The Pussy Willow Cracking Moon becomes the new Lambing and Kidding Moon at 1:45 a.m. on January 24.
This moon presides over the period during which most sheep and goats give birth.
Complementing this surge in the farming year, the first week of the Lambing and Kidding Moon opens skunk cabbage in the swamps.
The second week of this moon brings cardinals into song every morning about half an hour before dawn.
By full moon time, doves join the cardinals, and maple sap runs in the maples.
As the moon wanes, the first red-winged blackbirds arrive in the wetlands
And then very first snowdrops and yellow aconites come into bloom in sheltered corners of the village yards.
Then, by the time the Lambing and Kidding Moon turns into the new Broody Hen Moon – the moon under which hens often get moody and hoard their eggs – By then….purple and golden crocus will be in bloom, and then the morning robin chorus will get underway.
Daffodils will bloom by the full of the Broody Hen Moon, and then as tht moon wanes, golden forsythia blossoms, and the best wildflower time begins in the woods.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the second week of Late Winter. In the meantime, watch the new moon setting in the far west these days. Try to keep track of it as it waxes and wanes, becomes full just twice before it brings in spring.
