The 2002 edition of the The Old Farmer’s Almanac goes on sale today. This is the date that is imaginatively called the “on sale date” in the hallowed Almanac offices in Dublin, New Hampshire.

The Almanac is North America’s oldest continuously published periodical, having been released each year since 1792. I’ve been stoking the e-fires in the boiler of the Almanac.com website for the last 6 years, which means I’ve been involved for a grand total of just under 3% of the Almanac’s existense. For that matter, I’ve only been alive for 17% of its days!

My favourite page on the website, a page for which I can take no credit at all, remains The Hole Story, the only link on the website to which is the “hole” in the top-left corner of the site’s front page.

You can buy your copy of the 2002 printed Almanac starting today, either online or at your local Shoppers Drug Mart or fine local bookstore.

You can take some comfort that through your purchase of the bona fide Old Farmer’s Almanac, you are not only keeping 209 years of tradition alive, but also, in your own small way, helping to put food on wee Oliver’s table, and that of his slightly less wee parents.