Locust flowers signal the first mulberries will be ready for mulberry pie
There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?
— George Borrow, Lavengro, 1851
The moon and the stars The first week of early summer
The Warbler Migration Moon wanes until it becomes the Hummingbird Moon on May 30 at 6:30 a.m. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the dark moon passes overhead in the middle of the day, encouraging fish and other creatures to be hungrier around that time, especially as the final cool front of May approaches,
At 10 o’clock at night, Virgo will be due south, and bright Arcturus, the largest star in the central sky, will be almost overhead. When you do morning chores, you’ll see the Milky Way above you and the Great Square moving in from the East, fertile Pisces right behind it. To the far west, the spring planting star, Arcturus, is the brightest setting star.
Weather trends
Rain is often heavy as the final front of May approaches, strengthened this year by new moon on the 30th. When this high moves away, however, it usually leaves sunny, dry conditions. Summer warmth typically begins several days later.
Zeitgebers: Events in nature that tell the time of year
When flea beetles are feeding in the vegetable garden, cedar waxwings will be migrating through your land, and fiddler crabs will be emerging from their tunnels in the estuaries of the South.
When you see the first brown “June” bug clinging to your screen door, look for young fireflies glowing in the night grass, and when you smell the locust flowers opening, the first mulberries will be ready for mulberry pie. In the wetlands, wild iris will be in bloom.
When you see cottonwood cotton floating in the wind, then deer will be giving birth, and pollen from grasses will be reaching its peak.
Most warblers have flown north by this time of the month, and almost all other spring migrants have either arrived or have passed through the area. Spring turkey hunting closes throughout much of the region; update your turkey journal, noting which dates and weather conditions favored turkey sightings.
Blackberries are blooming along roadsides of the Lower Midwest. That is when sunflowers are in full bloom in California, and spring wheat and oats are just about all planted in the North
In the field and garden
When you see nettles waist high, then check the garden for cutworms. And when Canadian thistles start to bud, it’s safe to plant your peppers, cantaloupes and cucumbers. But check for armyworms and corn borers in the fields.
When you hear spring crickets sing, look for leafhoppers in the garden and snapping turtle eggs along the rivers. Then when you see the first elderberries blooming, check for bean leaf beetles and alfalfa weevils in your field and garden.
Heat stress can slow the rate of gain in livestock. Protection from the weather, plenty of water, and adequate feed and supplements may help to reduce weight loss.
Cucumber beetles reach the economic threshold in the garden. Chinch bugs begin to hatch in the lawn. Whiteflies attack azaleas.
It’s pruning time, after flowering, for forsythia, quince, mock orange and lilac. But mulberry season is just beginning, and it typically lasts through early summer.
Gather eggs frequently to reduce spoilage. As the weather heats up, don’t forget to refrigerate your eggs. Keep your chickens’ water fresh and cool.
Put in the last of the hotweather vegetables (like tomatoes, squash, eggplant and peppers). And don’t forget pumpkins for Halloween.
If you are getting a pig, consider digging a shallow pond for it to cool off in. Increase the availability of loose salt to your animals as the heat increases.
Mind and body
Some studies have shown that more events which people consider miraculous occur between May and September than in the other months. May through September are also the months during which the greatest weight loss in humans typically occurs. If you are going to diet in 2022, now is the time to start (even though if you lose weight, it may be a miracle).
And the SAD Index (which measures the forces thought to be associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder on a scale from 1 to 100) remains mostly in the harmless 20s this week, helping to keep you from being discouraged.
Journal
On the hinge of early summer, the balance of time and vegetation wavers and swings each day, inventories on either side holding seasonal tides in opposition, residue in compensation with new sprouts. This is a pivotal time that appears to be all in the favor of summer, but really is a door that opens back to spring, as well, allowing a kind of simultaneous passage to and from, eddies in the solar tides, receding and proceeding.
On one side, the blossoms of late spring: the pink sweet rockets, the yellow swamp buttercups, the pale blue waterleaf, the violet wild geraniums, white Solomon’s plume, deep purple larkspur and columbine, the golden-pollen clustered snakeroot, the iris, the poppies, the peonies, the catchweed with its sticky stems, the wisteria, the honeysuckles, weigelas, mock orange, the high locust clusters, yellow poplars and the fading privets.
On the other side, the side of early summer: parsnips, hemlock, orange day lilies, small, golden stella d’oro lilies, purple coneflowers, daisies, fruit of black raspberries and mulberries and strawberries, the lush catalpas, the blossoming elderberries and panicled dogwoods, multiflora roses, crown vetch, pink spirea, yellow and white sweet clover, Canadian thistles, nodding thistles, chicory and the paling winter wheat.
The two tides may overlap, and a drive south two hundred miles pulls up the tide of deep summer; two hundred miles north early summer lies well behind the height of late spring.
None of that matters of course: all the seasons are constellations of Borrow’s “sweet things.”
Whether one observes them or not, the particles of the landscape’s transition are particles of human transition. Physiology follows the lengthening day like the face of a sunflower follows the sun.