This week: The sun now advances quickly toward the winter season

Now, too, the first of October, or later, the elms are at the height of their autumnal beauty, great brownish-yellow masses, warm from their September oven, hanging over the highway. Their leaves are perfectly ripe. I wonder if there is any answering ripe

I watch the drying of goldenrod until it blends with the dead Bermuda grass, foxtail, smooth brome, orchard grass. The black walnut trees are bare. One blue lobelia, one tall bellflower, some red clover, scattered white snakeroot along the creek.

The Moon: The Jumping Jumpseed Moon wanes into perigee on October 5 at 5:28 p.m. and then becomes the Shattering Ginkgo Moon at 10:47 p.m. on October 8. Rising in the middle of the night and setting in the afternoon, this Moon passes overhead in the morning.

The Sun: At the start of October, the day’s length is about 11 hours and 45 minutes. At the end of the month, the day’s length is only 10 hours and a half. The sun now advances quickly toward winter, moving from a declination of -3 degrees minutes to -13 degrees (that is over halfway to winter solstice) by the end of the month.

The Planets: Venus in Virgo remains the evening star until the middle of the October, when it fades into the sunset.

The Stars: The Pleiades and the Hyades of Taurus lie on the eastern horizon late in the evening, announcing Middle Autumn. A few hours after midnight, Orion appears in the far east, and it moves to the center of the sky before sunrise.

The Shooting Stars: The Draconid meteors fall at the rate of about ten per hour in the vicinity of the North Star after midnight between October 6 and 10. The dark moon will favor finding these meteors. The Orionid meteors fall through Orion every night in October.

Weather Trends: Weather history suggests that the cold waves of Middle Fall are likely to reach the Miami Valley on or about October 7, 13, 17, 23 and 30. Lunar perigee on October 5, new moon on October 8 and full moon on October 24 are likely to intensify weather systems near those dates.

Chances of a hard frost increase from about 10 percent during the first part of the week to a full 20 percent by the end of the week. The likelihood for colder weather almost always increases after October 4, when the chances of highs only in the 50s swell from 15 percent all the day to 30 percent. Chances of a warm day in the 70s and 80s decline to only 30 percent by October 7.

The Natural Calendar: During the first week of October, almost all trees develop some color change, a sizeable number of maples suddenly becoming bright red and orange. Patches of ash and hickory reach their peak, then thin quickly.

Some sycamores and tulip trees are completely golden. Redbuds, fading in the autumn sun, begin to lose their foliage. Sumacs are either scarlet or else totally gone by now. Sassafras is old and rusty. Blackberry leaves are darkening to purple.

By the end of the week, Virginia creeper is falling. Leaves of the red mulberry can be gone, along with flowering crabs. The black walnut crop is almost always on the ground. Peak leafturn starts to occur in woodlots where maples, ashes, buckeyes, wild cherry and locusts predominate. Many Osage leaves are yellow now, a few ginkgoes starting to fade. Cottonwoods and the rest of the box elders lose their leaves, and great openings form in the high canopy.

Fish and Birds: The Moon will be overhead in the morning throughout the period; therefore, look for fish and game before and after breakfast as the barometer falls in advance of the October 7 and 13 cold front. Terns and meadowlarks, yellow-rumped warblers and purple martins migrate south. Chimney swifts, wood thrushes, barn swallows and red-eyed vireos join them as Early Fall moves to a close.

In the Field and Garden: As the Jumping Jumpseed Moon wanes, harvest grains; the weakening Moon is associated with lower moisture levels in crops. Lunar lore suggests also that the waning Moon is favorable for pruning shrubs or trees to retard growth and for killing weeds. This Moon also favors the planting of garlic cloves and all spring bulbs.

Marketing Notes: Halloween crops have come to town. And the Hindu feast honoring the goddess Durga (Navaratri/ Navadurgara between October 9 and 18) may increase demand for lambs and kids.

The Almanack Horoscope: The waning moon will become less influential as the week progresses, reducing lunar stress and opening the way for dental appointments, minor surgery, vaccinations of livestock, shearing, clipping nails and hooves, treating for external and internal parasites. Seasonal Affective Disorder becomes more frequent in October as the length of the night increases and chances of mild weather decrease. Although cloud cover is ordinarily not a major factor in S.A.D. during Middle Fall, the odds for completely overcast conditions rise steadily.

Journal

October 1, 1992: Starlings in the trees every afternoon. I watch the drying of goldenrod until it blends with the dead Bermuda grass, foxtail, smooth brome, orchard grass. The black walnut trees are bare. One blue lobelia, one tall bellflower, some red clover, scattered white snakeroot along the creek. Yellowing of the wild grape leaves, yellow milkweed, yellow elms, yellow shagbark hickory, yellow spicebush, a locust yellow around its red thorns, nettles bleached with age, the last huge silver spider webs hanging in the black wingstem shining in the early morning sun, timothy all fallen from its stalk, the sound of October crows. Crickets jumping in the warm grass; no daddy longlegs hunting, but red and blue dragonflies are still out by the swamp. Leaves on the path, sycamore, sassafras, dogwood, ash. More woolly bears every day. Small flocks of robins migrating.

From one woods to the next, summer to fall. One patch fully green, no signs of change. Down river a mile, another season, dark, thinning. First gold mulberry leaf. Cottonwood almost gone, staghorn sumac, too. First junco seen today. High rivers early this year, and pussy willows sprouting new leaves in the heat. Fresh mint replaces cress and forget-me-nots in the marsh streams. Asters die back. Thymeleaved speedwell goes to seed. Buzzards are in their roost by the bend of the river. Hundreds of blackbirds upstream feeding in the fallen leaves, bathing in the pebbles and sand uncovered by last month’s drought.