Simple attention to the details of nature, as always, helped me keep in sight both my center and my life’s destination and purpose, which was to live skillfully and mindfully each step of the journey.
Stephen Altschuler
Lunar Phase And Lore
The Sweet Corn Moon, coming into its second phase at 10:18 p.m. on July 15, waxes throughout the week, becoming completely full on July 22 at 1:15 p.m. Rising late in the day and setting early in the morning, this moon is overhead well after dark. Lunar dominance of the night, especially toward the end of the week should enhance nighttime fishing and snacking. The best fishing of all should occur as cool fronts approach before the July 14 cool front and the July 21 cool front (but not after these weather systems. The moon’s position in Scorpio (July 16 – 18) and Capricorn (July 20 – 22) may help seeds of autumn grains and vegetables sprout a little better. The full moon, according to some, brings more moisture to fruits and vegetables.
Weather Trends
Temperatures are in the 80s and 90s most of the time this week, and highs above 100 are more likely to occur on July 15th and 16th than any other days of the Midwestern year (a 15 percent chance for such heat). Nighttime lows typically remain in the 60s, but chilly 50s occur an average of 10 to 15 percent of the time. Rain is a bit more likely this week than it was last week as chances for showers rise over the next seven days from between 20 and 30 percent to between 35 and 40 percent.
Daybook For The Fourth Week of Middle Summer
July 14: When you see the elderberries turning purple, then you know that the wheat harvest is almost over, that oats is a third ripe, and that a good percentage of the soybeans is in bloom.
July 15: The moon enters its second quarter today, a time when lunar stress is at its lowest.
July 16: Pokeweed gets green berries as Japanese beetles reach major levels in the soybeans. Out in the fields at night, fireflies put on some of the best shows of the summer. Along the rivers and lake shores, this year’s goslings and ducklings are almost full grown.
July 17: In town, gardens show their Asiatic lilies, tea roses, bergamot, coneflowers, midseason hosta, gay feather, yarrow, helianthus, guara and all the annuals. In the countryside, the second cut of alfalfa is often half complete.
July 18: Prepare for August seedings of alfalfa, smooth brome grass, orchard grass, tall fescue, red clover and timothy.
July 19: A slight turning of the leaves is beginning on some of the redbuds, Virginia creepers, box elders, and buckeyes. Foliage of Japanese honeysuckle and the multiflora roses often show patches of yellow. Midwestern peaches are coming in to the markets as late summer’s white snakeroot is budding in the woods, and Joe Pye weed heads up in the wetlands.
July 20: When morning birdsong diminishes and insect volume increases, then collard, kale and cabbage sets are often planted for fall.
Journal
A month or two ago, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning. I was still tired and wanted to stay in bed, but phantoms from my dreams kept me from going back to sleep and finally pulled me up.
I listened for birds at my window as I got dressed. Not a sound, not even a car passing on the street. And then I went outside with Bella, my border collie, to walk in the dark. The moonless predawn sky was completely clear, and I could see the constellations of an August evening, the Northern Cross, Aquila, Lyra, above me.
I started south at 4:50. I heard birds by the time I reached the streetlight at 4:53. At first just sporadic chirping of robins, then their rhythmic singsong. When I turned down a dark street, I lost them altogether, had to go back the way I came to pick up the strand of chant. `
At 5:32, I heard the sharp vocalization of the first cardinal, then no other cardinals until they consistently joined the robins at 5:50. Song sparrows came in at 5:53, crows in the distance at 5:57, doves at 6:00, sunrise less than half an hour away.
And the sky grew lighter, and the sound increased around me. On the empty sidewalks, robins, bold with lust, chased each other in the twilight, seeming to me like startled crabs racing across the hard sand of the receding ocean tide.
By 6:10 I realized that the cardinals and sparrows and doves were so loud I could no longer hear the robins. And I was aware then that the worst of the night’s fears had been sung away. The sinking feeling in my chest had lightened, and my breathing was deeper, my concerns washed in rhythms of the chorus.
House sparrows began their steady rhythmic chirp at 7:02. I came back to my house at 7:15, sat on the back porch and waited for the grackles: they joined the great symphony at 7:20. Then I waited as the sun came up between Lil’s house and Jerry and Lee’s house, until the red-bellied woodpecker called out at 8:00.
I watched all the color enter the trees and the flowers, and then even the phantoms that had resisted the birds receded with daylight, the sun reaching the tops of the white mulberry and the locust and the box elder.
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Copyright 2013, W. L. Felker
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