July 8-14, 2019

Now is the high tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay.

-James Russell Lowell

The Finches in the Thistle Down Moon enters its second quarter at 5:55 a.m. on July 9 and waxes throughout the period, becoming full at 4:21 p.m. on July 15. This moon reaches its most influential position overhead in the middle of the night.

Lunar power should favor nighttime angling, especially as the mid-July weather system approaches. But the upcoming full moon and Dog Days heat produce stress and bring out the worst in most people and livestock. Heat and stress can also reduce milk output in all mammals.

Weather trends

By this time in July, the Corn Tassel Rains have often ended, and chances for precipitation drop from last week's 40 percent to 20 percent. Temperatures are in the 80s and 90s most of the time, but the period between July 13-15 brings cooler conditions in the 70s a quarter of the years, and in the 60s one year in 25.

On the other hand, highs above 100 are more likely to occur on July 15-16 than any other days of the lower Midwestern year. Nighttime lows typically remain in the 60s, but chilly 50s occur an average of 15 percent of the time.

The natural calendar

July 8: The first buckeye, apple, and cherry leaves become yellow and drift to the ground, marking the shift into deep summer. Water striders and new koi hatch in ponds just as alewives head back to the Atlantic from their estuaries.

July 9: Wood nettle and touch-me-nots dominate the darker woods. Ironweed has purple bud clusters. Robin calls become quiet clucking sounds as the robin fledglings grow up. Red and violet bergamots and the mallows pass their peak.

July 10: Among the many wildflowers, find golden showy coneflowers, pale blue campanula, purple coneflowers, monarda, germander, skullcap, fogfruit, great Indian plantain, fringed loosestrife, bouncing bets, daisy fleabane, moth mullein, leafcup, lopseed, hobblebush, wood mint, tall bell flower, great mullein, small-flowered agrimony, tick trefoil, velvet leaf, trumpet creeper, and jimson weed in bloom.

Throughout the whole country, more wildflowers are open now than at any other time of year.

July 11: Petals of the hobblebush darken with age. Parsnip heads, honewort pods, and sweet Cicely pods are dry enough to split and spill their seeds.

July 12: Deep summer’s white snakeroot is budding in the woods, Joe Pye weed in the wetlands. Thistledown unravels more dramatically. Seed pods form on trumpet creepers.

July 13: New generations of crickets are born; they will start their chorus around July 25 in the Ohio Valley. New cabbage butterflies cluster on the lavender and purple loosestrife.

July 14: The reddening of blackberries, the darkening of elderberries, the first katydid voices, the slow rise of cricket song, the quieting of the early morning birds, and the first restless flights of geese are clear signs of late deep summer.

Field and garden

The peak period of heat stress has usually started for summer crops. High temperatures start to turn some grasses dormant.

Rose hips are forming on the wild roses that grow throughout much of the country. If you have those prolific shrubs on your property, ration out their fruits to your ewes and does. Traditional lore suggests that there is no better plant for keeping your animals’ reproductive system healthy.

Lots of fruit to buy and eat and sell this month: late black raspberries, the last mulberries, early elderberries, the first wave of summer apples.

Heat is the enemy of fertility in your livestock. Add a special feed mix for your males, which could improve their fertility in late summer and early fall.

Don’t cut the lawn too short (or graze the pasture too short) while the summer is at its peak; let it rest a little longer than you would in May or June.

In the countdown for summer, it is:

•One week to the season of singing crickets and katydids after dark

•Two weeks until ragweed pollen floats in the wind

•Three weeks until blackberries are ready for jam and brandy

•Four weeks until aster and goldenrod time

•Five weeks until the season of fall apples begins

•Six weeks until hickory-nutting time gets underway

Almanac classics

Eye of the Beholder

By Anonymous

My father had taken a position in Connecticut and had found a house in the suburbs, just outside of town. As our belongings were being packed to be shipped by carrier truck, my parents were advised that the prior owners of the house were still in residence; their new house was still not ready and they were refusing the move out.

At the last minute, the real estate agent who sold the house offered my parents his fishing cabin in rural Connecticut to live in until the original homeowners moved out. With much reservation and a lot of trepidation, my parents took the cabin.

The place barely had electricity. Any movement about the house caused the lights to flicker and fade, and mice could be heard scurrying inside the walls, making my mother and older sister crazy. The most endearing feature, though, was the outhouse just outside the back door. It seems that the real estate agent really wanted to “rough it” while taking a break from city life.

Luckily, it was summer and we would not need much for the next month or so. It was fun to go to the store every day to buy that day’s lunch and dinner items, as the tiny refrigerator in the cabin did not hold much food and my mother did not wish to leave food out in the open, that would encourage the mice to stay.

Equally, I enjoyed taking a bath in the wading pool in the kitchen at night, as there was just a small sink in the kitchen with running water and no tub to speak of.

I can state without a doubt that my mother shuddered every time she had to use the outhouse. Within a week, she had cleaned the outhouse thoroughly, bought a new seat for the “throne” and curtains for the window, and placed a few small vases with wildflowers around the inside of the outhouse.

But the crowning achievement had to be the soft, fuzzy bathmat she placed on the floor. She had managed to turn the basic utilitarian structure into a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately, her idea of beauty was not shared by the mice who were regular tenants on the property. Within a short period of time, the mice had shredded the curtains, knocked over all of the vases, and, most disconcertingly, chewed large holes in the soft fluffy mat on the floor.

There’s just no counting on the taste of some critics!