I walk down the pond edge, under the glare of the sun, noting the changes since my last visit. The mallard ducklings, that I saw so short a time ago darting about like water bugs, are now half grown. The pebble patches where the bream eggs hatched are silting over gain. The yellow flowers of the water iris have come and gone…. There is never a pause, on summer days, in the changing kaleidoscope of nature. – Edwin Way Teale

The Moon and the Sun

The Mating Milkweed Bug Moon wanes until it becomes the Buzzing Cicada Moon on July 9. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead in the middle of the day. Lunar lore suggests that fish should be more active as the moon passes above you, especially as the barometer falls in advance of the mid-July cool front. And the buzzing cicadas of this moon are the annual cicadas that appear in July each year, not the 17-year cicadas that stopped singing several weeks ago.

Throughout the month, the Sun drops steadily from its solstice declination of 23 degrees 26 minutes to a late-summer declination of 18 degrees 29 minutes.  That distance is approximately a fourth of the way toward autumn equinox.  

Weather Trends

The Corn Tassel Rains, which typically begin at the end of June, often continue through the period, and temperatures, which cooled somewhat during the first days of July, begin to grow warmer. After the 7th, there is a full 90 percent chance that afternoon highs will reach 80 or above. July 7 through the 9th are some of the worst Dog Days of the year, all three bringing a 10 percent chance of heat above 100 degrees.

Zeitgebers

(Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year)

Wild cherries are darkening. Thimble plants are setting their thimbles. Red cones of the staghorn sumac become prominent. Behavior of raccoons, opossums and groundhogs becomes erratic in the Dog Day heat.

Elderberry flowers turn to fruit, like the blossoms of pokeweed, poison ivy and the trilliums. August’s goldenrod is 6 feet tall now. Lupine pods break apart to spread their seeds. Early white snakeroot, ironweed, Joe Pye weed, boneset, wingstem and tall coneflowers are budding.

Katydids appear at your back porch light. Mold grows rapidly in the warm, wet weather.

Morning birdsong continues to diminish, making way for the increase of insect volume. Blackberries are August-size this week, but still green. Milkweed pods have emerged almost everywhere. Sycamore trees shed their bark, marking the center of summer. Elderberry flowers fade; green berries take their place.

Mind and Body

The S.A.D. Index, which measures seasonal stress on a scale from 1 to 100, rises into the 40s this week, thanks to an increase in the likelihood of Dog-day heat and lunar phase. To avoid the Summer Blues, balance your indoor time with walks in the cool of the morning and evening.

In the Field and Garden

Throughout the Midwest, the first peaches and summer apples have started coming in. July’s wild cherries are ripening and elderberry flowers have turned to small green berries. Potato leafhoppers reach economic levels in some alfalfa. Bagworms attack arborvitae, euonymus, juniper, linden, maple and fir.

 Detasseling operations are underway in seed corn fields. Mimosa webworms appear on locust trees. By now winter wheat is often a fifth cut. At least 14 leaves have emerged on each stalk of field corn. The peak period of heat stress begins for summer crops.

The canola harvest gets underway. Fertilize asparagus and rhubarb as their seasons end. Side-dress the corn, and cut summer cabbage and broccoli. Pick all the remaining peas and compost the vines. Plant the latest sweet corn of the year as the moon waxes.

Some farmers are planting double-crop beans after the wheat harvest. Lunar position is superb for that activity. Greenhouse tomatoes seeded today could be producing by October.

Almanack Classics

A Blessing to Be Blind

By Larry Motel, Greenwich, Ohio

In 1946 when Dad and Mom bought a home on the bay side of the Marblehead Peninsula, I was so happy. I could walk to the woods, open fields and the water every day. I was 10 years old at the time.

There I met two brothers who became life-long friends. Tom was a year younger than me and Jim a year older. When we first met, I saw Jim’s one eye was half gone and scarred over. Then I found out he was completely blind.

Later I found out that when he was about 4, he and an older boy were playing with sticks, as in sword fighting, and Jim got his eye badly damaged. By the time he was 6, the other eye got infected and he turned completely blind.

Well, Jim ended up going to the school for the blind in Columbus, but was home for three months in the summer. We all liked to swim, and Jim was really good at it as he was always physically active. During the last few years in the school for the blind, he took up wrestling. He was so good that when he graduated, he got a scholarship to Baldwin-Wallace College.

He did so well in wrestling there that he was offered a scholarship to Ohio State. He took it and this move changed his life for the better forever. He met a girl who had been blind from birth, and they fell in love. After Jim graduated, they got married. He later told his brother Tom and me that maybe it was a blessing to be blind because he would never have met someone he loved so much.

Poor Will Pays for Your Stories

Poor Will pays $4 for unusual and true farm, garden, animal and even love stories used in this almanac. Send yours to Poor Will’s Almanack at the address below.

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S SCKRAMBLER

In order to estimate your SCKRAMBLER IQ, award yourself 15 points for each word unscrambled, adding a 50-point bonus for getting all of them correct. If you find a typo, add another 15 points to your IQ.

OBY BOY

UYOB BUOY

HOAY AHOY

LOLAY ALLOY

VONYOC CONVOY

OEYLDP DEPLOY

MEOPLY EMPLOY

PESYO SEPOY

CEVIRYO VICEROY

UOOYRDRC CORDUROY

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER

KALNB

KNBA

NYKA

KNAS

TKNA

DNKA

RKNAD

KRNAF

NARCK

PANKS

Bill Felker’s Daybook for July  (with extensive details for every day of the month) is now available. For your autographed copy, send $20 to Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. Or order from Amazon or from www.poorwillsalmanack.com.

Copyright 2021 – W. L. Felker