Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Free Sampler Issue of Almanac Monthly
To Patrons
The 2015 Edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac: Masthead
2015 Trends
Food: Cook Up Some Comfort!
Food: Winners in the 2014 Carrot Recipe Contest
Gardening: Grow the “Greats”
Gardening: Make a Cultivated Exchange
Gardening: Have Your Own Walden
Outdoors: What's Happened to All the Quail?
Weather: When and Why Wind Chills
Weather: Maps
2014–15 The General Weather Report and Forecast
Astronomy: Information Pages
Astronomy: 24 Strange Things About the Universe
Calendar: Three-Year Calendar
How to Use This Almanac
Calendar: November 2014
Calendar: December 2014
Calendar: January 2015
Calendar: February 2015
Calendar: March 2015
Calendar: April 2015
Calendar: May 2015
Calendar: June 2015
Calendar: July 2015
Calendar: August 2015
Calendar: September 2015
Calendar: October 2015
Calendar: November 2015
Calendar: December 2015
Calendar: Holidays and Observances
Calendar: Glossary of Almanac Oddities
Special Report: Where Does the Time Go?
Outdoors: Best Fishing Days and Times
Outdoors: Try Getting Bumped in the Night
Husbandry: Gestation and Mating Tables
Romance: Hungry for Love?
Amusement: What Are the Odds?
Amusement: Mind-Manglers
Home Remedies: Beauty on a Budget
How We Predict the Weather
Weather Regions
Region 1 Forecast
Region 2 Forecast
Region 3 Forecast
Region 4 Forecast
Region 5 Forecast
Region 6 Forecast
Region 7 Forecast
Region 8 Forecast
Region 9 Forecast
Region 10 Forecast
Region 11 Forecast
Region 12 Forecast
Region 13 Forecast
Region 14 Forecast
Region 15 Forecast
Region 16 Forecast
Region 17 Forecast
Region 18 Forecast
Gardening: Frosts and Growing Seasons
Anniversary: Witnesses to the Surrender
Anniversary: 3 Unparalleled Pioneers
Amusement: Winners in the 2014 Essay Contest
Amusements: The Greatest Deals in History
Gardening: Why We Need Weeds
Astrology: Signs of Good Health
Astrology: Best Days for 2015
Astrology: Secrets of the Zodiac
Gardening: Planting by the Moon’s Phase
Tide Corrections
Time Corrections
Amusement: Answers to Mind-Manglers
Amusement: Anecdotes & Pleasantries
Table of Measures
Special Bookstore Supplement: A Reference Compendium
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NATURE—A SAMPLE FROM THE ALMANAC MONTHLY
10 Common Questions About Bat Houses
Bat boxes secured to a tree in a conservation area
—Jerome Whittingham/Shutterstock.com
When your neighbors see you hang your first bat house, the conversation will go something like this...
1. Did you forget to put a hole in your birdhouse?
No, that’s a bat house.
2. What the heck is a bat house?
A birdhouse is a home for birds; a bat house is a home for bats.
There are 47 species of bats in North America, but fewer than half are likely to use a bat house. In the
northern two-thirds of the United States and Canada, you’re most likely to find the little brown bat
(Myotis lucifugus) or the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) living in a bat house. In the southeastern
United States, these are gradually being displaced by the Southeastern bat (Myotis austroriparius).
The Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) lives in the Gulf states and in most of the
Southwest and western regions. Another West Coast bat is Myotis yumanensis. In arid western
regions, you might find the pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) hanging out in your bat house.
3. Why on Earth would I want to have a bat house?
Bats are gentle, intelligent creatures, important enemies of insect pests, and extremely valuable for
medical research, including that on navigational aids for the blind (bats themselves are not blind—
they just use echolocation to hunt in the darkness).
Because of their remarkable ability to adjust their reproductive cycles to match changes in their
environment, they have contributed to our understanding of birth control and artificial insemination,
along with vaccine production, drug testing, and low-temperature surgery.
As seed dispersers and pollinators, various species of tropical bats are essential for the survival of
wild forms of crop plants such as avocados, cashews, guavas, peaches, bananas, dates, mangoes, figs,
breadfruit, carob, balsa wood, kapok for life preservers, Manila and sisal fibers for rope, and agave
for tequila.
They also contribute a lot of bat guano, which is excellent fertilizer and the answer to a trivia question
(What was the name of Keenan Wynn’s character in the film Dr. Strange-love? Colonel “Bat” Guano.)
But unless you are blind, infertile, a shipwreck victim, or a stockholder in a multinational fruit
company, your best reason for owning a bat house has to do with mosquitoes.
You’ve heard of people building houses for purple martins to encourage the birds to fly around and
eat mosquitoes? Well, purple martins go to bed at night, when mosquitoes flourish. A little brown bat
will come out at dusk and eat as many as 1,000 mosquitoes in 1 hour. If your bat house attracts a
colony of 30 little brown bats, they may eat up to 180,000 or more mosquitoes and other flying insects
in a single night. They won’t poison the environment, as pesticides do, and they’re cheaper and more
effective than bug zappers. Less noisy, too.
4. Bats give me the creeps. Aren’t they flying rats that get tangled up in your hair at night?
Bats are not rodents—in fact, they are more closely related to people than to rats or mice. And if they
can locate and capture flying insects in the dark, why should they get tangled in your hair?
5. I’m asking the questions. Don’t some bats carry rabies and all sorts of icky diseases?
Bats carry rabies, like all mammals. But less than 1 percent of bats contract the disease, and when
they do, they quickly die. Even a rabid bat will rarely attack a human. Bats may bite in self-defense if
the human picks up a sick one—something you shouldn’t do under any circumstances with any wild
animal.
In the United States, an average of two people per year die as a result of being bitten by rabid bats.
More than that die every year from eating bad potato salad at church picnics.
Bat droppings may contain a fungus that causes the respiratory ailment known as histoplasmosis, but
exposure to it is much more commonly encountered in bird or cat droppings.
6. If I attract bats to my yard with bat houses, won’t they move into my attic or walls?
If bats liked living in your attic or walls, they’d already be living there. If anything, putting up a bat
house might persuade bats to move out of your attic or walls.
7. How do I make a bat house?
For a simple bat house, see the Single-Chamber Bat House plan from Bat Conservation International
at Batcon.org. If you aren’t handy, BCI also sells bat houses, the proceeds from which go to bat
conservation projects all over the globe.
In many regions around the world, bats are endangered by pesticide poisoning, loss of habitat,
disturbance of their hibernation caves, and deliberate attempts at extermination.
8. Where should I put a bat house?
Bats like a warm place to live—which is why you find them in attics—so if you live in a cool climate,
you should orient the bat house to get maximum solar exposure. Consider painting the top black. The
bat house should be out of the wind, too. The best place is on the side of a building, 10 to 15 feet above
the ground. Most North American bats need to live near water, preferably within a few hundred yards
of a stream, marsh, or lake.
9. How can I be sure that bats will live in my bat house?
Like birds, bats may or may not need a house in any given area. The odds of success are probably
higher if bats already have been sighted nearby. Bats are most likely to use your bat house if there is a
shortage of available housing for them—say, because of people cutting down suitable trees or
excluding bats from attics by closing up entry holes.
10. How long might it take to attract bats to my bat house?
On rare occasions, bats have moved in on the first night, but more often they take up to a year or more
to find the bat house and move in.
Some people try to attract bats to their bat houses by painting the inside with moistened bat
droppings. But there’s no proof that this works, and besides, if you don’t have bats already, where are
you going to find moistened bat droppings?
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FOOD—A SAMPLE FROM THE ALMANAC MONTHLY
Even If You Don’t Know Someone’s Coming, Bake a Cake!
Photo: Margo Letourneau
There was a time when all cakes were made from scratch. Today, with our desire for convenience,
cakes from mixes are common and cakes from bakeries, including those in grocery stores, are the
norm. In fact, many people have never tasted a nonmix cake or had the pleasure of baking one from
scratch!
To some taste buds, cake mix cakes have a slightly chemical (even cloying) aftertaste from the
preservatives used to keep the ingredients reasonably fresh during months on supermarket shelves.
What’s more, a “box” or mix cake, even though homemade, doesn’t match the texture and flavor of a
scratch cake—especially one composed of only the highest-quality ingredients.
The cake recipes here are almost as quick to make as their cake-mix counterparts, but they taste
measurably better and are less sweet. These cakes need no frosting—only a dusting of confectioners’
sugar, if desired.
Hot Milk Cake
½
1
4
1
1¾
2
1
cup (1 stick) butter
cup milk
large eggs
teaspoon vanilla extract
cups sugar
cups cake flour
pinch of salt
teaspoon baking powder
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Set the oven rack to the lower third of the oven. Lightly butter and flour a
9-inch tube pan without a removable bottom.
Combine the butter and milk in a saucepan and slowly bring to a boil.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes,
or until blended. Add the sugar in three portions, beating after each addition and scraping down the
side of the bowl. Add half of the flour and the salt, beat for 30 seconds, then add the remaining flour.
When the butter-milk mixture has boiled, remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour it into
the flour mixture with the beater turning. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to thoroughly combine the
ingredients. Add the baking powder and beat for 1 minute more. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until golden on top. Transfer to a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Invert the
cake onto the rack and dust the top with confectioners’ sugar. Makes 8 to 10 servings.
Quick Buttermilk Cake
This versatile cake easily can be adapted to five different flavor variations, keeps very well, and needs
no frosting.
½
1
3
1½
½
1
¾
cup (1 stick) butter
cup sugar
large eggs
cups cake flour
teaspoon baking soda
teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
cup buttermilk
2
teaspoons freshly minced orange zest
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan.
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter for 1 minute. Add the sugar slowly, beating constantly at
medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the eggs and beat to blend. Stop the mixer and add the flour, baking
soda, baking powder, salt, buttermilk, and orange zest. At medium speed, beat for 2 minutes more.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the
center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Invert the cake onto the rack
and let it cool completely. Dust with confectioners’ sugar. Makes 8 to 10 servings.
Variations
Dark Sweet Chocolate Cake. Omit the orange zest. Melt 4 ounces of dark sweet chocolate in the
microwave. Let it cool slightly. Add the chocolate and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract along with the
buttermilk.
Prune (Dried Plum) and Chocolate-Chip Cake. Omit the orange zest, if you wish. Finely dice ¼ cup
of prunes (dried plums) and add with ½ cup of chocolate chips when you add the buttermilk.
Coconut Cake. Use all-purpose flour (see “Flour Power”). Add 1 cup of sweetened coconut along with
the flour.
Orange-Poppy Seed Cake. Use all-purpose flour (see “Flour Power”). Add ½ cup of poppy seeds
along with the flour.
Super-Rich Cake. Use all-purpose flour and increase the butter to ⅓ cup.
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Although this version calls for less butter and fewer eggs than most, it’s not only wonderful, but easy.
FILLING:
2
1
½
tablespoons sugar
teaspoon cinnamon
cup chopped nuts
CAKE:
¾
1
1
¼
1
teaspoon baking soda
cup sour cream
cup sugar
cup (½ stick) butter
large egg
1½
1½
cups all-purpose flour
teaspoons baking powder
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour an 8×8-inch cake pan.
For filling:
In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon and stir to blend. Add the nuts and mix.
For cake:
In a small bowl, combine the baking soda and sour cream and stir to blend. Let stand for 5 to 10
minutes. (The mixture will increase slightly in volume.)
In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer. Gradually add the sugar, beating to blend.
Add the egg and beat until thoroughly combined.
In a small bowl or 2-cup measuring cup, combine the flour and baking powder and stir.
Add the sour cream mixture to the egg mixture and beat briefly. Add the flour mixture and beat for 2
minutes to blend, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with the cinnamon-nut mixture. Spoon the
remaining batter on top, smoothing as much as possible. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick
inserted into the center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 9 servings.
The Cake Song
The song that inspired this theme, “If I Knew You Were Comin’, I’d’ve Baked a Cake,” was
composed by Al Hoffman, Bob Merrill, and Clem Watts in 1950. Eileen Barton was the first to
record it, and her version topped the U.S. music charts for 12 straight weeks. Although she was
an accomplished vocalist—she sang beginning at age 2½ and later performed with Milton Berle,
Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Buddy Greco, and others—she is best remembered for this
novelty song.
Video: “If I Knew You Were Comin’,” by Eileen Barton on 1950 Mercury 78-rpm vinyl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1wEVPqFFCg
Flour Power
The differences and benefits of cake vs. all-purpose flour
Cake flour is always made from 100 percent soft-wheat flour, which is lower in protein than allpurpose flour, thus reducing gluten in the batter and resulting in a more tender cake. All cake flour is
bleached (chlorinated), as are some brands of all-purpose flour. Bleaching acts on the starch particles
to make them more soluble, producing a sweeter cake because the structure of the batter can carry
more water and sugar. This is why cake flour manufacturers aim for high moisture-retention
characteristics. Cakes made from bleached flour also tend to have a lighter texture.
All-purpose flour is made exclusively from hard wheat or from a mixture of soft and hard wheats.
Because “hardness” is a measure of protein content, not texture, all-purpose flour has a higher protein
content than cake flour. Hard-wheat flours have less starch and form strong gluten, giving structure to
yeast breads. However, in making cakes, this means that the more you beat the batter, the more you
develop the gluten, which can result in a tougher texture. Denser cakes, such as pound cakes, and
cakes with particulates such as poppy seeds or nuts, turn out well with all-purpose flour.
Substituting One Flour for the Other
If you substitute all-purpose flour for cake flour, use 2 tablespoons less flour per cup. Or use 2
tablespoons less all-purpose flour per cup of cake flour and add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, which
will enhance the sweetness of the cake.
Ultimately, it’s a matter of taste: Choose cake flour if you prefer a high volume and airy texture. If
you prefer to use an unbleached, high-quality, all-purpose flour, you will end up with a hearty, moist
cake that will still taste good.
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OUTDOORS—A SAMPLE FROM THE ALMANAC MONTHLY
Expert Advice on Catching, Keeping, Measuring, and Cooking Your Favorite Fish
Useful tips gleaned from a lifetime of angling.
Be Weatherwise
Fish tend not to bite during windy or stormy days—that is, when the barometer is falling. Use a
good barometer and keep an eye on the water.
Practice Reel Cleanliness
Spinning reels need only infrequent attention if used exclusively in fresh water. Reels that see
saltwater service should be rinsed in fresh water and allowed to dry before storage. The easiest
and surest method is to bring the entire outfit into the shower stall. A hot, soapy shower revives
the fisherman and works wonders with a rod and reel.
Look Closely
Use binoculars to check ponds for where there are moving fish, especially trout. Rising trout show up
on glass, and the smart fisherman knows what happens when fish are “working.”
Light the Way
To catch trout, hang a flashlight from a tree so that it shines above—not on—the water of a likely
pool. The light attracts insects, which in turn attract trout and landlocked salmon.
Take the Bait
Boston mackerel, strips of squid, and the white belly meat of summer flounder make excellent bait for
game fish. Save good fishing time by preparing and freezing ready-to-use strip baits in advance. Place
baits in plastic containers, label, and cover with water before freezing.
Chew the Bait
If your children chew gum, insist that it’s red gum. When the kids have chewed it awhile, roll it into
pieces shaped like worms. Hook these in the middle and use them to catch perch, bass, bluegills,
crappies, and, occasionally, brook trout. Strike fast when you feel a nibble.
Catch the Bait
Tips for using trout or perch parts as bait...
Remove the anal fin of a brook trout and cast it into riffles and pockets. Retrieve slowly.
Use belly strips of perch as bait for bass, pickerel, muskie, pike, and lake trout. Jerk the bait
quickly on the top of the water.
Light Up
The best fly-fishing usually comes at day’s last light, dusk, or when you can’t see to change flies. A
small, pencil-size flashlight clipped to your fishing vest and aimed downward solves that problem.
Go Boating
When fishing in a pond or lake, never pass up a half-sunken boat or even a boat that is tied up
offshore. Fish often lie in the shade of boats.
Scale Down
Use a pair of pliers to remove scales and skin from sunfish—bass, bluegills, et al. Start behind the
head and keep pulling off the skin.
Muddy the Pots
When cooking over an open fire, smear the outside of pots and pans with a thin coating of mud. Soot
will collect on the mud. After cooking, tap the pots and off comes the mud, soot and all.
Measure Up
You will always have a ruler with which to measure the length of your catch if you paint dots 1 inch
apart on your fly or casting rod. Paint every fifth dot red and make dots as far as the length of the
biggest fish you would like to catch.
Practice, Practice
A bicycle tire laid on the lawn can help to improve your technique. For either fly- or bait-casting, try
landing your lure in the center of the tire. When you can put three out of four in the center, you are
ready to talk to the trout or salmon or bass, and such saltwater species as striped bass and weakfish.
Check the Time
When you don’t have a watch or other clock, you can estimate how long it will be before dark: If the
Sun is shining, stand and face it. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Place one hand above the other,
palms facing you, with the little finger of one hand on the horizon. Then count the fingers—not
thumbs—needed to blot out the sky between the horizon and the Sun. Each finger represents 15
minutes of daylight.
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GARDENING—A SAMPLE FROM THE ALMANAC MONTHLY
Things You May Not Know About Roses
As surely as they produce leaves and thorns, roses breed opinionated gardeners. We might even go so
far as to say that rose growers are a thorny lot. Some pride themselves on their yards abloom with
pampered hybrid teas. Others sniff at anything lacking the proper ancestry. And still others thrill only
to the sight of a moss rose or a hardy rugosa that naturalizes freely. To be sure, rose growing can
become a lifelong obsession. To all who recognize a rose as a rose, we offer these observations.
Banana Love
Banana skins are high in calcium, magnesium, sulphur, and phosphates—all things that roses like in
their diet. Here are three ways to give it to your plants:
Lay lengths of banana skin on the ground at the base of the rose.
Bury a mushy banana at the base of each rose.
Chop the banana skin, put it into a jar of water, seal it, and set it aside for 14 days. Then pour the
mixture on the ground surrounding the rose plant.
When to Smell One
The first thing that most people do when they pick up a rose is sniff it—yet only 20 percent of all
roses give off a strong aroma. One of the most fragrant roses is ‘Pink Peace’, a hybrid tea rose with a
hot and sweet—not musty—fragrance. Rose fragrance is best in the morning before the sun and heat
dry out the oils and diminish its strength.
The Oldest Rose
America’s oldest garden rose is probably the pink damask rosebush that has been growing in the
garden at the Moffatt-Ladd House on Market Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, since 1764. It was
planted by Sarah Catherine Mason Moffatt, an English-born bride whose father had been granted the
land from the Piscataqua River to the Merrimack River by King George. Generations of Moffatt
family brides have carried snippets of the rose to their own gardens.
The Best Pink Rose
Some rosarians suggest that ‘New Dawn’, a hardy climber that is disease resistant, strong, and
graceful, takes this honor. ‘New Dawn’ climbs to about 12 feet, with clusters of fragrant, silvery pink,
medium-size flowers that form June until the end of autumn. Curiously, ‘New Dawn’ was the world’s
first patented plant when it was introduced in 1930.
The Best Rose of the 20th Century
Such a title is fitting for royalty, so it is only appropriate that by most estimates, the magnificent
‘Queen Elizabeth’ rose was the century’s best. The fragrant, clear, medium-pink, double grandiflora
has abundant midseason bloom followed by excellent repeat bloom. It’s upright to almost 7 feet,
vigorous, and bushy, with glossy, deep green leaves. It is disease resistant and only moderately thorny.
The Best Yellow Rose
‘Sunsprite’, also called Korresia, was a floribunda fragrance winner in 1979 and may be the most
fragrant of yellow roses. It has rounded buds arranged in large, flat clusters that open to fully double
bright yellow flowers on a sturdy, bushy plant. Unlike many yellow roses, ‘Sunsprite’ can tolerate a
hard winter.
The Best Red Rose
Most red roses have some orange in them, but ‘Precious Platinum’ is not such a one: It is all that a red
rose should be, plus hardy, with a very thick stem.
Another true red rose is fragrant climber ‘Don Juan’, an excellent trellis rose with velvety, deep red,
double-cupped flowers borne in clusters.
The Best White Rose
‘Iceberg’ is a favorite, pure white floribunda rose. The flowers are doubles, with 30 to 40 petals that
bloom from early to midseason, with a repeat bloom for the rest of the season. It has a climbing form,
with freely produced large trusses of pure white flowers.
Another beloved white floribunda rose is ‘Summer Snow’, which has almost no thorns, has a
sprawling growth habit, and would even survive a mowing!
What Roses Want
Roses desire what all other growing things want: to go to seed and increase their own kind. This is
where deadheading comes in if your goal is otherwise. Rose growers deadhead religiously. Ruthlessly.
Says one rosarian: “There’s a growth bud with every leaf. So cutting off the fading rose takes the
strength that would be going into making seeds and lets the plant make more flowers.
Even if the rose is not a rebloomer, cutting spent blossoms about a quarter-inch above the first leaf
with five leaflets saves the plant from expending energy in seed production—which is to say, foils its
life goal.
What Roses Need
All roses need water and nourishing soil, of course, but they also need at least 5 hours of good sun. Six
is better. Seven is better still. Roses grown in weak sun may not die at once, but they weaken
gradually. In 10 years, they will be gone.
The Worst Mistake That Rose Growers Make
Bad drainage. Roses love water, but they do not like to sit in it—with one exception: the swamp rose
(below). Roses like rich, loose soil that drains extremely well. Here’s a good test: Flood a (potential)
rose bed with 2 inches of water. If it drains in 20 minutes, the area has good drainage.
Climbing Roses Don’t Climb
They just grow taller and taller, faster and faster. No rose can climb by itself; it has to be trained or
tied against a support. Then the plant takes hold and may support the support when it gets established.
The great virtue to many growers is the way that climbing roses fall down, cascading from tree and
bank and wall.
A lovely white climber, ‘Silver Moon’, has large, pure white, single flowers and has taken off in the
New York Botanical Garden, ready to reach about two stories in height.
Entire garden clubs fly to Kiftsgate Court Gardens in England to see the famous monster rambler
‘Kiftsgate’ rose in bloom, when it climbs more than 50 feet and sprawls shamelessly and impenetrably
at least as far across, sporting a shower of white blossoms and orange hips.
Really Old Favorites
There are aged roses and then there are “old roses.” In rosarian circles, “old roses” are varieties that
look and behave like ancestral ones and thus are not to be confused with modern roses such as hybrid
teas and floribundas.
Many old-rose lovers favor the extremely hardy, freely naturalizing group descended from the
species R. rugosa. Rugosas are the roses that Grandma grew, with feathery foliage, large hips, and
nostalgic charm. Most old roses are hardy, vigorous, and extremely varied in shape and color; they are
likely to be large, thorny plants with fragrant flowers. Old-fashioned roses combine the strength,
variety, and beauty of the old roses with modern traits such as repeat bloom and disease resistance.
–Cynthia Van Hazinga
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CALENDAR—A SAMPLE FROM THE ALMANAC MONTHLY
This Month’s Moon
—background with Saturn, NASA/JPL
May’s full Moon is known as the full Flower Moon because flowers spring forth in abundance at this
time. Some Algonquin tribes also knew this full Moon as the Corn Planting Moon, the Moon When
Women Weed Corn, or the Milk Moon. Apaches called this Moon the Season When Leaves Are
Green Moon. The Cheyenne called it the Moon When the Horses Get Fat.
Saturn reaches opposition on May 10. This is its brightest and best opposition since 2005 because the
rings are now “open,” their edges virtually encircling the entire planet. The rings can be seen through
any telescope magnification above 30×.
Visitors to Saturn
After a 7-year journey, on July 1, 2004, NASA’s Cassini probe became the first spacecraft ever to
orbit the Ringed Planet.
The first probe to land on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, signaled that it had survived its descent.
The Huygens space probe was designed to last only minutes on Titan’s surface, but it surpassed
the expectations of mission managers by descending through the atmosphere, contacting the
surface, and transmitting for more than 90 minutes on January 14, 2005.
This Month’s Birthstone: Emerald
May’s birthstone, the emerald, was one of Cleopatra’s favorite gems. It has long been associated with
fertility, rebirth, and love. Ancient Romans went so far as to dedicate this stone to Venus, the goddess
of love and beauty. Today, it is thought that emeralds signify wisdom, growth, and patience.
Mark the Month
May 1 is May Day
Ancient spring rites that related human fertility to crop fertility gave birth to most modern May Day
festivities. May 1 is the traditional day to crown the May queen, dance around the maypole, perform
mummers’ plays, and generally celebrate the return of spring. Although our Pilgrim fathers were
horrified by these reminders of a pagan past and outlawed all such activities, the maypole dance
remains an enduring event.
In Great Britain, the custom of “bringing in the May” involves gathering “knots,” or branches with
buds, on the eve or early morning of May 1.
In England, a favorite branch is hawthorn.
In Scotland and Wales, people choose the rowan, or mountain ash.
In North America, we often select forsythia, lilac, or pussy willow branches to bring spring and the
prospect of new life into our homes.
May 8 is Truman Day
Truman Day is celebrated in Missouri on May 8 to honor the birthday of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd
U.S. president. Truman was born in 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. His parents couldn’t decide whether
Truman’s middle name should honor maternal grandfather Solomon Young or paternal grandfather
Anderson Shipp Truman, so they chose the letter’s to stand alone. Truman usually signed his name
with a period after the S, however.
May 11 begins Three Chilly Saints
May 11, 12, and 13 are the feast days of Saints Mamertus, Pancras, and Gervais (or Gervatius). These
three are known as the Three Chilly Saints not because they were cold during their lifetimes, but
because these days are traditionally the coldest of the month.
English and French (and later American) folklore held that these days would bring a late frost. In
Germany, they were called the Icemanner, or Icemen Days, and people believed that it was never safe
to plant until the Icemen were gone.
Another bit of folklore claimed, “Who shears his sheep before St. Gervatius’s Day loves more his
wool than his sheep.”
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