February 09, 2009

A Full Moon, But No Snow; Worms on the Way?

This morning I woke up to see a beautiful full orange moon setting behind the trees. The full moon in February is called the Full Snow Moon, since this is traditionally the snowiest month of the year. So far, February has been relatively snow free compared to January!

The moon last month was the Full Wolf Moon, but I definitely saw fewer wolves last month than snowflakes this month. I suppose that's a good thing, but I'd be kind of excited to see a wolf in Boston. (If I was safely inside, that is.) The January moon has that name because hungry wolves would be howling in the night by that time of winter. If you visit Wolf Hollow's Web page, you can hear their wolves howl. Exciting and a little spooky!

The Full Wolf Moon and Full Snow Moon have dramatic names suitable for Gothic romance novels. Next month is the charmingly named Full Worm Moon, which sounds suitable for a schlocky horror film from the 1970s. If you visit this page from BadMovies.org, you can hear killer worms screaming from Squirm, a 1976 cinematic trash classic.

1 comment:

Rich Clabaugh said...

Great post Peter! I assume the tradition of naming full moons originated with Native Americans?