This is when the piercing power and sultry heat of the Sun abate, and gods send autumn rains, and flesh of men and women feels easier. – Hesiod

The Moon in October

The Moon is new Oct. 22

The Moon enters its second quarter Oct. 29

The Morning and Evening Stars of October

Venus in Virgo and Mars in Libra are the morning stars. They remain in the daytime sky until evening when they can be seen as the evening stars. Jupiter in Gemini follows Orion across the sky, appearing in the east before dawn.

Meteors in October

The Orionid Meteor Shower will occur in and around Orion in the early morning of Oct. 20-21.

The Weather

The 15th is usually pleasant, with clear to partly cloudy conditions prevailing 80 percent of the days. Rain passes through just one day in four. Highs in the 80s occur 5 percent of the time, 70s 30 percent, 60s 40 percent and 50s 25 percent. Morning lows reach the 30s or 40s half the years, and frost strikes one to two dawns out of 10.

The Natural Calendar

The landscape contains a thousand dials which indicate the natural divisions of time…. – Henry David Thoreau 

As Early Fall becomes Middle Fall, the ash, locust and hickory trees reach their finest color and then shed suddenly in the cold waves that sweep more violently across the Great Plains. When those leaves come down, high mapleturn moves into the Midwest, producing some of the brightest oranges and scarlets of the season.

New England asters now come to the end of their blooming cycle and asparagus yellows in the garden. A few lance-leaf and zigzag goldenrod still hold on, but the great roadside bloom of tall goldenrod and small white asters gradually withers. Thimble plant heads break apart like milkweed pods, and jumpseed seeds disappear into the undergrowth. The brown seeds of the beggartick plants stick to stockings and pantlegs.

The transition week between Early and Middle Fall is typically associated with Leafdrop Season for locusts, box elders and ashes. It is the last week of Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker Migration Season. It is close to the end of Spider Web Season as Insect Breeding Seasons end in the cold. It is Blackbird Flocking Season, early Leafturn Season for the red maples and black maples, dogwoods, sassafras and persimmons. It is Beggarticks-Stick-To-Your-Stockings Season and Second-Bloom of Watercress Season. Aster Season, Jerusalem Artichoke Season and Zigzag Goldenrod Season diminish across the woods and fields. Pink Smartweed Season continues to spread through the dooryards and alleys. In the greenhouse, precocious Christmas cacti have entered Christmas Cactus Budding Season.

Journal: The Dials of Scorpio

The landscape contains a thousand dials which indicate the natural divisions of time…. – Henry David Thoreau

The sun’s passage from Libra to Scorpio on Oct. 23 tilts the hinge of Middle Autumn and initiates the most dramatic period of leaf fall. Throughout this final stage of the natural year, the landscape becomes fully primed for the new signs and seasons to come.

As the days shorten, the effects of the weakening sun are easily seen in the collapse of almost all the foliage. Smaller changes also offer measure of Scorpio. The low trills of the field crickets become slow then rare then disappear. Goldenrod flowers darken and turn to downy tufts. Pokeweed berries shrivel and fall. Wingstem turns brittle from the cold. Knotweed withers. Jerusalem artichokes yellow, stalks collapsing. Dahlias blacken.

The last flocks of migrating robins, blackbirds and herring gulls pass through the Glen. The last sandhill cranes depart their northern nesting grounds in Michigan, the first formations reaching the Yellow Springs sky just days before Sagittarius. The last monarchs sail over the last roses. The last black walnuts and Osage fall. The last raspberry bushes and apple trees give up their fruit. The last autumn violets and dandelions go into dormancy. The last witch hazel blossoms curl in the hard frost.

Milkweed and white snakeroot seeds scatter. Christmas cacti flower and fade. Bittersweet opens. Asian lady beetles take shelter in bark and siding. Glen deer mate in the night. Wings of the hosta droop and melt. Black privet berries and rose hips appear as their foliage thins. Winter wheat sprouts and greens the fields. Skunk cabbage spears push out from the muck at Jacoby, forecasting spring.

As distant and unimaginable as the movements of the firmament seem, so close and tangible and countable are the events of the immediate landscape.