That summer I began to see, however dimly, that one of my ambitions, perhaps my governing ambition, was to belong fully to this place, to belong as the thrushes and the herons and the muskrats belonged, to be altogether at home here. It is a spiritual ambition, like goodness. The wild creatures belong to the place by nature, but a man can belong to it only by understanding and by virtue.

Wendell Berry

EPHEMERIS
The Cattail Moon, full on July 7, wanes throughout the early hours of the morning, entering its final quarter on July 15 at 4:53 a.m. Rising after dark and setting in the morning, the third-quarter moon lies overhead after midnight.

At midnight, Hercules stands directly above the Glen; the Corona Borealis lies to the west of that giant constellation; Vega is slightly to the east. Beside Lyra, Cygnus points south to autumn through the Milky Way. That means that the day's length has started to contract at the rate of a minute every 24 hours and that the first summer apples of the year are coming in.

THE VOICE OF SUMMER
Black and green cicadas had emerged from brown nymphal skins and buzzed everywhere through the canopy....'WWHHHhhiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrr.' It was the quintessential voice of summer.
David Rains Wallace

Late this week, the first cicadas (or harvest flies) of the year will sing throughout the Ohio Valley. The robin and grackle fledglings have quieted as they have learned to feed themselves, and morning birdsong continues to diminish, making way for the increase of insect volume.

When cicadas call, black raspberry season ends. Black walnuts, Osage fruits and hickory nuts are more than half grown, sometimes fall in a thunderstorm. Corn is ready to tassel. The first rose of Sharon blossoms. Elderberry flowers turn to green fruit, like the blossoms of pokeweed, poison ivy, the blue cohosh and the trilliums.

August's goldenrod is four feet tall now. Lupine pods break apart, spread their seeds. White snakeroot, ironweed, boneset, wingstem, tall coneflowers and grey-headed coneflowers are budding as pink large-flowered mallow comes to an end.

Blueweed flowers are at the top of their spikes just as the first giant burdock plant blooms along the bike path. Under the high canopy of the woods, avens and thimble plants are forming seed heads, and all the early honeysuckles have their berries, red and orange. Blackberries are August size this week, but still green. Milkweed pods are emerging, pushing out past milkweed beetles; they burst their hulls and spill their silky seeds at the approach of Middle Fall, just a dozen weeks from now.

Among the many flowers, find golden showy coneflowers, pale blue campanulas, purple coneflowers, monarda,  germander,  skullcap, fogfruit, great Indian plantain, fringed loosestrife, bouncing bets, daisy fleabane, moth mullein,  leafcup, lopseed, hobblebush, wood mint, tall bell flower, great mullein,  small-flowered agrimony, tick trefoil, velvetleaf, trumpet creeper and jimson weed in bloom.  Throughout the town and countryside, more flowers blossom when cicadas call than at any other time of year.