Bill Felker

Poor Will's Almanack for the Third Week of Late Fall.

More than one naturalist has noted the similarities in March and November. Even nature seems confused throughout late autumn, encouraging new growth - a kind of second spring - as if there would be no winter interruption of that cycle.

Poor Will's Almanack for the Second Week of Late Fall.

A few weeks ago I was walking Bella, our border collie, through the alley around a quarter after nine in the morning. The maples were just turning then, the serviceberries and the hackberries half down. I could hear starlings and grackles ahead of me to the north, and I hurried down to see them.

Poor Will's Almanack for the first week of Late Fall

There is an emptiness at the end of Middle Fall, an absence of flowers and birdsong, the slowing of the pulse of the crickets, the opening up of the sky in the woods when leaves come down, and sometimes I try to fill the emptiness with whatever is close at hand.

This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack for the LAST WEEK of Middle Fall

I wake up to leaves from the redbud tree and the white mulberry tree on the lawn where I just yesterday. Today, I will just look and listen.

Poor Will's Almanack for the third week of Middle Fall.

It wasn’t that long ago that all the workings of the world were great mysteries. Since people didn’t know what kinds of forces made the weather, they gave equal weight to a regular rain shower and a shower of frogs (yes, there have been showers of frogs). Stories about amazing weather phenomena were popular not only because they were different, but because people couldn’t figure out at all why they were occurring. Some people… a lot of people… thought the unusual events were signs from heaven.