If you get up at 4 a.m. and look south, you're going to see one of the great signs of early fall, and it's a prophecy of the winter to come, because what you're going to see is Orion.
Even if you don't know your stars, you kind of have an idea of what Orion is. And if you don't, and you look out your window due south these mornings, you'll see a figure that looks like a man holding a sword or something that's Orion. And even if you don't know his name, it doesn't matter, you'll see something looks kind of familiar after a while. And then if you look to your left, you'll see a couple stars. That's the stars of Gemini. And if you look a little further, you'll see Cancer walking around up there. And if you look to your right, you'll see the real prophets of winter, Taurus, the bull and the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. That's all before you even wake up, right?
So we know it's got to be Early Fall, because it's got you going at four o'clock in the morning.
If you're an early riser, you're used to hearing the birds. But as you stand there at four o'clock, you won't hear any birds. Now, if we're still lucky, you'll be hearing tree crickets. Now, tree crickets are some of my favorite things. They're small and they're loud and they just sort of click and they sort of rattle. They're like people in the bushes with rattles. Now, of course, they are the sign of summer as well as fall. So you have to put together the stars and the weather and the tree crickets to get the full sense of Early Fall.
And besides that, there are field crickets too in the nicer mornings. And the field crickets are the ones that go chirp, chirp, chirp, and they have a rhythm, and they start out in May, the first crickets start in May, and then they go all the way through Joe Frost. So we're looking at some of the most important pieces that you'll be able to put together next week. When we go a little further.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack, and I shall be back again next week with more notes on the season. In the meantime, go outside and listen to the crickets, and you can probably see Orion at the same time.
