Thinking About Almanacs

I will pass along an idea of mine. I had thought in prison of writing a piece of fiction that would be imitate an almanac. I had read Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac in Seventh Grade and then re-read the book in prison, so I will admit threeis the genesis of my idea.

There when I ran across The Quiet Mysticism of Almanacs by Jess McHugh I stopped and took notes, trying to close the gap between Leopold's book and the The Farmer's Almanac

Almanacs force the kind of surrender that comes naturally to a child in the woods. Paging through the almanac, readers must accept things as they come. The reward is a wonderfully freeing randomness: in this year’s almanac, I read about how to plant trees from clippings; learned that Duluth, Minnesota, is famous for “hawk watches”; and prepared for the “full flower moon.” Even the advertisements delight me: at what other one-stop shop could I purchase artisanal sausages, collectors’ nickels from 1935, and a product called “chicken soup for the soil”? I float along the pages, learning things I’ll likely never use — or things that are so obvious as to be useless. This year’s Old Farmer’s Almanac spent an entire section breaking down the pros and cons of owning different species of pets (in case you didn’t know, dogs are friendly but chew shoes sometimes, and cats are cute but independent). That’s part of the charm, too: the almanac doesn’t take itself too seriously. As its five-page article on choosing a pet says: “[D]on’t intellectualize dog love.”

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Now that we no longer need them to make it through the winter, almanacs have become both escapism and a kind of meditation. They invite us to take things as they come, to delight in the sediment of everyday life. They are a call to observe the natural world, both the grand and the humble: eclipses and harvest moons, but also changing leaves and hatching insects. Watching things grow — even reading about watching things grow — connects almanac readers to a tradition that exists outside a highly technologized, often isolated, modern world. With their reminders to count acorns and to avoid killing spiders, almanacs have this wisdom — of small things.

Almanacs give an impression of permanence, a reminder that a childlike wonder in the woods can be omnipresent. It’s not just because they have a long continuance with the past but because they march on: after all, they are intended to predict the future year’s weather. Almanacs are cyclical, a reminder that things happen in their time and place, and we can prepare and make plans, but frost might come anyway. Or a coyote might eat our chickens. But there’s next year. And regardless, we can still count the acorns and avoid killing the spiders.

I'm not sure that I have closed the distance. Maybe I will not be able to give any more body to my idea. Still, let's see what the future holds.