Bill Felker

Poor Will’s Almanack for the First Week of Middle Fall.

The English poet Shelly wrote about these days --

the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist,
Like a vaporous amethyst,.....
Fills the overflowing sky.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the Fourth Week of Early Fall.

The last week of Early Fall is the week the first slate-gray junco arrives for winter.  Goldenrod is seeding now, pods of the eastern burning bush are open, hawthorn berries redden, wild grapes are purple, and the tree line that seemed so deep in summer just days ago is suddenly poised to break into its final glory of the year.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the Third Week of Early Fall.

Wind comes in ahead of the first October cold, pulling off foliage from box elders and sycamores, red Virginia creepers, and elms, blowing hickory leaves into the rivers. Early in the morning, Orion lies in the middle of the southern sky. The locust trees and cottonwoods, the grape vines and the milkweed leaves are gold. Black walnut trees are bare.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the Second Week of Early Fall.

This is the time when milkweed pods come open, spilling their sleek and silvery seeds in the fields. The milkweed says that frost season is on the way, and that Canadian geese, great-crested flycatchers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, ruby-throated hummingbirds, eastern wood peewees and bank swallows are moving down their flyways toward the Gulf of Mexico.  Buzzards gather at their roosts.  Crows are the only birds to call before dawn.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the First Week of Early Fall.

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 greatest brilliance. 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.