In her suit of green arrayed,

Hear her singing in the shade -

Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did! – Philip Freneau

The Morning and Evening Stars of July

The Morning Star of July: Venus rises from the east in Taurus. Jupiter follows in Gemini. Venus is the brighter of the two. 

The Evening Star in July is Mars, high in the. western sky at the end of the day in Leo.

The Weather in the Week Ahead

The coolest days of the week are typically the 22nd and 23rd of the month, when mild 70s are recorded about a fourth of all the years. The 23rd brings pleasant sleeping weather more often than any time in July: a full 35 percent of the nights drop below 60 degrees. The most consistent day of the period, and of the whole month, is the 24th, when highs in the 80s come 95 percent of the time. Sunshine remains the rule for this week of the month, with three out of four days bringing at least a partial break in the clouds. Chances of rain typically decline as July comes to a close, dropping from 40 to 45 percent on the 24th down to just 20 percent on the 30th and 31st. A cool front passes through the Lower Midwest between the 27th and the 29th. Five years in 10, at least one afternoon in the 70s follows that late-July cool wave. Evening lows in the 50s, unusual only two weeks ago, often return. Average high temperatures drop one degree on the 28th, their first decline since late January.

Natural Calendar

By the last week of Deep Summer, the yellowing locust and buckeye leaves and the brown garlic mustard give a sense of autumn to the woods. A few Judas maples and Virginia creepers redden. Shiny spicebush, boxwood, greenbrier and poison ivy berries have formed. Wild cherries darken. Buckeyes and black walnuts are fully developed. Now Osage fruits are heavy enough to drop in a storm.

Asiatic lilies and day lilies disappear in the garden (but tiger lilies are still full bloom) as red, white and purple phlox reach their best. Lizard’s tail and wood nettle go to seed along the riverbanks. Blueweed, white vervain, motherwort and white sweet clover end their seasons. Petals of the hobblebush darken. Parsnip heads, honewort pods and sweet Cicely pods are dry enough to split and spill their seeds.

Phenology

When thimbleweed, blueweed, great Indian plantain, great mullein, milkweed, black-eyed Susan, columbine, red bleeding heart, dock, daisy fleabane, large black medic bush clover, yellow and white sweet clover, cow parsnip, blue-eyed grass and Hooker’s orchis flower in the Appalachians, then strawberry season is at its best in the Pacific Northwest.

When geese start getting restless, then the blueberry crop is thinning and summer apples will be about half picked.

When the first ears of corn are silking, then farmers bring in the winter wheat and canola. That’s when salmonberry bushes are in full bloom along the Columbia River and the last lilac bush flowers in the mountains of Alberta, Canada. Milkweed pods appear on the milkweed, those pods should burst in about 80 days at the approach of middle autumn.

Almanack Literature

Funny But Lucky

A True Story

“When I was 12 years old,” writes Sylvia Basinger, from Bluffton, Ohio, “my uncle and aunt invited me to go along with them to Pennsylvania. I asked my folks, and they said I could.

“This was a great treat for me. It was the first time I left the state of Ohio.

“When we arrived at our destination, Aunt Stella had an old-fashioned, cook-stove meal waiting for us. We all ate together.

“And then, of course, I looked the outdoors over. My aunt and uncle had a privy, and it was some distance from their house. I went into the outhouse and sat down on the hole.

“Suddenly I heard some pigs grunting real loud underneath me! I jumped up off the toilet seat and saw, to my surprise, two half-grown hogs down below.

“Luckily, I hadn’t been bitten, but I screamed anyway and ran to the house to tell my Aunt Stella what’d happened. She told her husband, but he just said: ‘Oh, I cleaned out the outhouse pit, and I forgot to put back the boards.’

“Those days are gone forever,” comments Sylvia, “but the memory will always remain with me.”