It’s here! The Farmer’s Almanac’s here!
Fall is announcing its presence.
The garden is looking tattered and tired. The sun arcs a little
lower in the sky, sending shafts of light through hazy skies. The
mornings have a bit of an edge to them.
It’s here! The Farmer’s Almanac’s here
Fall is announcing its presence.
The garden is looking tattered and tired. The sun arcs a little lower in the sky, sending shafts of light through hazy skies. The mornings have a bit of an edge to them.
And the new edition of “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” is here.
I anticipate the arrival of the thick little yellow tome each year, and when it comes, I feel some of the same giddiness Steve Martin portrayed as he danced through a parking lot when he received a new phone book in that otherwise forgettable movie, “The Jerk.”
The book has changed a bit over the years. The price for the 2007 edition is up to $5.99, and the book seems to contain a few more advertisements every year. But mostly, it’s determinedly immutable. It still bears the portraits of its founders – Benjamin Franklin and Robert B. Thomas on its cover. First published in 1792, this is its 215th edition. It still has a hole drilled in its upper left hand corner, the better to hang it in the outhouse for a little reading. As months pass, and pages grow out-of-date, I imagine those outhouse almanacs were adapted to other uses.
The almanac is packed with information, mostly practical, but some whimsical. It offers yearlong weather forecasts – the 2007 edition warns of “another wild year ahead – astronomical tables, tidebooks, eclipse information, farming advice, historical tidbits, even fish stories.
One article, “How to Impress the Opposite Sex,” offers some practical advice: “make sure that you smell good,” and “be yourself” are two of them.
“The Good News About Climate Change” is another article that looks at global warming from a decidedly different perspective. Warmer weather is healthier, the author opines, noting that people flock to sunshine states to retire. Warmer temperatures will save energy, and render water more abundant (just ask the folks in New Orleans about that last one). Plants will thrive given additional heat and carbon dioxide. New shipping routes through the Arctic will save time and money.
The weather in our region, defined by the almanac as “Pacific Southwest,” is predicted to be a bit cooler on the coast, much cooler inland, with another year of above average rainfall. Look for a drier-than-average spring, however.
What I like best are its month-to-month calendar pages, a tradition as old as the almanac itself. The phases of the moon are marked, of course. But each day contains data about day length, sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, declination, the works. There’s information about what to watch for in the night sky, lists of holidays and important historical events, and a monthlong weather forecast rendered in verse. July’s reads, in part, “Storm clouds mutter, then fill the gutter. Great for clambakes (bring lots of butter!).”
So it’s not Whitman, but it still makes me smile.
The calendar pages also contain lots of essays about topics mostly relating to nature and farming. This year, we learn about garter snakes shedding their skins, peas, the nature of science, and why it is that oaks sometimes bear heavy acorn crops and at other times, leave the forest floor almost clean.
In short, the almanac is an irresistible temptation for many of us. It’s a harmless vice. The biggest risk a reader suffers is that it will briefly render him or her an insufferable bore, as the urge to repeat all the fascinating trivia to whatever hapless victim falls within range can be overwhelming.
It’s available in supermarket checkout lines, bookstores, and feed store counters (and better equipped outhouses) everywhere.
