fingering the tension on my line. The bites or strikes were signs that I had understood something of the river’s mystery and its creatures. It had been a disappointing year for finding butterflies, and I had worried off and on about climate change and the disasterous Anthopocine. Throughout June and July, only cabbage whites and an occasional azure had visited the flowers. Now I

When the lilies were still in bloom a month ago, I went counting lily blossoms every day. I knew that my practice had almost no socially redeeming value. I knew that no one else cared about the number of lily blossoms in my yard, and that the actual number did not interest me so much as the counting itself. I recorded the results of counting in my daybook, but the record did not support theories of climate change. In fact, it supported nothing at all. So why did I do it, really? First, when I

The Perseid meteors bring starfall to the northeastern portion of the sky on the nights of August 12 and 13, and the arrival of those shooting stars marks high tide of the Dog Days. Rising out of winter’s Taurus and Orion, they cut across Perseus and Andromeda, Cassiopeia and Pegasus, piercing the illusion of endless summer. Throughout the countryside, Queen Anne's lace, chicory, goldenrod, Joe Pye weed, sundrops, bull thistles, mustard, black-eyed Susans, wingstem, mullein and ironweed arein

Crows are usually silent during their mating time and the time they raise their young. Now, the fledglings are almost grown, and the crows come back together in flocks, and they begin to converse near my house before sunrise. The singing of robins and cardinals grace the spring and early summer, but as middle summer warms, the songs of those birds grow quiet. The crows, though, are the most faithful morning sky-talkers throughout the late summer, fall and winter. Sometimes, I feel like answering