By Bill Felker Our true home is in the present moment. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment. – Thich Nhat Hahn The Moon, the Sun and the Planets The Hummingbird Moon entered its final quarter at 10:11 p.m. on June 20 and wanes until it becomes the new Fledgling Moon at 9:52 p.m. on June 28. It reaches apogee, its gentle position farthest from Earth, on June 29 at 1 a.m. Rising after midnight and setting in the afternoon, this Moon passes overhead in the morning. The Sun, at its solstice position on June 21 at 4:14 a.m., remains at a declination of a little more than 23 degrees through July 2. The stability of the relationship between Earth and Sun during these days creates the shortest nights of the year. The Sun’s apparent descent toward autumn picks up speed in late July, and the night starts to lengthen at twice and then three times the rate that it did during midsummer. The transformation of the fields and gardens and woodlands accelerates, as well. Throughout the week, the Corona Borealis and red Arcturus are overhead by 11 p.m. To the west, Cygnus, the Northern Cross, is poised to take their place in Late Summer. Scorpius moves deep into the southern sky after dark; its great red star, Antares, is the brightest light close to the horizon. Weather Trends If your land has been dry throughout June, the Corn Tassel Rains, which typically accompany the last high-pressure system of the month, bring the first real chance of midsummer moisture. In spite of the association of these rains with heat, the final two days of June are sometimes the coldest of Deep Summer, highs below 80 degrees occurring more than half the time north of the Ohio Valley. Zeitgebers: Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year This is the time of wild black raspberries, and cattails are almost fully developed. May apples are ready to harvest in the woods. Blackberries have set fruit, even in the coldest years. Black walnuts are about half their full size, Osage fruits the size of golf balls. The common orange ditch lilies reach full bloom. Asiatic and Oriental lilies gather momentum, pacing the bee balm. The first woolly bear caterpillars, harbingers of winter, cross the road. Snapping turtles and mud turtles are hatching. In the Field and Garden Spray for potato leafhoppers, which are hopping in the alfalfa (and the potatoes). Find the corn borers eating corn. Rose chafers and two-spotted spider mites are active in your rose bushes. Cucumber beetles are destroying cucumber and melon vines. Japanese beetles are attacking almost everything. Detassel corn, bring in the winter wheat, complete the first cut of alfalfa. And if your animals are reinfested with worms, consider worming every 17 days to three weeks or every three lunar phases in order to eliminate the parasites. Water plants in your garden pond can provide plant sales as well as beauty. However, be sure to protect them from your hungry fish. Timely clipping, shearing and dipping can help keep your animals from blow-fly eggs as well as from ticks, lice and scab mites. Consider trimming the hooves of your pigs. You might also pave one portion of your yard as a hoof-filer. Untrimmed feet can breed infections. The next marketing opportunity comes on United States Independence Day. After that, Jamaican Independence Day is August 6, and Ecuadorian Independence Day is August 10. Explore these opportunities to sell lamb and chevon. Mind and Body From now through most of July, your mind and body settle into the stability of the summer. In these longest days of the year, you will suffer no complications from seasonal affective disorders (unless you hide inside). There is enough daylight for the brain’s wellbeing, and you should even be shaking off the last feelings of spring fever, that kind of aimless restlessness or dissatisfaction which often strikes in April, May and early June. In terms of seasonal affective disorder, the S.A.D. Stress Index (which measures the forces thought to be associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder on a scale from 1 to 100) rises into the harmless teens this week. Almanack Classics Happy Landinmg By Betty R. Fleming, Salinas, Calif. About a year after my quadruple bypass surgery, I, a 71-year-old woman, was slogging around in the muddy sheep corral. The ground was so wet and slick I had put a two-foot-wide strip of plywood by the sheep barn door and another adjoining it for a walkway. I was in the muddy area going towards the barn doorway when out of the barn came a yearling Border Cheviot like a bullet. We saw each other…. I thought, “Oh-oh! I’m going to get slammed.” Well, the sheep was thinking, too. I assumed she thought, “Oh-oh! She’s going to get me.” So she made a fast turn, slipped on the wet plywood and bumped into my legs. Down we went. She flat spread eagle on her belly and I across her soft woolly back with my arms on one side of her and my legs on the other. A lot of pride was dented, but neither the sheep nor I were hurt. Send your memory stories to Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. Five dollars will be paid to any author whose story appears in this column. ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S SCKRAMBLER In order to estimate your SCKRAMBLER IQ, award yourself 15 points for each word unscrambled, adding a 50-point bonus for getting all of them correct. If you find a typo, add another 15 points to your IQ. OTRS SORT RUCOT COURT SASPPRTO PASSPORT TROPMI IMPORT RUPPTOR PURPORT UTRAQ QUART OFRT FORT TTXREO EXTORT RSROTE RESORT RDPETO DEPORT THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER IENWS NIDE NNBGEI ENINAC OIECMBN NGISCON NEPI CREENIL ENILEDA NEIOOHSNM Copyright 2022 – W. L. 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