April Calendar

Oh, how fresh the wind is blowing!
See! The sky is bright an clear,
Oh, how green the grass is growing!
April! April! Are you here?
–Dora R. Goodale (1866–1953)

The Latin word aperio, meaning “to open or bud,” gives us the name April. Spring festivals celebrate the season’s renewal of life.

April 1 is Easter Sunday. (April 8 is Orthodox Easter.)  See how the Easter date is determined.

April 22 is Earth Day.  To celebrate, see some Earth Day ideas and activities.

April 27 is National Arbor Day. Find out who started Arbor Day and how we observe this day honoring trees.

On the 24th of April, we celebrate the birthday of Robert B. Thomas, the founder of The Old Farmer’s Almanac!

See our monthly calendar page for more holidays and events.

April is National Humor Month!

Begun in 1976 by humorist Larry Wilde, this observance serves ot heighten public awareness of humor’s health benefits. Laughter has been shown to reduce stress and pain, relax muscles, boost morale, strengthen the immune system, increase blood flow, and enrich the quality of life overall. To get the month off to a healthy start, can you answer this riddle?

Q: Which is heavier, a half Moon or a full Moon?

A: The half Moon because the full Moon is twice as light.

April Weather

A cold April, the bar will fill.

This month brings us some capricious weather!  April rains bring verdant pastures, but also umbrellas and rain boots!

See your 7-day forecast and long-range weather forecast to plan ahead!

Recipes for the Season

Springtime brings the first crops of the season. See a few recipes below:
Cream of Fiddlehead Soup
Spring Vegetable Salad
Sorrel Linguine With Spring Peas, Green Garlic, and Fresh Ricotta

See all our Spring Recipe Collection using seasonal ingredients from across North America!

Gardening

Does the warmth of spring turn you thoughts to gardening? It does ours!
Monthly Gardening Jobs
Make a Container Gardening Planter
Plant Guides to Roses, Flowers, and Shrubs
Plant Guides to Vegetable, Herbs, Fruit
Starting Your Garden

Everyday Advice

Are you daunted by the thought of a top-to-bottom spring cleaning? Here are some tips to help.
Make Your Own Cleaners
Homemade Cleaners for Carpet, Floor, Glass, Drains
Fix House Problems

Credit: Kazoka/Shutterstock

Birds & Fishing

Enjoy the signs of spring! 
Creating a Bird-Friendly Habitat
What Birds Have You Seen? (Blog)
Best Fishing Days for April

Sky Watch

The Full Pink Moon rises the evening of April 29, 2018. See what’s special about the Full Moon for April.

Find more night sky highlights at our April Sky Watch.

April Birth Symbols

April’s birth flower is the daisy or sweet pea. See birth flower meanings.

April’s birthstone is the diamond. See birthstone meanings. 

A few fun facts about diamonds:

• The diamond, composed solely of carbon, is the hardest gemstone and can be cut only by another diamond. Although often colorless, it also may appear in yellow, brown, red, pink, orange, blue, or green, from pale to intense; the more saturated the hue, the more valuable the stone.
• Diamonds form about 90 miles deep in Earth, at tremendous pressure.
• This gem is a symbol of everlasting love and was once thought to protect against poison.
• The largest known diamond is 2,500 miles wide and weighs approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats. A crystallized white dwarf star, it is located in the constellation Centaurus, about 50 light-years from Earth. It is nicknamed “Lucy,” after the Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”

This Month in History

Light the Signal!

In April 1775, it became apparent that the British in Boston were planning a campaign to seize arms, ammunition, and other stores stockpiled by American patriots in Concord, Massachusetts, and possibly, to arrest members of the illegal Provincial Congress. The question was, Which route would the British take from Boston to Concord?

In mid-April, Paul Revere, as a member of the Sons of Liberty Committee of Safety, arranged with the sexton of Boston’s Old North Church, Robert Newman, for a simple system of signals: the number of lanterns lit in the belfry would indicate how the British would be advancing toward Concord. One lantern would signify that the British would come by land, via Boston Neck; two lanterns, that they would come by water, by first crossing the Charles River to Cambridge.

On the evening of April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren summoned Revere and told him that the British planned to move that night, going by way of the Charles River. He asked Revere to travel to Lexington to warn leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock that their imminent arrest was likely. 

After the meeting, Revere set plans in motion for two lanterns to be lit in the Old North Church. (Robert Newman and vestryman Captain John Pulling carried the lanterns to the steeple while Thomas Bernard stood watch outside.) Then, after a brief stop at home to dress appropriately, Revere was rowed across the Charles River, after which he traveled to Charlestown to meet with the Sons of Liberty to ensure that they saw the signal. He next borrowed a horse and headed off to Lexington, on his famous “midnight ride.”

Other patriots, including William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, spread the news along other routes.

Paul Revere’s Ride

The 1861 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which begins with Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, contains historical inaccuracies. For example, Revere did not cry out his alarm through the nighttime ride, but spread the news as quietly as possible. He was on a secret mission and had to avoid British patrols. 

Although he narrowly avoided several encounters, his luck ran out when he, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott traveled to Concord to ensure that the military stores there had been hidden. Along the way, they were stopped by a patrol. Dawes, and later Prescott, escaped, but Revere was recaptured and questioned, often at gunpoint, for hours; he never made it to Concord. Prescott did, however, alerting the militia there. 

On April 19, in the wee hours of the morning, Revere, along with a few other prisoners, was returned to Lexington and released. He then went over to another part of town to assist Adams and Hancock in their relocation. He was helping to move a trunk of Hancock’s that contained papers when the sound of gunshots between British troops and minutemen came from the town green. He did not know who had fired first.