Blast-Off Minus 4 Days

I, Byron Barnett, have been looking up the names of the Moon in other languages besides English.

Por ejemplo:

• La Luna (in Spanish)

• La Lune (in French)

• La Luno (in Esperanto)

• Ka Mahina (in Hawaiian)

• Inyanga (in Zulu)

• Le Masina (in Samoan)

• Al-Qamar (in Arabic)

• 月亮 (in Chinese)

and so forth and so on.

(I got all those from the translator-pad I sent away for with twenty proof of purchases off single-serving boxes of French Fries from the Idaho Potato & Polyglot Company, so if any of those words are wrong, you know who to blame.)

Where was I?

I believe I was thinking about how important the Moon’s been to people around the world since the beginning of people. And not only cause it keeps the ocean tides going.

In India they have a day for the full moon called “Purnima” when they hold all their festivals and such. I think we should have more festivals on full moon days. It just makes sense.

Every year the “Old Farmers’ Almanac” publishes all kinds of info on weather and eclipses and farming advice and whatnot for the next twelve months, but they also include a lot of lore about the Moon.

Their publication’s motto is: “Useful, With A Pleasant Degree Of Humor.”

That’s a pretty good motto if you ask me.

On the useful side, they give you the dates for every month’s full moon coming up … plus old-time names for every month’s full moon. The names are pretty intriguing. Here they are:

January: Wolf Moon
February: Hunger Moon
March: Worm Moon
April: Fish Moon
May: Milk Moon
June: Strawberry Moon
July: Thunder Moon
August: Green Corn Moon
September: Harvest Moon
October: Blood Moon
November: Frosty Moon
December: Long Night’s Moon

There are other names for every month’s full moon, but those are the ones I prefer.

Did you know that our solar system has 219 moons in all?

Saturn on its own has 83 moons. (In my view that’s too many moons. That’d be 83 names for full moons every month! Too hard to keep track of for one planet. I prefer our 1-moon system.)

I have to go now. I have my last on-Earth doctor’s appointment with Dr. Delsalto. To make sure I’m in tip-top condition before blast-off.

THREE MORE DAYS TILL THE MOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More soon,
Boon

P.S. Here’s a Farmer’s Almanac: