Free The Old Farmer's Almanac 2015 by Old Farmer's Almanac Page B

but it startles us as we walk up the dark road.
    Passing the frozen pond, we occasionally hear a louder, deeper boom as its frozen water expands, too. In 1795, Charles Hutton, a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society, wrote of “sudden cracks or rifts in the ice of the lakes of Sweden, 9 or 10 feet deep, and many leagues long; the rupture being made with a noise not less loud than if many guns were discharged together.”
    The strangest sound always comes from exactly the same place in the woods, but only in the very early morning and only on the coldest days of the year. The first time we heard it, it sounded like the barking of a seal, so every time we hear it now, we say, “There’s the seal.” It’s just two tree limbs rubbing against each other. We hope.

Calendar: February 2015
    The Second Month
     
    SKY WATCH Venus appears higher up each evening and stands next to Neptune on the 1st. Jupiter, retrograding into Cancer, has its opposition on the 6th; it is then at its closest, biggest, and brightest of the year and is out all night long. Dazzling Venus hovers very close to faint orange Mars from the 19th to the 21 st, low in the southwest at nightfall. On the 20th, the crescent Moon joins this conjunction—a don’t-miss event 18 degrees high in deepening dusk. Binoculars will reveal green Uranus right next to the crescent Moon on the 21st. Meanwhile, in the predawn eastern sky, Saturn in Scorpius is now high enough for telescopic observation.
     

     

     
    February Hath 28 Days
     
    Then come the wild weather—come sleet or come snow,
    We will stand by each other, however it blow.
    –
H. W. Longfellow
     

     
    Tradition wears a snowy beard,
    Romance is always young.
    –
John Greenleaf Whittier
     
    Farmer’s Calendar
     
    There’s a basswood on our road that looks like someone has tried to make it into a cribbage board. All around its trunk, and as far up as I can see, there are rows of holes, maybe an eighth of an inch in diameter. Lots of holes: I counted 17 in one 6-inch row.
    These are the work of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, which has been tapping trees for a lot longer than people have. It possesses one of the worst names in ornithology—three insults in two words, implying cowardice, stupidity, and gullibility. It’s misleading, too. Granted, the bird does suck sap, but there’s little yellow on its belly. The bright red patch on the male’s head is what stands out. Why not “red-capped sapsucker”?
    Its Latin name, Sphyrapicus, is more dignified. Sphyra means hammer, and the bird is, indeed, fond of hammering on metal surfaces such as road signs, chimney flashing, and mailboxes at dawn, a habit that does not endear it to human neighbors.
    In Roman mythology, Picus was a mortal man who loved Pomona, a goddess of the orchards. He made the mistake of spurning the affections of the witch Circe, who was famous for turning men into swine, so she changed him into a woodpecker. What a sap.

Calendar: March 2015
    The Third Month
     
    SKY WATCH The Moon meets Jupiter on the 2nd. Venus stands very near Uranus on the 4th, with Mars below them, in Pisces. Orange Mars has a close conjunction with green Uranus on the 11th, with dazzling Venus above; use binoculars. Saturn in Scorpius, rises after midnight in midmonth. The 20th brings the vernal equinox at 6:45 P.M. and a total solar eclipse over the Faroe Islands, off Scotland; the path of totality then marches directly to—and stops at—the North Pole. The crescent Moon meets Mars on the 21st and passes to the left of Venus on the 22nd. Mars vanishes in the Sun’s glare at month’s end. Jupiter hovers near the Moon on the 29th.
     

     

     
    March Hath 31 Days
     
    Frozen ruts and slippery walks;
    Gray old crops of last year’s stalks.
    –
Christopher Pearse Cranch
     
    Farmer’s Calendar
     
    Gas generators start with a slow, thumping putt-putt-puttputtputtputtputt that speeds up until it becomes a whir—unless the generator fails to catch. Then it