September 16th
The 259th Day of the Year

A farm or nature journal becomes an autobiography, the act of watching becomes watching the self and forms the self out of and in front of the world. The journal states that I am this person who is observing leaf after leaf, field after field. Following and recording these seasons, I change into myself.

Sunrise/set: 7:17/7:43 Day's Length: 12 hours 26 minutes
Average High/Low: 77/56 Average Temperature: 67
Record High: 99 - 1897 Record Low: 38 - 1902

Weather
Today is typically one of the coolest and wettest days in early fall. Chances for clouds and rain: 40 percent. There is a 15 percent chance for temperatures in the 80s or 90s, thirty-five percent for 70s, and just a 30 percent chance for highs in the 60s - the greatest chance of that since spring. And for the first time since June 12th there is the possibility of afternoons warming only into the 50s. Four mornings in ten drop below 50 degrees.

Natural Calendar
The second week of early autumn brings an end to the first period of leaf fall in Yellow Springs. By next Friday, most of the black walnut trees will have lost the remainder of their leaves, and the foliage of the serviceberries along Dayton and Elm streets will have come down. The next tier of foliage includes ashes, hickories, tulip trees and elms. Now the deciduous trees are almost bare in northern Canada. In New England and in the Rocky Mountains, colors are approaching their best.

Daybook
1982: Celandine appears done blooming everywhere.

1983: Touch-me-not, wingstem clearly declining along the roadsides.

1984: Forsythia leaves darken.

1985: Huge flock of geese on the golf course.

1986: Geese fly over honking, 10:13 p.m., across the full, white moon.

1987: Hardly any geese this year, cardinals and doves quiet. Robins calling softly in the honeysuckles this afternoon.

1989: Robins clucking steadily at 7:30 a.m. Starlings on the wires, squirrels loud. Edges of rusty yellow on the ginkgoes. Mums half in bloom. Patches of yellow on the lindens and gingkoes. Cardinal sings 9:27 a.m. At 9:30, more robins pass through the yard, their calls sounding urgent. No katydids heard last night (it was wet and cold).

1991: Red berries fall from the magnolias by my side door.

1992: A couple of forsythia flowers seen at the side entry. Rudbeckia almost all gone.

1993: Butterflies everywhere today. And I ran into one flock of Monarchs on the way home; although I swerved and put the brakes on hard, I couldn't avoid four of them. The afternoon was bright and cool, the rain that usually falls today having come yesterday. In the garden, white and red phlox still hold. At the mill, the river is down a foot, all the wingstem and ironweed gone, the asters in full bloom, the first goldenrod beginning to rust. At the dam, small blues fluttering by my feet, two bumblebees (the male quite small) mating in the sun at the water's edge.

1995: The first New England aster has bloomed today in the yard. Across the street, violet autumn crocus is in full bloom. Jean said that two of her kindergarten students had found toads in the last week. Yesterday, a toad hopped past me by the bench in the backyard, the first time all summer. Is this fall toad time?

1997: This morning, I heard a downy woodpecker tapping on the cedar siding outside my door. This afternoon, blue jays were loud. And four flew over the house before supper. Full moon tonight - but no geese come across the sky. I haven’t heard or seen them much this year. Where have I or they been? On High Street, the stalks of autumn crocus have emerged fully, but the flowers are just opening.

1998: Squirrel running through the yard with a black walnut in its mouth. Chicory still blooming. Cut-over crown vetch flowering by the roadsides. Early leafturn noticed south along the highway to Xenia.

1999: Buckeyes are on the ground downtown. In the back yard, one black walnut hull wedged on the sharp edge of the outdoor grill. Autumn crocus still blooming across the street. This afternoon I went to the Jacoby swamp with our bulldog, Gus. The woods was so dry from the months without rain. Leafcup was shriveled. Zig-zag goldenrod was struggling. White snakeroot, however, was unaffected by the weather; it must expect these conditions, being a late-summer and early-fall plant. I saw robins for the first time since August, heard their migration clucking. They were flocking, eating honeysuckle berries, clustering around the stream. Then I sat by the swamp and looked out over the wetland. There the drought was harmless. Orange jewel weed stretched to the far wood line, bordered by purple Joe Pye weed. In winter, this place offers green and running spring water; in summer, protection from the uncertainties of the heat and rain.

2000: Long line of blackbirds crossing above the freeway near Middletown.

2002: Monarch at 10:00 a.m. Very last Royal Standard hosta flower in bloom. Virgin’s bower season is ending. Scattered yellow osage leaves on the ground contribute to pre-autumn.

2003: Autumn crocus blossoms still holding under the maple a few houses down on High Street. Purple-flowered hostas still blooming in the alleys, but the Royal Standards are almost gone, only two flowers left. Monarchs still coming to the zinnias, chasing each other back and forth.

2004: The tea roses bloom in the south garden now that all the Japanese beetles have gone.

2007: Driving north of Yellow Springs, Jeanie and I saw several large flocks of starlings on the wing and starlings gathering on the telephone lines.

2008: After 48 hours, the power has come back on. The Hurricane Ike wind storm brought winds of 70 miles per hour in the area, a freak storm, according to the meteorologists. Thousands are still without electricity. The cardinal family fed throughout the day, and 7:00 a.m. brought brief cardinal song and crows. No doves heard. Squirrels played in the broken white mulberry this afternoon. In the garden, the New England asters, the Red Baron hostas, and white boneset are in full bloom. A few spiderworts and Shasta daisies are left. The Knock-out rose is still producing multiple blossoms. The peaches are almost all down, the same with the apples in the alley. No monarchs in several days, but one bright yellow male finch seen yesterday.

September 17th
The 260th Day of the Year

Mira, Anarda, al Otono, que cargado
de frutas viene a nuestro suelo amado.

See, Anarda, Fall is coming home,
bringing all its fruits.

Manuel de Navarrete

Sunrise/set: 7:18/7:41 Day's Length: 12 hours 23 minutes
Average High/Low: 77/55 Average Temperature: 66
Record High: 92 - 1931 Record Low: 39 - 1959

Weather
Highs in the 80s come one year in four. Seventies occur 40 percent of the time, 60s twenty-five percent; and from now through the end of the month, the chance of highs just in the 50s remains steady at ten percent. This morning, for the first time in the fall, low temperatures fall into the 40s fifty-five percent of the time. Chances for rain: 35 percent.

Natural Calendar
Touch-me-nots are continuing to pop. More hickory nuts, more acorns come down. Wood nettle seeds are black and brittle. Wingstem, clearweed, and ironweed complete their cycle. Black walnuts are all over the ground. The huge pink mallows of the wetlands have died back, heads dark, leaves disintegrating. In the pastures, the milkweed pods are ready to open.

Daybook
1982: Mulberry and osage begin to get yellow leaves. Small white asters are prominent in front of the house.

1983: Trumpet creepers still strong. Grackles in the back trees all afternoon. Fall raspberries are still coming in, about a pint every
few days.

1984: Grinnell Swamp: Touch-me-not pods come to their peak of popping. Nodding bur marigold (bidens cernua) found. Lobelia still full. Zigzag goldenrod early bloom. White snakeroot still full. Boneset faded. Poplars yellowing, sycamore leaves browning at the edges. Black and gold striped caterpillar of the milkweed tiger moth identified.

1986: Many catalpas almost gone. The ash by my window has lost most of its leaves.

1987: Honeysuckle branches heavy with red berries. Farmers’ Market selling squash and late melons, mums, tomatoes, zucchini, gourds, apples, concord grapes, and the last peaches.

1988: Cardinal sings off and on all day.

1989: No cicadas this afternoon. Red berries on the spicebush. Bright New England asters seen today. Dozens of helianthus tuberosus full bloom in a soybean field. A flock of geese has come to the field by Antioch again. No katydids last night, a few chanting tonight, one right on the front porch.

1990: Every event of fall adds to the momentum. The acts accumulate like leaves in the backwaters.

1991: Magnolia seeds are coming down, box elders shedding, small cottonwoods three-fourths gone, my ash tree almost all fallen.

1993: Still no asters blooming at home, only a few at South Glen. The drought has kept them back, as it has the mums. At the Covered Bridge, a cardinal sang once as I crossed over into the woods. Swamp bidens were in full bloom at the swamp, a few goldenrod and small white asters. Wingstem, protected by the canopy, was still bright. The river was as low as during the drought of five years ago, and it had a dank smell, a faint odor of sewage, the drought and the quiet air exposing the village's pollution.

1995: This past week, the weather shifted into the cooler 70s, and the clear sun that had dried out late August and early September was diluted with clouds and rain. At the park, the box elder is paler, rustier; the red maple's scattered deterioration has increased to a few minor patches now. In the south garden, the sunflowers that sprouted from birdseed in late July are in full bloom. Along Limestone Street, black walnut trees are half bare.

1997: Virgin’s bower and tall violet sedum are still in full bloom around town. Yesterday, I saw a bed of August Moon hosta in full bloom. Last peaches coming in at the orchard. More jays this morning, but no cardinals or sparrows, no robin calls. Crickets strong. Katydids loud last night. Berries on the hawthorns outside my room are starting to turn red.

1998: Artichokes and goldenrod still full. Redbud, locust, yellow poplar, ash, sumac, buckeye all turning here and there.

1999: Five white-spotted skippers working one pink sedum in the east garden.

2001: In the chilly 47-degree morning, crickets are quiet except for just a few that sing so slowly it seems they are whining, crying over the cold.

2003: The zinnias have been attacked by powdery mildew for the past few days, are beginning to lose their beauty. In the Women’s Park along Corey Street, almost all the coneflowers are black. Monarch and Painted Lady butterflies continue to pass through the garden. My ash tree at Wilberforce has two huge splotches of gold. One Japanese beetle found on the roses. A few dead Asian lady beetles noticed on the roof.

2004: Virgin’s bower and New England asters are still at the height of their bloom, but their slow decay has begun. White boneset is about half gone.

2007: Virgin’s bower, New England asters and white boneset are still in full bloom. The Jerusalem artichoke flowers are just beginning to unfold. Another flock of starlings and a first flock of blackbirds seen in the countryside today. Nothing inside Yellow Springs, though. Walking through town tonight with Jean: we saw two milkweed pods that had opened early.

September 18th
The 261st Day of the Year

As we lay awake long before daybreak, listening to the rippling of the river and the rustling of the leaves ... we already suspected that there was a change in the weather, from a freshness as of autumn in these sounds. That night was the turning-point of the season. We had gone to bed in summer, and we awoke in autumn; for summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf.

Henry David Thoreau

Sunrise/set: 7:18/7:39 Day's Length: 12 hours 21 minutes
Average High/Low: 77/55 Average Temperature: 66
Record High: 96 - 1895 Record Low: 37 - 1959

Weather
There is a five percent chance for highs in the 90s today, and a ten percent chance for 80s; most of the days, however (65 percent), are in the 70s. The remaining days: fifteen percent chance for 60s, five percent for 50s. Skies are totally cloudy 45 percent of all September 18ths, with rain occurring 40 percent of the time. Nights are typically mild, with lows below 60 occurring more than half the time.

Natural Calendar
In the woods, middle spring’s sedum is growing stronger. Henbit, mint, and catchweed revive as the canopy thins. Waterleaf has fresh shoots. Snow-on-the-mountain has recovered from its mid-summer slump and can be as thick and as beautiful as in early spring. Sometimes forsythia even responds as though it were April violet time instead of autumn violet time, whole bushes breaking into bloom. Preying mantises make egg cases for their eggs.

Daybook
1983: At Ellis Pond, most wildflowers are gone, but arrowhead still blooming, bur marigolds, small helianthus, blue bindweed. This afternoon, we drove south to Serpent Mound. Zigzag goldenrod is common there, and Short’s aster with its heart-shaped leaves. Touch-me-nots are still popping. Red woolly-bears seen, also red and black ones.

1986: Rain seeming to deepen the early fall colors.

1987: Boneset and knotweed almost gone.

1988: Black seeds on the wood nettle. New showy coneflowers still full. White boneset and goldenrod still hold along the freeways. First zigzag goldenrod blooms. The rest of the tall goldenrod is still not completely open.

1989: Robin migration calls near seven o'clock this morning. Buckeyes starting to fall from their hulls. No cicadas.

1993: On the way to Springfield, the first flock of autumn starlings seen flying southwest along the Mad River, both the western and eastern ends of the flock lost on the horizon. South into Kettering: the tree line has started to shift just a little into gold.

1995: The snow-on-the-mountain along Dayton Street has recovered from its Dog Day decay and has grown back thick and beautiful as in early spring.

1997: There are reports in the media that El Nino is bringing warm waters well up along the Pacific coast, that tropical fish are being caught off the coast of northern California. This is supposed to be the strongest El Nino ever, more powerful than the one of 1982-1983. I will watch the winter and compare. In the yard, the sedum holds and a few last hosta are blossoming, but the heliopsis has never come back from its late August decline. The showy coneflowers of the south garden are almost gone.

1999: To Zanesville for the art fair: sunrise over the rolling hills at 7:15. Fog in the hollows, land dry and brown, goldenrod full throughout. At the rest stop between Columbus and Springfield, I found a patch of bidens coronata, a tickseed sunflower. Also coreopsis tinctoria, a yellow bidens-like plant with a dark maroon coloring to the petals near the center. And the hawthorn berries were heavy and bright red. When I returned home, one Japanese honeysuckle flower was open on the fence of the east garden.

2000: Dogwoods are turning pink, and there are patches of red in the gum trees. A few locust leaves are yellow. Sparrow hawk found dead in front of the school door. Mike says he might have been migrating to Ohio.

2003: To Washington Court House: I drove east into the cirrus that were preceding Hurricane Isabel (which was coming ashore at that moment on the Outer Banks of North Carolina). Monarchs flew across my path, and woolly-bear caterpillars were common on the road. Most of the soybean fields were yellowing or rusting, and the corn was browning. Goldenrod filled the pastures. Sycamores and cottonwoods had an ochre tint. The whole landscape glowed in the sun.

2006: This evening Jean said she heard a car make a loud screeching noise, and it was answered by the screech owl in the back woods.

2007: Jeanie saw a hummingbird at the Mexican sunflowers this afternoon. The first Jerusalem artichoke flower in the back yard is more than half open – the highest flower, maybe ten feet above the ground. At Wilberforce, my ash tree is completely green, but along the road to Wilmington, the ashes and maples, locusts and lindens are showing large patches of color. Almost no robin migration calls heard this summer, and very few robins seen in the area since the end of June.

2008: Same observation about robins as last year. In the south gardens, the toad lily continues full bloom, along with the Red Baron hosta, New England asters and white boneset. Some patches of rudbeckia and spiderwort complement the bushy roses. An autumn perennial garden: late hosta, roses, asters, white boneset, Jerusalem artichokes, virgin’s bower, variegated Japanese knotweed, and annuals, maybe all in their own September area.

September 19th
The 262nd Day of the Year

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns,
moons, planets....

Walt Whitman

Sunrise/set: 7:19/7:38 Day's Length: 12 hours 19 minutes
Average High/Low: 76/55 Average Temperature: 66
Record High: 95 - 1908 Record Low: 34 - 1901

Weather
On average, the 19th is one of the warmer days in middle September; highs in the 90s occur one year in ten, with 80s three in ten, 70s and 60s also three in ten. The possibility of rain declines to 25 percent, and skies are clear to partly cloudy 80 percent of the time.

Natural Calendar
Robin migration calls complement the chatter of the crows and jays and squirrels in the early mornings. Blackbirds are flocking in the fields. The first turkey vultures leave the state. Cicadas stop chanting in the cooler afternoons. Sometimes katydids, keep silence after dark, leaving the whole night to crickets.

Daybook
1985: Grinnell Swamp: A few late blue lobelias, full bloom of zigzag goldenrod, boneset fading. Black walnuts common on the ground now. Sycamore leaves crunching underneath my feet. At the Covered Bridge, April sedum growing stronger, catchweed blossoming, coming back as the canopy thins. Virginia creeper has been red for a week. Crows loud out by the road. At the river, a huge school of suckers or carp spreads for maybe fifty feet in front of me.

1986: Yellow jackets swarm around the small white asters in front of the house. Wasps hug the goldenrod. Brown spotted skippers move through the huge New England asters. Some black walnut trees have lost their leaves. The first woolly bears of the year seen today. Very last raspberries and a few everbearing strawberries picked.

1987: South Glen: Wasps working the goldenrod, skippers and honeybees in the small white asters.

1988: Several black woolly bears seen today. Tree color
accelerating.

1989: Jacoby East: Spider webs everywhere. White snakeroot late now, touch-me-not a few last seeds popping still. Wingstem and Joe Pye weed almost complete. Clearweed gone to seed. Buckeye and hulls and acorn shells on the path. Hickory nuts are green, a few fallen. Spots of gold on the yellow poplars. A last helianthus laetiflorus picked. Some tall coneflowers still intact, and many bull thistles. Squirrels chattering. Fresh waterleaf continuing to grow back, and new sweet Cicely. Hundreds of bees in the patches of small-leafed asters. First autumn violet found blooming. Some box elders bare. Garlic mustard sprouts are about a week old. Katydids, cicadas, crickets still strong. A cardinal sang at twilight.

1993: Along the Mad River, another long flock of starlings, and two huge flocks of geese, one flying north, the other south. In the garden, some red and white phlox are still holding, and pink spider plants, blue spiderwort, and the purple ironweed started from seed. Along the roadsides, the tall artichokes are still in full bloom.

1997: The green frog that lives in the pond was croaking off and on this morning between 5:45 and 6:30 a.m. He was quieter during the earlier cooler days of this month; with the weather warming, he is starting to call again. Now at 9:15 a.m., the squirrel is squeaking in the back locusts. Four monarch butterflies seen in the yard today.

1999: North along the bike path, the landscape is withering from a month without rain, honeysuckle leaves drooping, trees drying up instead of turning. Asters hold in the bud, without enough moisture to bloom. A robin heard, but just one. A patch of bouncing bets hold on down by the junkyard. A pink gladiolus opens in the south garden. The frog has been quiet for a week or so.

2001: White snakeroot, late goldenrod, and Jerusalem artichoke prominent now. The maples are gathering momentum. Small patches of gold in a few ashes. Some box elders half brown. Burning bush is turning redder. Last night a screech owl at about 8:15. This morning, another at 6:15. On the way to Columbus: several soybean fields completely rusty brown, cottonwoods deepening into ochre, fence rows of Virginia creeper and poison ivy are darker maroon. At school, the red maple and the white oak show little change from last week, still holding green.

2003: At South Glen, all the wingstem and ironweed are gone. Only goldenrod, Jerusalem artichokes, white and violet asters remain in bloom. A small flock of crows seen as we came back toward the bridge – the first crows I’ve seen close to town all year. Monarchs in the yard again today, and one aging tiger swallowtail.

2004: Gethsemani in Kentucky, 200 miles southwest of Yellow Springs: A decided gilding to the woods throughout the trip. Here, the undergrowth is tattered and old, sweet gums turning red round their edges. One monarch seen here (and only one other driving cross country), one painted lady, and three yellow sulphurs. Several darners noted: one large pale blue, one green, one thin blue. Many Asian ladybugs. Pollen all gone from the ragweed. Field thistles still have a few blooms, but their foliage is all withered. Goldenrod, hedge bindweed, aster vimineus (small white aster) and aster lateriflorus, black-eyed Susan and white snakeroot still seem strong. I failed to identify the most dominant plant in this habitat: about up to six-feet tall, five white petals in clusters, winged stalks and flower stems (but some of the same flowers without winged stalks or stems), alternate mostly entire leaves – untoothed or barely toothed. One sneezeweed, several lobelias, purple loosestrife, boneset. Orchard grass, yard grass (eleusine indica), Johnson grass, yellow foxtail grass and green foxtail grasss (a larger and smaller sertaria), umbrella sedge (cyperus strigosus). Chestnuts had just recently fallen to one of the monastery paths, their large, prickly hulls broken open, round nut exposed. Some chestnuts still hanging on the tree. At the pond, frogs and toads noticed, and I found a small, thin, black and white striped snake perched on the side of a dead sapling. On the way home, some milkweed pods seen open, Jerusalem artichokes tall and bright. Tobacco fields were golden green.

2006: My ash tree at school is a fourth yellow, and other ashes on campus are starting to turn. Mateo’s Jerusalem artichokes are budding, one starting to unravel. Jean found a large camel cricket in the dog’s water this evening while I was gone.

2007: At 6:32 a.m. (EDT), a cardinal gave one melodious, warbling call – an autumn song? Then silence, and no later calls. A hummingbird came to the impatiens as we ate breakfast, stayed a long time, then visited the butterfly bush. A Jerusalem artichoke was full open this morning in the back yard. Mateo’s artichokes are at the exact same point they were last year on this date. During lunch, we watched at least two red-breasted nuthatches coming and going at the feeder. One monarch in the middle of all the nuthatches. Another hummingbird at 5:00 p.m.

2008: To Wilmington yesterday afternoon: One bright red-orange Judas maple, golden fields of soybeans, many plants shedding, corn fields brown and some corn already cut for silage. One large flock of starlings. Dusky summer green holds in the tree line. In the alley, Mateo’s artichokes are not budding yet, his goldenrod has started to rust, his small-flowered asters full bloom. Katie has some very tall perennial helianthus in her side yard. Shasta daisies down to one in the north garden. One yellow male finch seen today, one yesterday as well. Squirrels have been chattering constantly the past few days, and chasing each other through the high branches.

September 20th
The 263rd Day of the Year

Look to the Great Harvest
When all Things will bear Fruit and
Will be ready for the Gathering.

Paracelsus

Sunrise/set: 7:20/7:36 Day's Length: 12 hours 16 minutes
Average High/Low: 76/54 Average Temperature: 65
Record High: 95 - 1908 Record Low: 37 - 1962

Weather
Thirty-five percent of today’s afternoons rise into the 80s; fifty percent warm to the 70s, fifteen percent to the 60s. Rainfall occurs one year in three on this date, and the sky is clear to partly eight years in ten. Morning lows dip below 60 degrees 80 percent of the time, the first time this fall that such cold is so likely.

Natural Calendar
The summer green of a few sycamores, locusts, elms, box elders, maples, poplars, cottonwoods and redbuds is breaking down. Patches of deep scarlet in the sumac and Virginia creeper highlight the changes in the tree line. There are streaks of amber on the lindens, ginkgoes, tulip trees, locusts, mulberries, and osage orange.

Daybook
1983: Catalpas are turning pale along Stevenson Road. Some white snakeroot becoming brown. Small flowered asters in full bloom everywhere.

1984: Maple seeds falling. At the Antioch School, maybe a fifth of the chinquapin oak leaves are turning yellow, began the first week of September.

1985: Between the 13th and the 20th, a decided change in the tree coloring. Yellow predominates in this dry September. Sycamores, locusts, hackberry, box elder, some maples turn, some cottonwoods and red buds, too. In the arboretum and throughout the area, the ash show their changes, some red, some gold. Judas maples are everywhere. At the same time, the goldenrod is in full bloom, and the soybean fields are solid yellow. Scattered in the pastures, the milkweeds have all turned yellow too.

1992: The same acceleration of color this year as last. And the garden mums are coming in full, the purples first, now the reds opening. The volunteer pumpkin is completely orange, and its stem is almost dry. First of the autumn radishes pulled last night, a little thin, bet they have fine flavor. Lettuce and spinach still not full enough for salads. Beans and tomatoes still strong.

1997: The frog croaked this morning, air temperatures mild in the 60s. Cicadas strong all day, katydids at night. Cats are catching crickets in the house. Wonderful two-inch yellow caterpillar with long hairs found curled in the iron arm of the bench by the pond this morning. I was unable to locate a picture of it in my books. And on a brown stem of horsetail in the water, I found the hollow skeleton of a dragon fly which must have emerged within the past few days.

1998: Major ash turn now. Some white boneset and goldenrod rusting.

1999: Crickets and katydids were strong this morning at three o’clock. In Wilberforce, my ash tree is mostly golden, but it is holding its leaves well. The parking lot ashes have just started to turn. Soybeans are yellow throughout. In the pond, the arrowhead leaves are yellowing too, and all the plants are dying back. But the koi are still hungry, still eat excitedly even with the water cool.

2000: As a low-pressure system approaches town the afternoon carries warm gusts of wind, sun, showers of leaves. The first heavy snow in the Rocky Mountains was reported this morning. The burning bush on High Street is almost completely red. Chicory is still in full bloom along the roadsides. Ash turn is accelerating.

2001: Low whinny of a screech owl this morning toward King Street at 6:15. On Limestone Street and on Walnut, the virgin’s bower is almost done for the year. At 9:45, one cardinal call.

2002: Long flock of blackbirds seen crossing Grinnell Road today. Don Wallis said he saw a flock like that last week. Fewer butterflies in the yard today.

2003: Only a wren and chickadee chattering in the yard at dawn.

2004: White boneset and virgin’s bower are almost done blooming for the year. The ash by my old office window in Wilberforce is more than half bare, the remaining leaves yellow. In the parking lot there, locusts and ashes are starting to turn. No monarchs seen on my drives today.

2006: Big camel cricket found in the bathtub this morning. I put it out in the shed. The day is cold and gray.

2007: In the alley, almost all the seeds are gone from the great ragweed. Near Limestone Street, the bittersweet is blushing pale orange.

2008: Very quiet morning. I walked Stella in the dark – no cardinals or crows or doves. In the yard, our volunteer virgin’s bower has been gone for a couple of days. Peggy’s still holds full. A few serviceberry leaves are falling, a few more turning orange. The land is dry, coleus foliage wilting, the pond low. High stratus covered the village this afternoon, cooling my work on the brick sidewalk to the street.

September 21st
The 264th Day of the Year

The year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer's death,
Nor on the birth of trembling winter.

William Shakespeare

Sunrise/set: 7:21/7:34 Day's Length: 12 hours 13 minutes
Average High/Low: 76/54 Average Temperature: 65
Record High: 95 - 1908 Record Low: 31 - 1897

Weather
Frost season begins today with the chance of a light freeze becoming a minimum of five percent per night until the first week of October – when odds quickly increase. Highs on the 21st are in the 80s thirty percent of the years, in the 70s thirty-five percent, in the 60s thirty percent; one cold afternoon in the 50s fills out the spectrum. Rain occurs 35 percent of the time, as do totally overcast skies. “South wind today means a warm autumn,” says traditional lore.

Natural Calendar
The sun rose from the east-northeast and set west-northwest three months ago; now it rises due east, sets due west. Dawn and dusk continue to move south at the rate of about one degree per 72 hours until December solstice.

Daybook
1984: Tree coloring increasing. Virginia creeper, deep red, accentuates the other losses. Soybean fields are yellow, blend with the goldenrod.

1985: One forsythia branch seen blooming today.

1986: Small flock of robins in the yard, all talking with their short migrating call. Buzzards circling South Glen. The ash outside my office window has lost almost all its leaves. Honey locust with patches of yellow. One whole forsythia bush is blooming today.

1987: Katydids definitely quieter this past week, and none heard tonight. No cardinals for about a week and a half. Woolly bears seen this week appear much darker than earlier in the fall, but still orange.

1990: To Switzerland County along the Ohio River: I head west and south from North Landing into a thunderstorm. The soybeans are half yellow, and the corn is old. A lot of the black walnut trees are bare, fruit exposed and swinging in the rain. Small white asters and goldenrod are in full bloom; chicory is still open.
The breeze is steady, but gentle from the southwest, leaving intact the haze across the valley. Swallows are still diving. Buzzards circle. Poplars are weathered, the raindrops darken the remaining green, brighten the patches of yellow on the osage. Queen Anne's lace is so thick in the fields it looks like cotton. I pass boneset seeding in the creek, and hundreds of yards of thistles, down matted to their stems. Poison ivy red, sumacs red, purple New England asters.
Milkweed pods are getting hard and pale. White snakeroot keeps its flowers, as do the Jerusalem artichoke and wingstem, remnants of August. Tobacco is hanging in a few barns. I stop at Patriot landing, walk in the light rain through spotted touch-me-nots and small white asters. Steady chanting of crickets. The diesel grinding of a barge coming down river. Smartweed at my feet, pink and white. Smell of wood smoke, and wet leaves, river mud, and bittersweet old pollen, old wildflowers, and hay.
Sycamores are turning, two of their leaves fell right in front of me. Tattered blue dayflowers. Summer spider webs almost gone. The purple loosestrife has ended its flower cycle along the water. The huge pink mallows have died, heads black, leaves decaying, stems dark. Wild cucumbers have formed, prickly like cacti. Beggarticks are open, and heal all, mistflower, heart leafed aster.
Later, up Bodey Hill Road: I came across a few sundrops. White campion here, a few late ironweed, large-flowered leafcup. West on the highway past patches of goldenrod: a few tobacco fields yellow, some green. Some tobacco stubble tangled with bindweed. Late wild lettuce. Some coneflowers still. Toward evening, crows in the trees across the Long Branch valley.

1991: Cabbage moths still mating in the broccoli. Red mulberry leaves thinned to maybe a half, the screen between the yard and the neighbors weakened.

1992: All the crickets still seem to be here tonight, katydids too. Yesterday in the warm afternoon, cicadas were still the dominant sound, even over the cars along Dayton Street.

1993: Three days in a row to Springfield in the late afternoon, each time a long flock of starlings seen over the old National Road route and along the Mad River.

1997: Green frog croaks at 6:45 a.m. Crows in the yard by 7:12 a.m. By 8:30, more birds about, a jay and a cardinal, others twittering.

1998: Darner at the pond. Bullfrogs: one about three inches long, one two inches. The first small croak from frog today.

2000: Half the burning bush in town has turned deep red. Ashes are accelerating. Chicory still full bloom.

2001: Fewer black swallowtails seen this week, no monarchs. The skunk keeps up his nightly digs around the yard. Virgin’s bower flowering cycle has ended.

2002: A long flock of blackbirds flew over the house this morning between 9:10 and 9:20. I saw a hummingbird in the butterfly bush at 7:00 this evening. Another day without butterflies in the yard.

2003: Lots of butterflies in the garden all day: Monarchs, cabbage moths, painted ladies, and orange fritillaries. No swallowtails seen at all. One darner seen.

2005: Albert, the green frog, croaked a little this afternoon. At the trellis, virgin’s bower and New England asters are at their peak. No significant leafturn yet across the countryside.

2006: Jean discovered a preying mantis egg case in the north garden ferns this afternoon. In Wilberforce, the ashes are turning quickly.

September 22nd
The 265th Day of the Year

The south-wind searches for the flowers whose
fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the woods and by the
stream no more.

William Cullen Bryant

Sunrise/set: 7:22/7:33 Day's Length: 12 hours 11 minutes
Average High/Low: 75/53 Average Temperature: 64
Record High: 95 - 1897 Record Low: 33 - 1897

Weather
Highs in the 90s come once in a quarter century; 80 degree temperatures occur about 25 percent of the time, 70s forty percent, 60s twenty-five percent, and remain in the cold 50s on five percent of the afternoons. Morning lows are typically in the 40s or 50s, with mild 60s and chilly 30s the exceptions. Chances for rain and overcast conditions today are 45 percent. The season of severe pollen density usually closes with the precipitation near this day.

The Week Ahead
Equinox parallels a drop in extremes as well as in averages. Days in the 90s disappear after the 22nd of September, and even 80s will be gone in only three weeks. The odds for an afternoon in the 50s or 60s this week doubles over those odds last week - to 40 percent. The season of light frosts deepens in Ohio, Indiana and southern Michigan; the 24th and the 27th even carry a 20 percent chance of a mild freeze - the greatest chance since May 10th. On the 23rd and the 26th, chances for a high below 70 degrees are better than 50 percent, the first time that has happened since May 4th. Precipitation is lightest on the 28th (just a 15 percent chance for showers on that date).

Natural Calendar
Milkweed caterpillars ride the horns of milkweed pods as great crested flycatchers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, ruby-throated hummingbirds, eastern wood peewees and bank swallows move south. Buzzards gather to ponder migration. The cobwebs that blocked summer paths become rare. Osage fruits, acorns, hickory nuts, buckeyes and black walnuts cover the ground. The wingstem bows to sets its seeds.

Daybook
1982: The cornfields are almost completely brown now, as are the grasses and many of the wild flowers along the roadsides. Some white snakeroot and Queen Anne's lace are past their prime. Most tree lines are tinted. Only a few tomatoes and raspberries are left. Ragweed is yellow and drooping. Soybeans are brown, seem dry and brittle.

1989: Most Queen Anne's lace has gone to seed now. The undergrowth is thinning around the back yard, making it less private on the south and west sides. First goldenrod seen dying back along Grinnell Road. Rains from Hurricane Hugo fell today, and the barometer dropped to 29.55. Frost followed. Leaves falling quickly from my ash at school. Most are yellow now, and more than half have come down. Will they be gone when I come back on the 25th? Box elders and black walnuts half fallen in places. Three small wood snails found at Mill Habitat under dead branches. Shells a mixed color, brown and light tan and yellow, with a soft luster, faintly ribbed, all three with dark stripes around the outer edge: polygyra or polygyridae zonitidae.

1991: Crows active at 8:30 a.m. (EDT), no other birds heard until then. Crickets are quiet this morning, subdued last night, sobered by the sudden cooling of the nights. No katydids heard last night. Now, 8:35 a.m., the blue jays are here.

1992: At South Glen, fishing: The first cold front of autumn is moving in, but the air is still mild. Shiners or chubs steal my bait, biting from the minute the cast is complete. Nothing caught, however. This is just past the edge of summer, maybe just a handful of days past, the subtle decays of late August and the past few weeks building up until the change seems sudden to me now. I react to the obvious landmark of major leafturn, but each leaf falling is really a landmark, too.

1993: Rapid onset of color, the vague smoky tint of last week quickly becoming clear and bright, streaking maples, the shading whole ashes. A flock of grackles seen on the way north from Xenia. Every day on my drives, more birds. In the garden, swallowtails and Monarchs have disappeared. Early September perennials still hold. Seven-foot helianthus still strong along the way to Springfield and scattered throughout town. Asters still at their peak. First beggarticks aging now, white snakeroot along Grinnell finally rusting.

1999: One cardinal at 8:45 a.m. One robin peep heard a little earlier. First frost on the roof, clear skies and a low of 38. The sapsucker came through, taped on the siding at 1:21 p.m. Snakeskin found in the rocks beside the pond.

2000: In and around Yellow springs: more ashes, sweet gums, maples, locusts, black walnuts, burning bush, tulip tree turning, maybe a tenth of the tree line. On the way to Gethsemini in Kentucky: the Cincinnati trees seemed further advanced than the country trees.

2001: Cardinal at 7:05 this morning, fog thick through the back trees. At the Cascades, scattered leafcup and wingstem still in bloom. White snakeroot is starting to brown. The canopy is still dark and strong.

2003: Two Monarchs seen on the way to Wilmington this afternoon. One cottonwood tree yellow, two or three maples orange, my ash at Wilberforce shedding quickly, a few ash in the parking lot nearby with streaks of red.

2006: Mateo’s Jerusalem artichokes are still not open – but that plant is in full bloom throughout the countryside.

2007: Mateo’s artichokes still lag behind. Ours are in early bloom, and the north garden is full of New England asters, virgin’s bower and white boneset. Three monarchs, a black swallowtail and a female ruby-throated hummingbird seen as Jeanie and I sat on the back porch after breakfast. Scores of white cabbage butterflies haunted the asters and the boneset. Yellow locust leaves fluttered to the ground in front of us. A cardinal sang at 9:30, the first one I had heard so far in the day. Black walnuts have fallen to Dayton Street, lie crushed by cars along the curb. Jeanie noticed that most of berries were gone from the pokeweed, eaten by the birds. Coming back from Dayton, we saw a long flock of blackbirds flying north high over the road, one of the giant fall flocks.

September 23rd
The 266th Day of the Year

He Himself in Heaven
placed the Stars,
and tells what Signs are best
for Men and Women Year to Year,
so that every Labor find its proper Time,
and all Things come to pass
in fruitful Order.

Aratos

Sunrise/set: 7:23/7:31 Day's Length: 12 hours 8 minutes
Average High/Low: 75/53 Average Temperature: 64
Record High: 93 - 1908 Record Low: 32 - 1974

Weather
Partly cloudy to clear 60 percent of the time with showers coming four years in ten. Lows are in the 30s on 15 percent of the mornings. Afternoon highs are in the 50s five percent of the years, in the 60s fifty-five percent, 70s twenty-five percent, 80s fifteen percent. After today, warm 90s are not to be expected until next summer.

Natural Calendar
The second tier of trees, including the ashes, cottonwoods,
box elders, hickories, and locusts, starts to turn quickly after equinox, reaching its deepest coloration in the second week of October.
As the second layer of the canopy loses its leaves, the trees of the third tier, especially the maples and oaks, come in for ten to fourteen days; they usually pass their prime a week before Halloween.
A fourth tier that includes the ginkgoes, osage orange, sweet gum, and white mulberries can hold out until the first week in November. After the first front of late fall typically brings a hard freeze and cloudy wet days in the 30s and the 40s, leaves from these trees may come down overnight.
Beech, honeysuckles, boxwood, forsythia and the strongest of the maples, osage, pears, and sycamores keep scattered color in the landscape past Thanksgiving. When early winter arrives in Yellow Springs near the 8th of December, however, it takes the almost all the holdouts.

Daybook
1984 South Glen: Maple leaves begin to fall along the path. Jumpseed is yellowing, rose hips darkening. Poison ivy is gold, and blackberries have purple leaves. Milkweed pods are full size, straining, ready to open, foliage pale. Scattered coneflowers hang on. Black medic still open. Crickets strong. Wingstem is gone, most ironweed too. Smartweed full bloom. A few bouncing bets still blossoming, foliage deteriorating. Meadow rue leaves are tinted a faint violet. This is the height of goldenrod and New England asters. Osage starts to change color. One dandelion seen open.

1985: At the Cascades, oaks, ash, cottonwood are turning, ashes dropping leaves. Peach leaves suddenly on the ground by the garden wall.

1986: Half the pussy willow leaves are gone.

1988: A cardinal sang once this morning. Buckwheat on Grinnell finally turns, matted from the rain. Purple asters are common now, small white asters in full bloom. Starlings fill the trees at the dairy outside of town.

1992: The weather graph records the consistent arrival of the first real cold front of the season around this date. The breath of the world is steady, but with almost human variations. The years, like people, are of the same species, have different personalities: some are identical twins, some diametrically opposed, all sharing certain characteristics.

1993: At the Mill, newborn water striders skating on the water, constant, playful movement.

1997: Virgin’s bower has disappeared now, its petals having fallen in the past week. Rose of Sharon still produces flowers, but far fewer. No trumpet creepers noticed recently. The very last showy coneflower is blooming today in the south garden. Across from the pond, the New England asters are all blossoming, and roadside asters, violet and white, still appear to be completely in bloom. This morning at breakfast, I was looking out at the high locusts: two squirrels were mating thirty feet above the ground.

1998: Another thin-bodied blue-tailed dragonfly at the pond today. One skipper and a few cabbage moths, too.

1999: Yesterday, long flocks of blackbirds were crossing the north highway. This morning, a cardinal sang at 9:39. We went north to Kelley’s Island in Lake Erie later in the day, the weather warm, cirrus clouds sweeping up from the southwest. The trees are pre-autumnal 150 miles from Yellow Springs, vague, misty tones in the tree lines suggesting fall, but still keeping the deep green sense of early September. Near Sandusky, a long flock of red-winged blackbirds. On the island, everything was so dry. But the lake was rich with bass and sunfish. We sat on the rocks and caught something on almost every cast. It was wonderful to sleep with the wind on the tent, the air full of the smell of water and dried leaves and fish. I stayed awake a long time, listening and feeling.

2000: Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky: A cardinal at 7:10 a.m., then migratory robin calls. Wrinkled, black datura seeds gathered from their dried calices. In the monastery pond, a lotus flower was left; I took one seed from a rotting pod.

2003: Along the north garden about 3:00 p.m., five monarchs seen together in the zinnias. Wooly-bear caterpillars and monarchs common as I drove to Wilmington this afternoon.

2004: One firefly glowing off and on by the peonies at 6:00 this morning.

2005: Albert, the green frog, was croaking this morning about 6:00. Along the bikepath, many honeysuckle bushes yellowing.

2007: The first of Mateo’s Jerusalem artichokes opened overnight. Autumn quickly deepening.
September 24th
The 267th Day of the Year

Here and there swamp maples are turning, the woods are lit up by these subtle changes, a single bright leaf here or there, the ferns beginning to pale, the bush-blueberries already bright-red in leaf. There is still goldenrod everywhere, and the asters are beginning.

May Sarton

Sunrise/set: 7:24/7:29 Day's Length: 12 hours 5 minutes
Average High/Low: 75/53 Average Temperature: 64
Record High: 94 - 1908 Record Low: 31 - 1897

Weather
The chance for a high in the 80s is 15 percent today. Seventies come 40 percent of the years, 60s forty percent, 50s five percent. Lows fall below 60 seventy-five percent of the time, and there is a greater likelihood of frost this morning (20 percent) than on any other morning of September. Rain occurs 30 percent of the days. Sky conditions are clear to partly cloudy eight years in ten.

Natural Calendar
More crickets move indoors, mindful of the frost to come. Monarch butterflies become more numerous, visit the late zinnias in the afternoon sun; other insects, however, become less common in the field and garden as the number of pollen-bearing flowers dwindles. Winter’s craneflies swarm, a fraction of their December size.

Daybook
1982: Bottom leaves and stems of goldenrod turning brown. Osage fruit on the road. Goosefoot turns yellow, bends to set its seeds. Smartweed declining. Beggarticks still strong.

1983: First frost this morning. Geese restless all day.

1984: Most of the leaves on the ash outside my window have fallen since the 22nd. At the Cascades in North Glen, oaks, maples, ash, tulip tree, cottonwood turning.

1985: At the Cascades, oaks, maples, ash, yellow poplar, cottonwood are turning, a sudden change after an unusual ten-day spell of cool, sunny weather. Long acorns on the path.

1986: Katydids and crickets still strong. Fireflies still glow in the grass. Jerusalem artichokes faded now.

1989: First light frost. No cicadas yesterday or today. Cardinal sings sporadically. Crows fly over. Peach leaves suddenly accelerate their fall.

1998: End of white boneset bloom along the freeway.

1999: Kelley’s Island: Light rain this morning, and dozens of robins all around us in the camp site, peeping and checking the ground for food, all of the birds moving south towards the mainland. Excellent fishing throughout the morning as we sat in the eye of the front. When the sky cleared, the fishing changed, the recklessness of the biting stopped. First the fish became cautious and fickle; then by mid afternoon, they refused to bite at all. I thought the cold front had already come through, since the clouds were gone. Still, the weather was mild through the day, and then as the sun went down, a hard cold wind came up, and blew all night. I lay awake listening and feeling.

2000: Coming home from Gethsemani in Kentucky: The ashes and locusts along the freeway, mostly green when we went down two days ago, have undergone a major transformation. Now the golds and maroons are prominent in long patches. The 23rd was the pivot day, or last night the pivot night.

2001: Susi’s garden is done except for a few goldenrods, a few purple phlox petals. On the road to Columbus: black walnut trees are bare, more crab apples thinning, more spots of gold on the maples. The ochre of hackberries and catalpas seems to have deepened. Sweet gums are blushing. When I drove south to Washington Courthouse, I saw entire ash trees in full autumn color.

2003: Color growing so slowly and uniformly through the woods. Few monarchs, one woolly-bear caterpillar seen today.

2005: Albert croaked in the dark this morning, just before a thunderstorm came through. One monarch noticed today. More cottonwoods and maples turning out in the countryside.

2006: The first of Mateo’s Jerusalem artichokes finally opened all the way.

2007: Hummingbird seen at the Japanese honeysuckle flowers. All of the autumn crocus have wilted now.

September 25th
The 269thDay of the Year

All about us, there was marked change. Mornings were cooler and crisper than before. The ever-lengthening shapes of afternoon shadows seemed drawn more irresistibly into the night. Fields were rough and tweedy, as though an old brown woolen jacket had been thrown over them to ward off the chill….

Vincent G. Dethier

Sunrise/set: 7:25/7:28 Day's Length: 12 hours 3 minutes
Average High/Low: 74/52 Average Temperature: 63
Record High: 94 - 1908 Record Low: 35 - 1903

Weather
There is only a 20 percent chance for rain today, with skies clear to partly cloudy nearly 90 percent of the time. Highs reach 80 two years in a decade, the 70s four years, the 60s four years. Frost comes only five to ten percent of the mornings, but lows are in the 50s one fourth of the time, and in the 40s more than half the time, leaving only a little room for milder 60s. Average temperatures, which varied only one or two degrees at the height of middle summer now start to fall at the rate of four degrees per week.

Natural Calendar
The Ohio sugar beet, pear, cabbage and cauliflower harvests commence near this date. A good percentage of the third cut of alfalfa has been brought in now, and fall apples and grapes are getting close to a fourth picked. In Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington State, the cranberry harvest begins as berries darken in the cooler weather.

Daybook
1983: Covered Bridge: Tree coloration has remained stable all month. Stands of brown mullein follow a more predictable pattern, foretell next month's sudden changes. There are a few tall bellflowers left here and there – the strongest will last into November. Touch-me-nots are still blooming, but their foliage deteriorates. Parsnips are growing back. Clearweed has green seeds. Older wingstem and ironweed are done. Wild lettuce leaves are yellowing. Some goldenrod is brown. Boneset flowers are rusting. Most seeds have fallen from the wood nettle. Henbit, violets, new grass replace the old summer grasses. No cobwebs noticed across the path. A flock of finches seen downstream.

1988: Jacoby: Now the goldenrod and asters are in full bloom. First autumn violet found. White snakeroot still full. Boneset gone. Coneflowers still hold, and artichokes. Trees not ready yet, still in early September transition stages.

1989: Light frost this morning. Cardinal sang once before dawn.

1992: Frost has threatened for the past three nights, but we've escaped unhurt with a light wind. Cardinals and crickets silent this morning. Sky so clear.

1995: Covered bridge: the high portions of Japanese knotweed were burned by the frost this week. I noticed burdock was brown, its seeds ready to stick. I pulled some from the north garden today. The canopy is still intact here, almost no coloration in the trees, and the paths are still relatively free of leaves.

1997: The pussy willow in the back yard has lost almost all its leaves to leaf miners. Out in the country, the turning of the landscape picks up speed. This morning, temperatures were in the 40s, Orion in the south, the sky clear.

1998: Cardinal sings at 7:15. Then come the crows. Katydids heard on Dayton Street, but they have been silent on High for weeks.

1999: Kelley’s Island. Cormorants back and forth across the inlet today. I’ve never seen them in their formations before. This afternoon I talked to a woman who was going to Florida for the winter with her family. But she was unhappy at the prospect of leaving the cold and the wind. “I love the seasons here,” she said.

2000: Many dogwoods red now.

2001: Doves have been quiet for how long now?

2003: One crow heard at 7:30 this morning, the first one I’ve heard from the back yard all year. A small flock of crows at the mill habitat this afternoon at 2:00. To and from Washington Court House, at least a half dozen monarchs seen. Goldenrod, New England asters, small white asters, pink smartweed, Jerusalem artichokes and Short’s asters are still strong along the roadsides and in the woods. At home in the north garden, three monarchs and maybe ten Painted Ladies seen. Virgin’s bower has ended its season.

2004: A cardinal sang at 7:10 a.m. Afterwards, no birdsong at all until I heard a robin heard clucking in the back woods in the early afternoon. A small flock of geese flew honking over the village about 3:30 p.m.

2006: The ash trees at Wilberforce are full color today.

2007: Walking in the alley this morning, I heard starlings and looked to find them roosting in a dead maple over on Stafford Street. My ash tree at school is full yellow and has lost at least half its leaves. Most of the Wilberforce ashes and locusts are in early full, but some are holding back. On the road to Wilmington, many of the woodlots are reaching a stage of early turn. The coming week should be the best for all the first tier.

September 26th
The 269th Day of the Year

This afternoon, walk slowly and remember:
Death comes quickly in the evening of September
To the snakeroot and the goldenrod.

Sunrise/set: 7:26/7:26 Day's Length: 12 hours
Average High/Low: 74/52 Average Temperature: 63
Record High: 96 - 1900 Record Low: 35 - 1928

Weather
Eighty- degree afternoons come three percent of September 26ths; 70s are observed 15 percent of the time, 60s forty-five percent, 50s ten percent. Nine days in ten are clear to mostly sunny, and rain falls just once or twice in a decade. Lows in the 30s are rare today.

Natural Calendar
Touch-me-not foliage deteriorates. Late summer’s clearweed has green seeds. Older wingstem and ironweed are done blossoming. Wild lettuce leaves are stained with decay. The first fields of goldenrod are brown. White vervain’s leaves are gray, sometimes streaked with maroon, tattered, laced from insects. Boneset is rusting. Beggarticks are almost ready to stick to your clothing. Jerusalem artichokes enter their final week.

Daybook
1984: Buzzards circling North Glen. First osage fruit on the road.

1985: About a third of the goldenrod faded. Three Monarch butterflies seen.

1986: The white snakeroot, goldenrod, and white boneset are dying quickly. One white autumn violet found blooming in the woods. Squirrels seem to be getting noisier. Woolly-bears and Monarchs increasing on Wilberforce-Clifton. Another possum killed last night along Grinnell. Lilac bush reported blooming near Hilt Road.

1987: About a third of the goldenrod has gone to seed at South Glen. It is peak color time for the ash and shagbark hickory, very early pivot for first tier of leaves. More raccoons, opossums killed along the roads. More woolly-bears are out, more Monarchs seen. Some beggarticks fading.

1988: A large flock of geese in cornfield stubble along the way to Wilberforce.

1989: The ash at my school window is three-fourths gone, locusts half yellow.

1990: Cascades: Wingstem gone. Creeper is red everywhere now. Yellow Springs Creek is clear, fish common. Pink and yellow dogwood leaves here and there, but the canopy is whole and still green. Zigzag goldenrod and asters are in late full bloom, some past their prime. Last of the jumpseeds jumping. Touch-me-nots have lost most of their leaves. All the white snakeroot has gone to seed. Crickets and cicadas strong.

1992: Craneflies, tiny, spinning in the sun. Last of the Japanese Beetles die off: only two sluggish ones found in the roses.

1993: Full-blooming helianthus giganteus cut along the airport road in a small exotic habitat grown up on land once completely stripped by the road crews. Swamp buttercups full there too, and white boneset, and a last lobelia.

1999: Coming back from northern Ohio, I found the landscape completely changed from what it was just a few days ago. Now the ashes have reached early full color, gold and maroon. Locusts and black walnuts are suddenly bright yellow. Every few miles, a red or an orange maple. The tree line is no longer dusky and worn; it’s coming alive with October color, has a bold, autumnal look. No more ambivalent early September. Soybeans all brown, some being harvested.

2000: Osage fruits all down at Susi’s.

2001: First osage fruit down at Susi’s. First local corn fields seen being harvested this afternoon. A few ashes completely turned, some gold, some red.

2002: Kelleys Island: Fishing for four hours without a bite. High afternoon cirrus clouds, huge circle around the sun and three sundogs at one time. Then at 2:00 a.m., rain and hard wind from the northeast. Wind and rain for the rest of the day.

2003: More than a dozen monarch butterflies on the cut-over wingstem in the Butterfly Preserve this afternoon. Honeybees in the small white asters.

2004: A cardinal sang at 7:10 a.m. (EDT) sharp. No monarchs seen for about a week, in spite of sunny and warm days – perfect monarch weather. All along the road to Huber Heights this afternoon, the woods were in early leafturn, some ashes at their peak, box elders, silver olives and catalpas pale or yellowing, many cottonwoods down, some full gold, many maples bright orange: a major change from just a week ago when I went to Gethsemani. Throughout the day, hurricane Jeanne battered Florida.

2007: Starlings in the Stafford Street tree. In the alley, robin migration song: a small flock is passing through. The alley goldenrod is all rusted.

Nimbus moon
Ice white
Orange edge
Darkling sky
Feather fleece
O September night!

Dee Krieg

September 27th
The 270th Day of the Year

The spring comes like a tide running against a strong wind; it is ever beaten back, but ever gaining ground, with now and then a mad "push upon the land" as if to overcome its antagonist at one blow. The cold from the north encroaches upon us in about the same fashion. In September or early October it usually makes a big stride forward... but it is presently beaten back again, and the genial warmth repossess the land. Before long, however, the cold returns to the charge with augmented forces and gains much ground.

John Burroughs

Sunrise/set: 7:27/724 Day's Length: 11 hours 57 minutes
Average High/Low: 74/51 Average Temperature: 63
Record High: 89 - 1891 Record Low: 33 - 1899

Weather
Today marks another pivot point for autumn: this is the first time since May 21st that there is a 25 percent chance for highs in the 50s. Temperatures warm to the 60s another 25 percent of the days, to the 70s thirty percent, and to the 80s twenty percent. Chances for rain increase over those for the 26th: three days in ten are wet. Skies are totally overcast 20 percent of the time. There is a 20 percent chance for light frost this morning.

Natural Calendar
Water willows are yellow in the river shallows. In the sloughs, arrowhead is brittle. The wildflowers on the stump habitats at Caesar Creek have disappeared. The earliest milkweed pods are opening. All the thistles have gone to seed. Wingstem has blackened with age or frost. Brome is white, burdock brown. Japanese beetles can still be mating, but they are usually down to a fraction of their summer numbers. Chiggers have finally disappeared from the garden, but mosquitoes continue to breed.

Daybook
1987: About a fourth of the goldenrod fading. Ashes: gentle peak of color. Maples turning more now. More raccoons and opossums killed along the roads. Beggarticks fading. Crickets strong day and night.

1988: Geese in the cut-over cornfields around town.

1989: 7:20 a.m. Outside the back door, robin migrating song from all sides. To Caesar Creek, 60 degrees, clear, wind, barometer high at 30.40. Huge catfish gets away near far hole. The lake, two feet below its early- summer level, has made my cove just barely accessible. Learned from a husband and wife that the white bass would be hitting soon, following the shad up into the inlets. The bass came in last year the 3rd of October, the couple said. They gave me hooks, a yellow rubber worm, and live minnows.
Now the leaves are turning. The shift is underway. The gold is becoming more than just a suggestion; it is really there all across the shore. Goldenrod full to fading, asters strong, Queen Ann's lace, chicory, and sundrops: scattered blooms here and there. The stump habitats on the water have disappeared now. Buckeyes dropping. Cicadas are quiet. Black walnut leaves, which I think held later than usual, are almost all gone now, fruit holding in clusters to the bare branches. Along the highway south, the artichokes have disappeared. One patch of milkweed has burst open on the Indian mound island.

1990: South Glen: Grackles up on the hills; flocks have been everywhere today, erratically zooming across the fields, back and forth, cackling and chirping, drowning out the crickets. Hickory nuts broken and scattered by the squirrels. Much of the goldenrod here is gone. Vervain is old and worn. Tree line still forest green, with only an occasional golden maple. One milkweed pod found open. Thistles all to seed. Mosquitoes still bite. One Monarch. One autumn violet. Most Queen Anne's lace is brown. Virginia Creeper creates veins of red in the tree line.

1991: South Glen: Hickory becoming gold like the ashes. Poison ivy mostly violet or brown. Sumacs are deep red. Goldenrod mostly rusted. Wingstem blackened with age. Brome is white. Asters hold. One bellflower by the bridge. Zigzag goldenrod still all right. In town, the maple at High and Limestone is a fourth gold. Blue jays and crows loud this afternoon. A cabbage moth in the broccoli. Yellow jackets every few minute drinking at the bird bath. I saw a Monarch chasing a locust leaf. Pokeweed stem, heavy red, fat, broken. The hollyhocks have all their winter foliage now, basal leaves that will hold until April and new growth.

1992: Gourds cut today, set on the picnic table to dry. The volunteer pumpkin was taken out of the garden last Sunday, put up on the porch for October.

1997: The last showy coneflower in the south garden is finally gone. Japanese beetles still here and mating, although their numbers are dwindling. Bed of mums planted along the west end of the pond. This morning at 7:15 (EDT) I heard a titmouse, a cardinal, a wren, and a flock of crows - the crows circled the yard, coming in to look at me while I was standing on the back landing. Yesterday, cicadas were loud in the cool late afternoon. They were silent today.

1998: Crows at 7:00 a.m. Cardinal peeps three minutes later. Stonecrop is three-fourths gone in the east garden.

1999: Soft morning, so quiet before dawn, Venus rising behind Orion, one or two crickets, no wind. Crows at sunrise. Cardinal at 9:17 a.m. In the Little Miami River, the water willows are yellow now, the leafturn of the river bed. In the pond, the domestic willows follow suit, the arrowhead now becoming brittle and brown.

2000: One pink magnolia bud found at school. Corn and bean fields all dry and brown, but few have been harvested. Definite red tone increasing along some tree lines, the late September shift of the ashes. Some goldenrod stands have turned, but there are patches of yellow sundrops in full bloom. Virgin’s bower behind the grocery store has been done about a week now. Only two rudbeckias left at Susi’s. At 7:45 p.m., the screech owl called three times.

2002: Kelleys Island, Lake Erie: Most leafturn has not begun. Some yellowing taking place on the ashes, some pink on the dogwoods. Only a few cottonwoods bare here. White boneset gone to seed, several heads picked for seed.

2004: The white boneset I picked last year on Kelleys Island has just finished blooming. The pink stonecrop is completely done, the red still holding. The sky, clear at 5:30 this morning, now is completely overcast, the outer edge of Hurricane Jeanne’s southeastern spin reaching southwest Ohio. The road south to Washington Court House showed none of the leafturn I saw yesterday west of Yellow Springs. Harvest, however, is underway throughout the area, record crops of corn and soybeans coming in.

Autumn deepens
just so, the color of
the chrysanthemums

Taira no Sadafun (10th Century Japan)
Translated by Liza Dalby

September 28th
The 271st Day of the Year

Eventually I saw that watching the seasons not only helped me to make connections between one natural event and another, but trained me to discover relationships between natural events and my own emotions, and between the condition of my body and my state of mind and soul. Phenology - the study of sequence and coincidence in nature - was a matter of metaphysics as much as physics, I decided, and its possibilities began to open out before me like a broad and deep psychic sea.

Bradford Townsend

Sunrise/set: 7:28/7:23 Day's Length: 11 hours 55 minutes
Average High/Low: 73/51 Average Temperature: 62
Record High: 91 - 1905 Record Low: 32 - 1909

Weather
This is one of the warmest, sunniest, and driest days of late September. Rain falls only ten percent of the years, and the sun fails to shine just five percent of the years. Highs in the 80s come 25 percent of the time, 70s fifty percent, 60s twenty percent, 50s five percent. Frost occurs 15 percent of the mornings. Twenty percent of the nights remain in the mild 60s.

Natural Calendar
Natural history fills now with dying leaves and the end of flower cycles. Tree after tree joins in the collapse of summer, some foliage turning color overnight. In the fields, asters, beggarticks, and goldenrod start to disappear; their departure parallels the leaf fall, the end of the insect season, the end of the spider season, acceleration in bird migration, everything seeming to unravel at once.

Daybook
1982: South Glen: Canopy thinning. Fallen leaves begin to dominate the undergrowth. Nettles pale are green-yellow-brown. Zigzag goldenrod identified. Clearweed, chicory, and pink smartweed still strong. Only the cut-over areas have wingstem, heal all, burdock, black-eyed Susans flowering. Most tall goldenrod dying from the ground up. Insects seem frantic in the early fall flowers, more bees than in summer, the activity more intense. Milkweed pods are fully developed, most leaves gone from their stems. One scraggly tall bellflower seen. Touch-me-not pods still brittle, still popping. Maples becoming more prominently red and orange.

1983: Huge flock of blackbirds in the trees near Wilberforce. Buzzards still circle South Glen. More leave starting to turn. Golden hue to the roadside scrub trees and bushes. A pivot time.

1988: Upper Clifton Gorge: Asters and goldenrod full bloom. White snakeroot late full, many fading. Most all the Virginia creeper is red. Smell of fallen leaves. Shagbark hickory half yellow. Other trees spotty, patchy, turning, ready for rapid transition. New England asters perfect full. Field thistles are almost completely gone. Blue-stemmed goldenrod identified.

1989: Long flock of blackbirds like in 1983, during the same pivot time for color. Huge rainbow in the cirrus clouds at noon. My ash tree’s leaves have almost all fallen.

1990: Covered Bridge: Sycamore leaves lying on the path with their July bark, red Virginia creeper beside them. Orange poison ivy berries, bright in the fencerow at Grinnell. Walnuts and osage fruits are down. Zigzag almost complete here. Cardinal sings at dusk.

1993: Trumpet creepers have been gone for several weeks now. The sunflowers have deteriorated, and the late white snakeroot. All the flowers delayed by the drought have finally finished their cycles. Soybeans are all brown along Grinnell Road. The corn harvest is underway along Wilberforce-Clifton. Barberries are red at the corner of High and Dayton Streets. Rose hips have turned alongside them.

1995: About a fourth of the maple in front of our house has turned orange; a maple on Limestone Street has its late-September color, but the rest of the town looks almost like August. The cottonwoods are dusky but holding, and the ashes have just blushed a little. At Grinnell Pond, the white snakeroot is still in full bloom, the zigzag goldenrod is waning but strong. The large-flowered beggarticks haven't started to wilt yet. At home, the New England asters are at their best, but in the woods and along the street in front of the house, the smaller white varieties haven't even opened. In some ways, it's still the middle of September.

1997: Last night I set up the telescope; the sky was so clear. Jupiter was due south, its moons lined up in a row, Saturn bright, its rings clear. At 7:10 a.m., suddenly the birds sang for a while: the crows moved into the trees, and over on Limestone, a cardinal sang briefly. Above me in the bare pussy willow, a titmouse came and chirped. No doves calling. Bat seen at 7:45 p.m. At the supermarket, blueberries were gone. Peaches went last week.

1998: Cardinal heard at 8:55 a.m. Geese fly over at 9:54 a.m. Large beetles mating on Neysa’s statue at the college.

1999: Cardinal singing off and on all morning. A brief flicker call at 9:14.

2001: One purple stalk of violet phlox holds at Susi’s.

2004: Leafturn continues to accelerate, making 2004 an early year.

2005: Now a few ashes are turning (although my ash at school is only a third yellow), more maples, more cottonwoods, more grape vines. At home, the virgin’s bower is and the false/white boneset are finally done blooming. A few rose of Sharon hold. The pale violet Janice Brown day lily still blooms, and the New England asters are strong and vibrant, often full of white cabbage moths. The yellow tea rose has two blossom, the new pink shrub rose as four. The elephant ears in the east garden have surged this past month, are now over six-feet tall, filling the entire dooryard. The late July planting of mesclun will be ready in a couple of weeks. The basil, planted in late June has been ready to harvest since the end of August. The green frog still croaks before thunderstorms. Dragonflies still hunt at the pond. Monarchs come by every day.

2007: The days continue clear and warm and bright. Two weeks ago, much of the landscape was still deep, late-summer green. Now, ashes are gold and dusky maroon, a few maples and dogwoods are red and orange, cottonwoods and catalpas and sweet gums and shagbark hickories are yellow, and grape vines and nettles are bleached with age. Locust leaves drizzle steadily to the undergrowth. The serviceberries are almost bare. The black walnut trees keep only their last fruit. Purple poison ivy and Virginia creeper outline the changes.
At home, the virgin’s bower is done flowering. The white boneset and New England asters are in decline, but the cabbage moths still swarm around them. A few rose of Sharon and Japanese honeysuckle blossoms hold on. The last jumpseeds along the front sidewalk jump when my fingers stroke them. Craneflies swarm, a fraction of their winter size. Dragonflies still hunt our backyard pond. The koi still feed with gusto, their water almost as warm as it was in August. Monarchs and painted ladies and swallowtails come by every day. The chrysanthemums we bought on Saturday still hide their color.
A cardinal sang at 7:10 this morning, sang off an on for about an hour. Crows came and went. Robins started peeping their migration signals outside in the honeysuckles at 8:04. When I walk the alley after breakfast, I heard starlings whistling and chattering toward downtown. Sitting in greenhouse working at 9:15, I listened to the tapping of a yellow-bellied sapsucker on the siding of the house, an old friend returning from spring on the way back to Tennessee.
In the South Glen this afternoon, kingfishers were screaming up and down the river throughout my walk. Late goldenrod was still in bloom, along with white snakeroot and the small white asters and the violet heart-leafed asters. In the North Glen, the zigzag goldenrod, orange jewelweed and the blue-stemmed goldenrod still blossomed at the far side of their season.
I looked for buzzards circling above the woods. They used to come here by the hundreds, waiting on the high currents for October. I saw only one today. Driving south to Wilmington near dusk, the round moon coming up over the mottled fields, I noticed the milkweed pods were open, glittering, disheveled.

September 29th
The 272nd Day of the Year

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul.

Alexander Pope

Sunrise/set: 7:29/7:21 Day's Length: 11 hours 52 minutes
Average High/Low: 73/51 Average Temperature: 62
Record High: 94 - 1953 Record Low: 34 - 1951

Weather
Only five percent chance for an 80 degree high today, but a 60 percent chance for 70s. Cold days in the 50s come 20 percent of the time, and 60s occur 15 percent of the years. Chances for rain are 30 percent; skies are overcast 25 percent of the days. Nights in the 40s and 50s are the rule, with frost on the lawn one dawn in twenty.

Natural Calendar
Goldenrod becomes tufted and gray to the sound of starlings in the trees. Spicebush is yellowing as the ashes enter their peak color season. Box elders are shedding. The toothed leaves of beggarticks darken purple overnight. Daddy longlegs disappear from the undergrowth. Bird migrations reach their peak throughout Ohio.

Daybook
1984: To the Ohio River: Trees stable throughout the trip, some fading along the shoreline. Colors of the foliage depended on the species, not on the distance south. Major changes only in the low sumacs (bright red now), the ashes (turning dusky violet), and the hickories (yellowing). Goldenrod is in full bloom, along with the white snakeroot, asters, and Queen Anne's lace. Some tobacco was hanging in barns, some being harvested, some still in the fields.

1986: Undergrowth thins noticeably as understory trees and taller wildflowers lose their leaves.

1988: The drought earlier this year seems to have given energy to the goldenrod and asters. They seem brighter, more abundant to me than in previous years. The woods are still rich with golds and blues, the integrity of the flowers distracting from the slowly disintegrating canopy. Green acorns all over the paths at the Grinnell Swamp upper habitat.

1989: Starlings chattering in the afternoon trees at Wilberforce.

1992: Full breakdown of the landscape just before middle fall. At the Mill, all the wingstem is gone, many goldenrod rusted, a few asters to seed. Wood nettle leaves are curling, a new stage of decline. Still a few bellflowers (they must have been broken off in the summer, grew back, bloomed now). Still a few jumpseeds. Thin-leafed helianthus done along Springfield Airport Road. Touch-me-nots at Grinnell have all faded. No ironweed noticed. Cicadas are silent now. As the temperature dropped into the 30s tonight, the crickets grew quiet. No katydids.

1993: Frost coming tonight. Monarchs still visited the late phlox and the zinnias in the cold afternoon sun.

1997: Cardinals singing off and on throughout the morning. After last night’s wind, the pond and back yard are full of yellow locust leaves. Japanese beetles still eat the sundrops and roses.

1999: This morning, I looked out of the greenhouse window just as a squirrel leapt up into the air over the pond, and one of the large koi splashed. Was the squirrel just getting a drink, and the fish scared it?

2000: Steady drizzle of deep yellow locust leaves. Full turning of the ash. Last jumpseeds jump in front of the house. Some of the New England asters are done. A deep gilding taking place throughout the canopy. Large flock of starlings, thousands, heading north toward Springfield at 7:30 a.m.

2001: Cardinal at 7:10 a.m., sang off an on for an hour. Crows came and went. Robins peeping their migration song outside in the honeysuckles now at 8:04. The goldenrod is aging in the north garden, the last of the flower seasons turning.

2003: The leaf-turn seems about the same in Portland, Oregon as it is in Yellow Springs. Only light shading of maples here and there.

2004: Antioch School students banded numerous monarchs in Chillicothe – no shortage of those butterflies reported there.

2007: Gethsemani: This past weekend, I drove into Kentucky through the full range of early fall, its different subseasons depending on how the soybeans or corn or goldenrod or tobacco, harvest complete or pending, blended with the tree line.
The specific time of year also hinged on the number of fragile ashes along the roadsides, or the advance of the violet Virginia creeper, or the number of box elders, catalpas, tulip trees, sycamores, crab apples, sweet gums, cottonwoods, locusts, hackberries, redbuds or early maples and pears and oaks in any given location, late September revealing itself only partially as a function of the slant of the earth, each species of tree following its own calendar.
I uncovered microseasons of place from mile to mile that showed me topographies of rainfall in the dun or the green of the roadside grass or the sharp rust of vegetation killed by drought, the variety of habitat within a range of 200 miles, observed only from the road, suggesting the wild complexity of just a few hours in one autumn day.
My moods rose and fell while each yard, field and woodlot opened temporal and spatial cross section after cross section, created a process of definition and redefinition in which the borders of this particular day continually shifted and were transformed, as though the inevitability of winter were irrelevant, as though it were a kind of game in which natural history became simply a matter of belief and disposition.
As far as the ashes – they have made part of the trip the peak of early fall, the near side of the best. Their leaf fall will begin next week, will be over for them by the 10th.
At Gethsemani, the landscape is almost completely in late summer. Even the wingstem is soft and bright. Some decay in the white boneset, the white snakeroot and winged snakeroot and tickseed sunflowers, but the impression is more of the end of August than the beginning of October. And everything definitely behind the 18th of 2006 when I was here. Butterflies everywhere throughout my walk to the mountain. One tiger swallowtail, several blacks, some painted ladies, a brown and an assortment of others I couldn’t identify.

September 30th
The 273rd Day of the Year

All nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest
variety which is the most examined.

Gilbert White

Sunrise/set: 7:30/7:20 Day's Length: 11 hours 50 minutes
Average High/Low: 72/50 Average Temperature: 61
Record High: 94 - 1897 Record Low: 28 - 1888

Weather
A surge of warm air overtakes the region 50 percent of the time, and highs rise into the 80s half of the afternoons on this date - just like they did back during the first two weeks of the month. Chances for highs in the 70s are 25 percent, for 60s fifteen percent, for 50s five percent. Clouds and rain occur four years in a decade. For the first this season, lows drop below 60 a full 90 percent of the nights, but frost occurs only one morning in fifteen.

Natural Calendar
Milkweed pods have started to split, marking the end of September. Honey locusts are half yellow, buckeyes in the middle of full leafdrop some years; other years their foliage is gone. Hickories are gold like the ashes. The first mulberry, sycamore, and cottonwood leaves have come down in the wind.

Daybook
1984: Beggarticks, tattered, going to seed in the north garden.

1985: Sweet gum trees completely yellow on the campus at Wilberforce. At South Glen, the smaller box elders and saplings are losing their leaves much earlier than the larger, contributing to the rapid thinning of the woods.

1986: Cardinal sings at 7:00 a.m. One cottonwood on Corry Street is almost bare. Two chubs caught around 9:00 this morning. No carp have struck for about three weeks.

1987: At Wilberforce, the colors are changing quickly now. Ashes are turning maroon and yellow, and all the locusts are bright gold. Strong wind storm this afternoon; coming home, I saw hundreds of buzzards circling above the woods, riding on the wild air currents.

1988: Beggarticks start to fade. Cardinals sing much less frequently this week. Crickets still chirping in the evening.

1989: A last cicada sang once, a few seconds only, in the heat of the afternoon. A cardinal followed, then was silent. Craneflies swarming in the back yard, but they are only a fraction of their winter size. Is this their first day out? Starlings loud at the dairy at 7:30 p.m. Katydids and crickets loud as ever tonight.

1990: Geese fly over 7:45 p.m. Locusts and box elders fall quickly in the yard. At my parents’ home on Frederick Circle in Madison, Wisconsin, the leaves are at early turn, maybe the beginning of middle fall, about two weeks ahead of Yellow Springs.

1996: Sitting in the west room working. At 9:15 a.m., I listen to the tapping of a yellow bellied sapsucker on the north siding of the house, an old friend returning from spring on the way south again.

1997: The pickerel plant in the garden pond has suddenly died back now. No frog heard for the past few days. Cicadas and birds are quiet today. No Monarchs seen for a while.

1998: Rapid decline of New England asters. Squirrels have been chattering through the days. Tansy finally starts dying back, had been bright through August and September. Goldenrod accelerates its rusting process. Downey woodpeckercalling.

2001: Screech owl south of Limestone Street at 5:45 this morning. Then a robin migration call at 7:10, then crows and cardinals almost together at 7:12. Now, 7:25, the morning is quiet again.

2003: Return to Yellow Springs from Portland, Oregon (and the birth of Jeni’s Jack Patrick). Coming in over Cincinnati, only a vague and mottled autumn blush to the trees below. Driving home I saw goldenrod was about a third done for the year. New England asters and Jerusalem artichokes were still prominent.

2007: I am going through my annual autumn spiritual renewal now that equinox has passed. I go through a similar season, my annual spring spiritual renewal, before spring equinox. Well, I can’t really say that these periods are renewals so much as periodic, cyclical, physiological seasons during which I am much more likely to go to church, read more nonfiction, pray more, reflect more, examine my conscience more. I am more sentimental during these times, more emotional.
***

While we sailed fleetly before the wind, with the river gurgling under our stern, the thoughts of autumn coursed as steadily through our minds, and we observed less what was passing on the shore than the dateless associations and impressions which the season awakened, anticipating in some measure the progress of the year.

Henry David Thoreau