July 4-10, 2011
Look at this beautiful world, and read the truth
In her fair page; see every season brings
New change to her of everlasting youth-
Still the green soil, with joyous living things
Swarms – the wide air is full of joyous wings.
-Bryant

Lunar phase and lore
The Touch-Me-Not Moon that brings all the woodland touch-me-not plants into bloom swells throughout the period, entering its second quarter at 1:29 a.m. on July 8. Rising near the middle of the day and setting near midnight, this moon will move overhead around suppertime.

In Virgo on July 4, the moon enters Libra on July 6, Scorpio on July 9, Sagittarius on July 11 and Capricorn the following Wednesday. The most favorable planting days of the week will fall on the weekend in Scorpio. Fishing should be most productive (and dieting least rewarding) with the moon above you in the late afternoon and early evening, especially as the July 6 cool front approaches.

Weather patterns

As the Dog Days begin, the chances for highs in the 90s rise to 35 percent per day, the highest of the year, and the possibility of heat above 100 degrees becomes possible between July 7-9.

Half the days this week are typically in the 80s, and even though milder 70s occur 30 percent of the time during the first two days of the month, as well as on July 6-7, the hotter temperatures dominate this period of the month.
Daybook

July 4: Schedule seeding of double-crop soybeans after the wheat harvest, and when you see that a few of the first crop soybeans are blooming. The oat crop ripens, and the first tier of soybeans blooms. The number of vegetable varieties increases at the farmers’ market and locally grown sweet corn appears on roadside stands throughout the lower Midwest.

July 5: The bright yellow primroses and spring daisies are in decline, their departure marking the close of black raspberry and mulberry seasons. Green wild cherries hang in clusters. Elderberry bushes and everbearing strawberries are setting fruit. The shade-loving cohosh has its berries.

July 6: Watch for damage from bagworms in the arborvitae, euonymus, juniper, linden, maple and fir. Mimosa webworms appear on locust trees. If you are growing black walnut trees for a cash crop, go out and check them; you might find walnut caterpillars causing all kinds of havoc. Keep flowers and vegetables well-watered and fed to help them resist the onslaught of the insects and weather.

July 7: Be on the alert for the giant Johnson grass, which can give your animals cyanide poisoning if it is young or has been damaged by cutting or trampling.
July 8: The moon enters its gentle second quarter today, a low-stress day favorable for showing and working with animals.

July 9: When the first cicadas (or harvest flies) of the year sing at noon, then lanky ichneumons get into your house and sit on the walls like gargantuan mosquitoes. Giant green June beetles have reached up into the Midwest and appear in Minneapolis gardens. Black raspberry season ends when you see those beetles; middle summer primroses open; buckeyes and hickory nuts sometimes fall in a thunderstorm.

July 10: Elderberries are turning purple; you might get your first handful this week. Then, go out and pick the summer apples and the July blueberries. Plan to dig in trees, shrubs, fall beets and turnips after full moon on July 15. Harvest, detassel corn, cut hay, pull weeds and do midsummer pruning in the moon’s third or fourth quarter.

Almanac classics

Skunked on a Date

By F.G. Decker
This skunk story took place 70 years ago. I had two older brothers, and they always trapped for furs in the winter. Skunk fur was very salable.
Well, one evening, my boyfriend came to take me to a movie at Fort Wayne. We got north of Ossian when a smell started coming into the car. It got so bad we had to stop. My boyfriend got out and raised the hood, and there was a skunk on the motor!

We went back home because we smelled like a skunk. My brothers thought it was funny, but I did not.