Summer winds is sniffin’ round the bloomin’ locus’ trees;

And the clover in the pasture is a big day fer the bees,

And they been a-swiggin’ honey, above board and on the sly,

Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin’ and stagger as they fly. – James Whitcomb Riley

The Sun

The sun is within six degrees of its highest position in the sky, and the progress to summer slows from approximately 5 percent per week, to about half that. By May 15th, the sun reaches a declination of 18 degrees, 50 minutes, about 87 percent of the way to solstice.

 

The Stars

As Leo, with its bright Regulus, moves off to the west by 10 p.m., the likelihood of frost diminishes sharply, and tender bedding plants, tomatoes and peppers can be set out – as long as you are prepared to protect them on cooler nights. When Leo has moved well into the southwest, and Arcuturus is almost in the center of the sky, lanky Hercules behind it, and the Milky Way fills the southeast, then frost should stay away until October.

Weather Trends

May 21 is in the 70s or 80s about 85 percent of the time. Two years out of three, the Strawberry Rains let up on May 21, and this date records just a 35 percent chance of showers. Skies are at least partly cloudy 70 percent of the time. 

Natural Calendar

The center of Late Spring is already closing the canopy. Sycamores, Osage, cottonwoods and oaks are leafing out, and white mulberries and buckeyes blossom. Along the sidewalks, iris, poppies, sweet William and florescence of bridal wreath spirea and snowball viburnum have appeared. The delicate Korean lilacs take over from the fading standard lilac varieties, and bright rhododendrons replace the azaleas. Serviceberry trees have small green berries now. In the alleys, scarlet pimpernel comes in beside the thyme-leafed speedwell.

Columbine is open on the cliffs, and throughout the deep woods, Solomon’s seal, false Solomon’s seal, bellwort, wild phlox, trillium grandiflorum, wild geranium, golden Alexander, wood betony, early meadow rue, swamp buttercup, ginger, Jacob’s ladder, water cress and golden seal are blooming. White garlic mustard and sweet Cicely still dominate the deep woods; violet sweet rockets increase throughout the fields and glades.

On most Midwestern farms, the corn is up and soybean planting is underway in average years. Orchard grass is heading, rich gray green. The first soft purple alfalfa flowers open. Red and white clover blossom in the pasture and the alley telling of summer. In the vegetable garden, it is the center of pepper, tomato, bean, cantaloupe and cucumber planting time.

In the Field and Garden

Mawberries come into full bloom and many have set fruit. Black medic and plantain blossom. Spittlebugs appear on pine trees, azalea mites on azaleas, cankerworms on eland maples, lace bugs on the mountain ash. Three out of every four potatoes are in In average years, corn is up, soybean planting underway on Midwestern farms the ground, along with two out of every three of the processing tomato plants. commercial sunflower planting. Leafhoppers have come looking for corn.

Sture plants may have an unusually high-water content in May, and livestock may not get enough nutrition from this forage. Silage and hay supplements could take up the feeding slack.

Your salad garden should be producing now: lettuce, radishes, maybe carrots, maybe cherry tomatoes, maybe peas. If you are late planting, don’t wait any longer. Try to keep the salads coming until fall.

Almanack Literature

Sheep Cat

By John Hamstreet, Grand Ronde, Ore.

Last November we had a bunch of kittens of which one survived.  It hung out in the barn with the other cats but since it was smaller it was a little bit of a loner.

We also had a lot of lambs that did not have the run of the barn but were able to come into the nursery if the weather was bad. One night I go down to feed the orphans and there is a lamb lying down in the nursery with the kitten lying half on and half off.

A couple of nights later I went to the barn and there was a big pile of lambs in the nursery. Went by them and fed my babies and turned around to find a black head sticking up out of the pile of lambs. It looked around and then disappeared back into the pile.

This continued on through the rest of the Winter and into the Spring with the kitten hanging out with the lambs including lying in the manger while they were eating. In May I sorted out my ram lambs from my ewe lambs, and the kitten attached itself to the ram lambs. She would walk around and under them dragging her tail across their bellies and under their chins. If they lay down, she would get up and walk around on them until she found one she liked, then settle down. While they were walking along, she would lie down in front of them, roll over on her back, and they would nuzzle her belly with their noses. She even would come up to them and get up on her back legs and hug them on the neck or face with her forepaws.  At none of this activity did the rams raise any objection.

Even now that she is a mama cat and most of her rams are gone, she still goes down to the ram barn every night when I feed. She walks around and checks everything out, hops up on the manger while they are eating, and sits there just hanging out.

I don’t know which was weirder - the cat or the rams.

Copyright 2026: W. L. Felker