Sept. 17-23

The south-wind searches for the flowers whose

fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the woods and by the 

stream no more.

-William Cullen Bryant

Lunar phase and lore

The Cobweb Moon waxes throughout the week, entering its second quarter at 2:41 p.m. on Sept. 22. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon is overhead in the afternoon.

Lunar position this week favors fishing between lunch time and supper time, especially as the Sept. 20 and 24 cool fronts approach. Hunters could find those periods productive, as well.

The moon will weaken as it moves toward its second quarter, lowering tides and seasonal stress just a little. Its position in Scorpio between Sept. 18-20, followed by Capricorn on Sept. 21-22, favors autumn plantings.

The Piscid meteors fall through Pisces, in the southern sky, on the night of Sept. 21. 

From a declination of 8 degrees, 14 minutes on the first of the month, the sun continues to move toward fall at a little more than 1 degree every three days until it reaches equinox at 9:49 a.m. Sept. 22.  The sun enters Libra at the same moment.

Within several days of equinox, the night is 12 hours long throughout the country.  Sunrise takes place between 6:30-7:30 a.m. almost everywhere, sunset between 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Although the day before the Sept. 20 high-pressure system is often one of autumn’s warmest, when the front actually arrives, the likelihood of days in the 90s disappears all across the northern half of the nation.

Even 80s will be gone there in only three weeks.

The odds for an afternoon in the 50s or 60s this week doubles over those odds last week. And the season of light frosts deepens all across the northern half of the country.

On the positive side, pollen season declines quickly after the passage of this weather system.

Chances for precipitation increase as the Sept. 24 front approaches from the west, and after that high moves east, light frost occurs more often than at any other time up to this point in September.

The most dramatic zeitgeber of this week is the first radical step of leafturn along the 40th Parallel. In just a few days, everything changes.

During the first three weeks of early fall, the color of many cottonwoods, box elders and catalpas paled slowly, but the predominant impression was one of late summer.

Now the season accelerates, early September’s dusky treeline taking on sharper and deeper colors.

Sept. 17: This week brings an end to the first period of leaf fall along many areas along the 40th Parallel. By the end of the week, most of the black walnut trees will have lost their leaves. The next tier of foliage includes ashes, hickories, tulip trees and elms.

Now the deciduous trees are almost bare in northern Canada. In New England and in the Rocky Mountains, colors are usually approaching their best.

Sept. 18: In the woods, middle spring’s sedum is growing stronger. Henbit, mint and catchweed revive as the canopy thins. Waterleaf has fresh shoots. Snow-on-the-mountain has recovered from its mid-summer slump and can be as thick and as beautiful as in early spring.

Sept. 19: Sometimes forsythia even responds as though it were April violet time instead of autumn violet time, whole bushes breaking into bloom. Preying mantises make egg cases for their eggs.

Sept. 20: In Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington state, the cranberry harvest begins as berries darken in the cooler weather.

Sept. 21: Get ready to seed or reseed spring pasture and the lawn. Spread manure on bare garden plots that will lie fallow until spring.

Sept. 22: The pollen-gathering insects and the pond hunters continue to work until the cold ends their fall cycles. Caterpillars, however, continue to look for places to spend the winter even after a hard frost halts the activities of other insects.

Sept. 23: When the day’s length falls below 12 hours along the 40th Parallel (along a line between New York City and Denver), then the sugar beet, pear, cabbage and cauliflower harvests are under way in the Great Lakes region.

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