Poor Will’s Almanack for 2009

Description

Poor Will’s Almanack for 2009 contains a full explanation of weather patterns (applicable to any year), a daybook of activities and events of the year, new essays by Bill Felker, fourteen stories by readers of the Almanack, and even Sckramblers, a popular scrambled word puzzle, at the end of each month’s entry.

Price: $20, signed by the author, includes USPS mailing first class.

Index of Seasonal Essays & Special Features by Bill Felker in Poor Will’s Almanack for 2009

January:         January Thaws

February:        Counting Berries

March:            Tracking the Weather

April:              The Ripening of Spring

May:                Watching Some Yellow Springs Tadpoles

June:                The Critical Point

July:                 Tithing and Trash

August:             Notebook at the End of Late Summer

September:       The Moods of Early Fall

October:            At the Beach

November:       Watching Winter Koi

December:        On Finding Angels in the Woods

 

Index of Almanack Literature  (Americana submitted by the readers of Poor Will’s Almanack)

January:    Babysitter’s Club by Patty Greene, Rockville, Indiana

February:  The Little Red Hen by Cristine Arter, Crestline, Ohio

March:      Weird Ben by Lois Rivard, Switzerland County, Indiana

April:          Nemo by Clarence Dinnen, Jamestown, Ohio

May:          King of the World by Ann Dennis

June:          An Imitation Chicken Story by Pat Rodeffer, Modoc, Indiana

July:           Twinkles by Tressie Yoder, Shipshewana, Indiana

August:       Rainy Day by Sara Beck, Louisville, Kentucky

September:  One of a Kind by Marlene Arcuri, Crestline, Ohio

October:       Flight Kills Chickens by Nancy Searfoss

November:   Lights Out by Karen Kruger, Flushing, Michigan

December:   Let Sleeping Hogs Lie by Naomi Bliss, Switzerland County, Indiana

 

SAMPLE OF THE ZEITGEBERS MENTIONED ONLY IN POOR WILL’S ALMANACK FOR 2009

JANUARY ZEITGEBERS (Events in Nature That Tell the Time of Year)

WEEK 1: Zeitgebers for this week include occasional sightings of foxes and coyotes frolicking at night in their mating rituals, starlings and sparrows scouting for nesting areas in and around your eaves. In warmer years, the tips of crocus, snowdrop and hyacinth leaves push up through the leaves.

WEEK 2: Zeitgebers for this week include the increasing frequency of titmouse song in the morning, the occasional call of a blue jay, the appearance of pileated woodpeckers at feeders as nesting time gets underway, the cracking of a few pussy willow catkins, the falling of the prickly sweet gum seed balls, and an allergic response by some people to pollen from pine trees.

WEEK 3: Zeitgebers include the emergence of flies in your house (perhaps brought in on a plant last fall), the appearance of small, tan moths on mild afternoons, crayfish hunting the swamps when the sun warms the wetlands, juncos beginning to flock in advance of their migration north, and crows starting to move up from the South.

WEEK 4: Zeitgebers for this week include the arrival of bluebirds, the beginning of cardinal mating songs at about 7:15 in the morning, the appearance of the first snowdrop, day lily, crocus, daffodil and peony foliage, the rapid disappearance of the remaining orange euonymus berries and the last seeds of the small-flowered asters.