Katydids and crickets rule the midsummer night
Through the clear streams the fishes rise,
And nimbly catch the incautious flies.
The glow-worms, numerous and light,
Illumed the dewy dell last night;
At dusk the squalid toad was seen,
Hopping and crawling o’er the green.
— From“Signs of Rain” by Dr. Edward Jenner
The Moon: The BlackEyed Susan Moon entered its second phase on July 18 and waxes throughout the week, becoming full on July 27. Rising near midday and setting at night, this Moon passes overhead late in the evening.
The Sun: The Sun completes its residence in Cancer this week and enters the Late Summer sign of Leo on July 23, having moved about an eighth of the way toward autumn equinox.
The Planets: Traveling across the southern horizon in Capricorn, Mars disappears from the morning sky by the end of July.
The Stars: The Sun’s position in Leo moves the Middle Summer noonday stars into the west, and the Dog Star, Sirius, becomes less aggressive, foretaste of cooler weather ahead.
Weather Trends: The coolest days of this period are typically July 22 and 23 of the month, when mild 70s are recorded about a fourth of all the years. July 23 brings pleasant sleeping weather more often than any time in July: a full 35 percent of the nights drop below 60 degrees. The most consistent day of the period, and of the whole month, is July 24 when highs in the 80s come 95 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 frombetween 20 and 30 percent to between 35 and 40 percent.
The Natural Calendar: With the Sun descending toward autumn equinox in Leo, elderberries turn purple and black walnut leaves yellow in the heat. Pokeweed flowers turn to berries. Seed pods form on the trumpet creepers and the locusts. Catalpa beans are full and long. Fogfruit, great Indian plantain, wingstem, sundrops, small-flowered agrimony, tick trefoil and velvetleaf all flower now as full Moon approaches. A slight turning of the leaves begins on some of the redbuds, Virginia creepers, box elders and buckeyes. Foliage of Japanese honeysuckle and the multiflora roses often shows patches of yellow.
Fish, Insects, Livestock and Birds: The best of the early morning bird chorus is over nowfor the year. Swallows aremigrating; they can often be seen congregating on the high wires. Cicadas chant full force. Fireflies are often past their prime, fawns are a third grown and blue jays are suddenly quiet. The first katydids begin singing after dark, and crickets intensify their song. Woolly bear caterpillars become more common. Fish become more active with the Moon overhead in the evening, especially as the barometer falls in advance of the cool fronts due around July 21 and 28.
In the Field and Garden: Include themums in your summer care; give them a little extra food now for extra blossoms in September. Dig potatoes and dry onions, cut cabbage for kraut, pickle the cucumbers, gather sweet corn, top tobacco, bring in oats, wheat, alfalfa and all the summer market crops. Plan your fall and winter plantings now; make a garden map of current bulbs, then list additions you would like to make in October. Autumn turnip planting and tobacco topping are often begun today, guided by the first purple blossoms of tall ironweed. Out in the countryside, farmers prepare soil for autumn wheat planting. The melon harvest is at its zenith. The harvest of peaches usually begins this week; the fruit should become fat and juicy as the Moon swells.
Marketing Notes: Plan to increase produce to farmers’ markets and to your roadside stand as traffic increases for Labor Day (September 3).
The Almanack Horoscope: The closing days of the Sun in Cancer always bring a visible change to the landscape, and that change can be reflected in human attitudes and behavior. The day’s length has only shortened by half an hour since solstice, but the growing night influences hormone levels in many mammals (including humans), and when the day falls below fourteen hours in the first week of August, sheep and goats enter estrus, a sign that the position of the Sun in the sky has triggered a major shift in the direction of the tide of the year.
Journal
From my notes on the end of the drought of 1988: There had been no rain since April 8. Then suddenly the drought came to an end. On July 18: half an inch of rain in the morning. Then a full inch more in the afternoon. Two and a half inches on the 20th. More on the 23rd, 25th, and 30th.
The woods seemed to recover within hours. Grass was greener overnight, almost back to normal in ten days. Corn finally tasselled, three weeks late. Wildflowers began to blossom again. The first burdock and lopseed suddenly bloomed. Touch-me-nots straightened up, filled with moisture, and even shriveled wild ginger came back to life. Hosta burst into bloom, spring’s thyme-leaved speedwell flowered and June’s red clover blossomed again. Wild strawberries ripened. Tall bellflowers opened in the woods.
At the Farmer’s Market two weeks after the rains, there were a few drought stories, but not many.
Albert Moore showed off “a lot of little bitty potatoes,” maybe an inch in diameter. He picked up the biggest one: “It’s only half a pound. Last year, we had two pounders all the time.”
But his fruit hadn’t suffered at all. “We didn’t water’em either. The grapes are the size of these potatoes,” he said.
“Good year for grapes,” his wife agreed.
“The peaches did just fine, too,” said Albert. ” I don’t know how the trees did it, but they did. You’d go out and look at them every day and wonder if they were going to make it. Well, they did.”