Au revoir Winter!

Day by day, the bare ground line creeps northward. No Yak Trak’s for the driveway today. The dog and I enjoyed today’s moon (full at 2:17 am) without slipping and sliding. According to our Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar, the Ojibwe name for the March full moon is Snow Crust moon, while the Lakota call it the moon of Snow Blindness. Those are generally consistent with names listed in the Native American Moons page of the Western Washington University web site, but the American Indian Alaskan Native Tourism Association’s web site lists a variety of names other than those in the Weatherguide. As noted in the introduction to the AIANTA listing, “The concept of months only occurred post-colonization and most of these tribal translations pre-date colonization and generally reflect the seasonality of lunar phases. Moon phases, in fact, were used as measurements of time.” 

name the last full moon of winter

Photo by J. Harrington

Whatever it’s called, today’s full moon is the last one of winter this year, since December’s full moon will occur on the 7th, while it’s still autumn [winter solstice will be December 21], and Monday, March 20th is the Vernal Equinox, the beginning of astronomical spring.

Sunsets have been phenomenal some of the past few evenings but I still haven’t learned how to reliably capture the astounding red/pink colors with a camera. Local whitetail deer have become more noticeable during the past week. One doe visited the pear tree a couple of days ago. The Better Half and I noticed five whitetails at the far edge of a farm field yesterday midafternoon as we drove some township gravel roads. Robins have also been sighted, but still no red-winged  blackbirds nor any tom turkeys in courtship display. So much to look forward to, including the first flowers on our forced quince stems!

Spring (Again) 

Michael Ryan

The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it’s Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you, birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.

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