Backporch Almanac
A forecast for living things
On iPad it's called Backporch Almanac HD. Both are on the App Store in the US.
If someone sent you a card from Backporch, this is where it came from. It follows the animals and pests moving through your county: when the monarchs and the hummingbirds come through, roughly when the boxelder bugs will crowd onto the south wall, and when the mice start looking for a way in. Take a picture of any plant, bug or animal and it tells you what it is. Tap the bell on any of them and it'll remind you the day before, usually at 4:00 pm, while there's still time to seal the gap under the door or get the tomatoes in.
What's close
Today opens on your weather, drawn in ink, and a barometer that reads the air outside. Under it is everything due in the next thirty days, soonest first, each with a picture.
Pests, a month at a glance
Stink bugs, camel crickets, deer mice, yellowjacket queens looking for a winter gap. Each one sits on the day it's expected, so you can see a busy week coming, and a tap tells you what to do about it. For house mice that starts with walking the foundation with a pencil: any gap it slides into is a way in.
Follow 152 species
From the ruby-throated hummingbird to the humpback whale. Each route is drawn month by month, spring and autumn, with recent sightings marked on the map.
What is that?
Take a photo of a plant, a bug or a bird, or choose one you already have, and Backporch will put a name to it. Everything you name goes into your specimen cabinet, in a drawer for the month.
On iPad, a ring binder
Backporch Almanac HD is the iPad edition. Held sideways it opens like a binder, with the index on the left page and whatever you picked on the right, and the page turns when you swipe. Write down what you saw by typing it, saying it out loud, or with Apple Pencil straight on the page.
