Almanac

As the sun set tonight big white fluffy clouds posed in front of a cerulean sky. When the sun sank down below the horizon, the clouds turned a thousand colors of peach/orange/cayenne. At one point it looked like the gardener in the sky turned over a terrace row of embers from the dying coals of a winter fireplace. Tonight was one of those rare times I left my camera home. I should have known better and in fact I'm turning over some old ground myself because I said last year that I wasn't going to do that again.
Today is the first day of October. It's hard to believe but you know it's true because you can almost feel the days getting shorter. This morning when I walked out on the deck, I was glad I had slipped on a long sleeve shirt and my yoga pants. I stood out there while the coffee was brewing and watched the stars disappear into the coming dawn. I love that time of day.
We ran by Lowe's over the weekend looking for some new stuff for the house and we picked up a Farmer's Almanac on the way out. The publication has been around in some form for hundreds of years. I think Ben Franklin printed one of the first ones but I could be wrong. This year the almanac predicts snow for the south in December, January and February.
The almanac not only forecasts the weather with uncanny accuracy, but it also tells you when to do your planting throughout the year. Both our grandmother's followed the "signs" religiously. My great grandmother Watson was a gardener extraordinaire though her plots were much smaller by the time I came along. When the little booklet told her the time was right, she planted green beans along the south end of her little house and they provided green beans for the entire community throughout the summer.
I think we are going to follow in their footsteps this next year and see if our yield is better. I'll let you know if it works.