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The San Diego Union-Tribune

 
Leave space in the outhouse; almanac's new edition is here

ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 18, 2005

DUBLIN, N.H. – The leaves are about to change, the geese are packing for flights south, and a little yellow magazine with a hole in the corner is hitting the newsstands, just as it has for the last 213 years.


Associated Press<
Old Farmer's Almanac Editor in Chief Judson Hale Sr. and Editor Janice Stillman display the new edition of the almanac and a companion kids' version, new this year./div>
If the Old Farmer's Almanac and its traditional "80 percent" accurate weather forecasts are on the mark, residents of the northeastern half of the country should brace for a winter that's colder and snowier than normal.

"It's going to be a tough winter," Editor Janice Stillman said, "so get the shovels ready, get the mittens out, stoke the fire."

The 2006 edition of the old-time almanac was released last week. Using a secret formula based on sunspots, weather patterns and meteorology, the almanac points to a milder-than-normal winter in the southwestern half of the country, with a warmer-than-normal summer in most areas, except the heartland and the Southeast.

In an eerie coincidence, the almanac features a story about an American city devastated by a natural disaster and its aftermath. The anniversary story about the great San Francisco earthquake, 100 years ago in April 2006, comes as the dead from Hurricane Katrina are still being counted.

As with Katrina, the initial calamity did not cause most of the deaths. The storm surge and levee breaks devastated New Orleans. In San Francisco, it was fires after the shaking stopped.

Stillman said she included the anniversary piece because she was taken by the tales of survival from the earthquake and "the way people pull together and support each other through tragedies and challenges like this."

Published since 1792, the Old Farmer's Almanac is North America's oldest continuously published periodical. Stillman said its sense of continuity keeps it popular.

"It's a tradition in the midst of all kinds of good news and bad news, it's reliable . . . and it reminds you of what went before, just how we all fit," she said.

The magazine still has a hole in the upper left-hand corner so it can hang in outhouses, and still contains astronomical information and tide charts so accurate the government considered banning them during World War II, fearing they would help German spies.

The 2006 edition also offers information on everything from cultivating vegetables and manners to surviving decades of marriage.

One of Editor in Chief Jud Hale's favorite articles tells how to teach chickens to do tricks. That's not surprising for visitors to his office, which is filled with odds and ends, including about three dozen chickens – "stuffed, porcelain, whatever."

"Hey, chickens are a growing, popular thing," he said.

Oh. The trick to getting chickens to do tricks: bring plenty of food for rewards.

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