Darkening moon is right for all kinds of animal care
A change in the weather is sufficient to re-create the world and ourselves.
— Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
THE FINAL WEEK OF EARLY SUMMER Astronomical data and lore
The Corn and Soybean Planting Moon wanes through the weekend, becoming the Wheat and Alfalfa Cutting Moon on
June 21 at 1:42 p.m. Rising after midnight and setting in the late afternoon or evening, this moon passes overhead (and is most powerful) in the middle of the day, favoring fish and animal activity near that time, especially as the cool front of June 23 approaches.
Solstice occurs on June 22 at 4:44 p.m. The Sun enters Cancer at the same time. The Sun holds steady at its solstice declination and the day’s length remains virtually unchanged between June 19 and 23.
As for the stars, Delphinus follows Cygnus in the east after 10:00 p.m., Altair, the bright star of Aquila shining below them. Just ahead of Cygnus, Vega leads the Milky Way west. Overhead, Arcturus moves into the western half of the sky, the Corona Borealis coming in to take its place. Libra lies due south, July’s Scorpius right behind it.
Weather trends
Chances for warm temperatures above 80 degrees remain relatively steady at 80 percent throughout the period. Sun is more common than clouds, and there is only a 20 percent chance for a completely overcast day during this week of June. Rain is most common on the 20th and the 24th, but two of the driest days of the entire year are June 25 and 26. Average temperatures climb their final degrees, reaching their summer peak just before solstice.
Notes on the progress of the year
Solstice marks the end of Early Summer, but time is also space; movement and distance can take the season backwards or forwards, allowing what was and still will be to ride the hinge of the sun’s declination.
North in Maine, azaleas and columbine are still bright. Lupines hold in Bar Harbor. Foxglove and privet are budding in Bangor, strawberries just ripening. Through the valleys of Vermont, the wheat is deep green (it’s golden and almost ready to cut here in the Ohio Valley). Parsnips are opening in New Hampshire as they go to seed along in the Border States. In northern New York, catalpas are still flowering, and peonies are still in bloom.
The flora of the upper Midwest reaffirms the late spring and Early Summer of the Northeast. The blossoms of mock orange are still fragrant in Minneapolis. Multiflora roses and the petals of blackberries repeat southern Ohio May.
Cottonwood cotton is drifting across the arboretum in Madison, Wisconsin. The thistles are stronger, the hemlock fresher, cattails more delicate and flushed with pollen all across the northern plains.
West in the Rocky Mountains, lupines are in full bloom at 4,000 feet, lilacs and early iris are coming in above 6,000 feet. Pennsylvania April appears in fields of dandelions and spring beauties at 7,000 feet. At 8,000 feet, the heartleaf arnica, like a yellow bloodroot, pushes Middle Atlantic time almost to the end of March.
Down toward the Pacific, the landscape collapses forward toward Ohio June.
Cow parsnips, yarrow, moth mullein, yellow sweet clover, meadow goat’s beard, milkweed, and great mullein line the roads to Tillamook and the ocean.
In the field and garden
The darkening moon is right for all kinds of animal care (especially worming and spraying for external parasites), for weeding and mulching as well as insect hunting.
Dark moon time is also favorable for pruning shrubs and trees that flowered earlier in the year.
Watch for mold in the hay stall in the feed storage area when humidity levels rise dramatically toward the end of the month. Indoors, hidden mold may increase the possiblity of allergies and summer colds.
Parasites are often fewer in livestock when animals have more land on which to graze and browse.
Keep deer repellent on hand to head off the disappearance of your lily buds.
Journal
June 20, 1987: Night walk: only a handful of crickets chirping, fireflies no thicker than at home, small moths crossing my way, no mosquitoes. It was warm and close in the woods, cold and wet out in the open fields. Mist became much thicker after eleven o’clock, full moon rising in the southeast, Arcturus overhead, Regulus and Leo west, Spica in Virgo, Vega behind Hercules, then Altair, Deneb with Cygnus. Wildflowers, the wingstem, blackberry, ironweed, daisy fleabane, soapwort, elderberry, were all easy to identify under the moon and stars. Timothy was sweet: I pulled and chewed the entire walk.