June 15-21, 2009
June is really a time of relative quiet, serenity after the rush of sprouting and leafing and flowering and before the fierce heat that drives toward maturity and seed. June’s air can be as sweet as the wild strawberries that will grace its middle weeks, sweet as clover.
-Hal Borland (Suggested by R.N.)
The astronomical outlook

The Fledgling Moon wanes throughout the third week of June, becoming the new Cattail Moon at 2:35 p.m. on June 22.
The sun, reaching solstice at 1:45 a.m. June 21, remains at a declination of a little more than 23 degrees through July 2. The stability of the relationship between Earth and sun during these days creates the shortest nights of the year.

The weather

The likelihood for rain continues to diminish this week of the year, and the period brings about four days that historically are favorable for gardening and fieldwork. Chances for completely overcast conditions decline to less than 20 percent.
Temperatures are usually warm, with only 35 percent of the afternoon highs remaining below 80 degrees. Hot 90s occur at least 20 percent of the time. Lows are in the 60s the majority of nights, with 50s and 40s occurring up to 40 percent of the time.

Almanac daybook

June 15: The moon enters its final quarter today. The dark moon of late June is favorable for detasseling corn, harvesting winter wheat, completing the first cut of alfalfa and beginning the second cut.

This moon is also right for worming and spraying livestock for external parasites, for weeding and mulching and for insect hunting.

June 16: Six to eight leaves have usually emerged on the field corn. Strawberries are about half harvested here, but strawberry season is just beginning along the Canadian border.
June 17: The high noon of the year has arrived, marked by the opening of black raspberry season, goose molting season, the commencement of corn borer season, the center of timothy season, the end of asparagus and rhubarb season and the first of sweet-corn-tassel season.

June 18: August’s wingstem and tall coneflower stalks are five feet high. Virginia creeper is flowering. Canadian thistles and nodding thistles are at their best. Orchard grass is getting brown and old, English ryegrass full bloom, exotic bottle grass late bloom, brome grass very late and some timothy still tender.

Clustered snakeroot and honewort are going to seed as avens and wood nettle start their seasons. Bamboo grass has fresh growth and July’s wood mint is budding. Blackberries have set fruit.
June 19: Giant cecropia moths emerge. The first monarch butterfly caterpillar eats the carrot tops. Damselflies and daddy longlegs are everywhere. Mosquitoes, chiggers and ticks have reached their summer strength. Long black cricket hunters hunt crickets in the garden. Grackles have come for the cherries.

Orange and pink Asiatic lilies are reaching full bloom. The yellow day lilies lead the orange day lilies. Yucca is fully open. Yellow primrose, foxglove, pink and yellow achillea, late daisies, purple spiderwort and speedwell shine in the garden.

June 20: All June’s thistles are decaying below St. Louis, and cattails have their pollen. Sweet clover has almost disappeared by Nashville, and the blackberries are turning a little red. Below Memphis, Queen Anne’s lace blooms, wild lettuce and horseweed too, and elderberries set their fruit.

The wheat fields are bare along the Gulf of Mexico, the roadsides full of black-eyed Susans, pennywort, thin-leafed mountain mint and Mexican hat. The sugar cane crop in Central America often paces the sweet corn in Iowa.

June 21: 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. Parsnips are opening in New Hampshire. In upstate New York, catalpas are still flowering and peonies are still in bloom. The blossoms of mock orange are still fragrant in Minneapolis.

Mind and body clock

The gentle fourth-quarter moon that begins the week gradually strengthens by the weekend, combining with the growing heat of middle summer to create considerable stress in livestock, children, hospital patients and those of you who happen to be starting out on vacation.

And the potential for stress increases as the moon turns new. So be sensible; go slow; be good to yourself; don’t get into arguments; don’t make important decisions; and do easy things instead of hard things.

Fish, game, livestock and diet

The dark moon will be overhead (its most favorable position for angling) in the late morning and early afternoon, giving you plenty of time to find a nice shady spot to wet your line and wait for the fish to listen to the moon. As the barometer drops before the arrival of the June 29 cool front, fish should be even more responsive to the noonday moon.

Almanac literature
Jack
By Lois Newman
Seaman, Ohio

I always remember the vivacious little dog that was a part of our farm family even before I was old enough for school. Jack was a shorthaired terrier with one black ear.

Almost every farm had a few cows to milk to help feed the family and to add a little cash from the sale of butter or cream. In summer, Daddy and Jack would round up the cows from the pasture behind the barn and drive them into a zig-zaggy rail pen to be milked.

While Mom and Dad sat on stools and filled pails with milk, Jack would be busily looking for any little wild animal he could chase.
One evening when milking was done, Jack didn’t seem to be around. Then we heard a muffled whining sound coming from inside a big old hollow maple tree that stood nearby. Jack had chased some creature into a hole among the roots, and, by continuous digging, had made a passageway inside the tree where he soon dug shut his entrance and was stuck.

Daddy shoveled away the loose soil and Jack came out jumping and dancing as if to say, “I didn’t get that fellow this time, but just wait until tomorrow!”