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Poor Will's Almanack: February 26 - March 4, 2019

daffodils
CameliaTWU
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Yes, it is the second week of Early Spring. But it doesn’t really look like spring. So it could be time to start counting the weeks until it really does look like spring. Here is one way to count:

  • One week  to the beginning of the morning robin chorus before sunrise- – you might even hear them tomorrow morning.. 
  • Two weeks to daffodil season to daffodil season and when daffodils bloom, then the first goldfinches turn gold for spring. 
  • Three weeks to tulip season and the first wave of blooming woodland wildflowers (the hepaticas and spring beauties and bloodroot) and the first butterflies - especially the white cabbage butterflies and maybe even the exotic mourning cloak butterflies
  • Four weeks until golden forsythia blooms and skunk cabbage sends out its first leaves and the lawn is long enough to cut
  • Five weeks until American toads sing their mating songs in the dark and corn planting time begins on the farm and in the garden
  • Six weeks until the Great Dandelion and Violet Bloom and all the weeds sprout in the garden
  • Seven weeks until all the fruit trees flower
  • Eight weeks to the first rhubarb pie and maybe the first radishes and lettuce from the garden
  • Nine weeks to the first cricket song of late spring and the emerging of preying mantises from their egg sacks, or “oothecas” as they are called
  • Ten weeks to the great warbler migration through the Lower Midwest and clovers flower in the pasture and the high canopy of trees starts to fill with green leaves.

This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the third week of Early Spring  and the first week of the Cabbage White Butterfly Moon. In the meantime, start counting. 

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Bill Felker has been writing nature columns and almanacs for regional and national publications since 1984. His Poor Will’s Almanack has appeared as an annual publication since 2003. His organization of weather patterns and phenology (what happens when in nature) offers a unique structure for understanding the repeating rhythms of the year.