Watch for Saturn, first major planet to rise after midnight
Changes in the weather transform the very feel of the world’s presence, altering the medium of awareness in a manner that affects every breathing being in our vicinity…. Although it rarely occupies our full attention, the weather is always evident on the periphery of that attention, an ever-present reminder that the reality we inhabit is ultimately beyond our human control.
— David Abram
The moon, the sun and the planets The second week of early summer
The Hummingbird Moon enters its second quarter at 9:48 a.m. on Tuesday. Rising in the morning and setting after midnight, this moon passes overhead in the afternoon and evening. Fish and other creatures should be most active at those times, especially as the barometer is dropping before the arrival of the June 6 and 10 cold fronts.
By the end of the first week of June, the sun has reached a declination of 22 degrees 44 minutes, around 95% of the way to summer solstice.
Saturn, in Capricorn, is the first of the major planets to rise after midnight. Mars and Jupiter follow in Pisces, followed, in turn, by the brightest morning star of all, Venus in Aries.
Weather trends
The low-pressure system that accompanies the June 6 front initiates a four-day period during which there is an increased chance of tornadoes and flash floods. Even after this front passes to the east, storms occur four years in ten. Part of the reason for the rise in the risk for severe weather is the increase in the percentage of afternoons in the 80s and 90s almost everywhere in the continental United States.
Zeitgebers: events in nature that tell the time of year
Not long after peonies come in and the exotic flowers of the yellow poplar open, just past the prime of poppies, the last leaves of the canopy cover the land. When the high foliage is complete, then the wild multiflora roses and the domestic tea roses bloom, the last Osage and black walnut flowers fall, clustered snakeroot hangs with pollen in the shade, and parsnips, goat’s beard and sweet clovers take over the roadsides. Rare swamp valerian blossoms by the water, and common timothy pushes up from its sheaths in all the alleyways.
Miami mist, pink yarrow, yellow moneywort, silver lamb’s ear and the rough Canadian thistle bloom. Wild onions and domestic garlic get their seed bulbs. Poison ivy and tiger lilies and catalpas are budding. Daisies, golden Alexander, groundsel, sweet rocket and common fleabane still hold in the pastures, but garlic mustard and ragwort are almost gone. The bright violet heads of chives droop and decay. Tall buttercups recede into the wetlands. Petals of mock orange, honeysuckle, scarlet pyrethrum, blue lupine and Dutch iris fall to the garden floor.
The columbines come apart as astilbe reddens. Nettles and grasses tangle with catchweed. July’s wild petunia foliage is a foot tall. Giant yucca plants send up their firm stalks not only in the Miami and Ohio Valleys but also deep in the Caribbean.
In the field and garden
When goslings leave the nest, mulberry season peaks, and when you see the first monarch butterfly, watch for young coyotes to come after your chickens and new lambs and kids.
And when May apples have fruit the size of a cherry and honeysuckle flowers have all come down, look for cucumber beetles to reach the economic threshold on the farm and in the garden.
When fireflies fly at night, chinch bugs hatch in the lawn, and powdery mildew becomes a problem in the garden phlox.
When yucca plants send up their stalks, young grackles leave their nests, and nettles have grown up to your chest. Then, Japanese beetles start to attack roses and ferns. Azalea bark scale eggs hatch, too!
Check for foot rot in your livestock, especially if the weather has been rainy and the pastures and runs are muddy.
Don’t let your rams and bucks get overheated (which can affect their sperm count) when the temperature rises into the 80s and 90s. Be sure shade is available.
Exceptionally high temperatures may inhibit your bees’ ability to make honey. Heat can also contribute to temporary sterility in male livestock.
A three-week cycle of deworming, combined with every-threeweek pasture rotation, could be effective in eliminating worms early in the summer.
Mind and body
Unless the weather is unseasonably hot, few people suffer from S.A.D. in June. The Index reveals a rare window in the year during which astronomical and meteorological factors that cause stress are reduced to almost nothing. The lush growth and flowering of Early Summer easily counter the influence of the moon in the first half of the month. Full moon and perigee on June 14, combined with rising heat, however, increase the challenge to equanimity, as does new moon on the 28th.
This week’s S.A.D. Index (which measures the forces thought to be associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder on a scale from 1 to 100) drops below the teens.
That’s the best so far this year.
Journal
June 1, 1986: The palette of Early Summer, colors and creatures and sounds all spread out before me in the day: Strawberries peaking in the garden. At the swamp, 8:00 a.m., geese with goslings maybe a third grown swimming along the shore, a flock of goldfinches, flies heckling me, box turtle in the grass (out to lay eggs), crickets strong. First sundrops blooming, sweet rockets most all to seed, last remnants of May. Catalpas in early bloom, many still budding. Yucca flower stalks two feet high, like huge, thick asparagus. Prairie false indigo, Baptisia leucantha, late bloom in the high prairie up from the road. Cobwebs across the path. Fire pinks still in bloom.
Gold-collared snipe flies mating, swarming. Wild roses and corn salad still in full bloom, heavily fragrant. First blue-tailed dragonfly seen. Several young toads noticed hopping across the paths. Violet swamp iris late full bloom. First large-petaled wild rose seen. No chiggers biting me yet. Geese flying over the house just after sundown
The impressions of all these events in this place in time fit together in a portrait creating itself, and I recreate it over and over, trying to recapture its art.