I stood there watching the wind ripple and wave through the grain, a sea of green animated with constant, unceasing movement, swirling about my waist as if alive, following no pattern of movement but waving now this way, now that, filled with an eternal surging restlessness, a great stirring of life.

August Derleth, A Sac Prairie Journal

NOTES FOR THE SECOND WEEK OF EARLY SUMMER
THE TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK OF THE NATURAL YEAR

WHEN MULBERRIES RIPEN FOR PIE
AND WINTER WHEAT TURNS GOLDEN GREEN

    The Duckling and Gosling Moon becomes the sweet Cherry Pie Moon at 6:15 a.m. on June 12. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the new moon lies overhead in the middle of the day.
     Between June 8 and 11, the average temperature rise slows to one degree in four days instead of late spring’s one degree in three. Then, between the 15th to the 19th, it climbs just one degree in five days, reaching its summer zenith. Between June 9 and July 3, the day's length along the 40th Parallel varies by no more than five minutes.

PARSNIP TIME
    When the canopy has closed above the woodland wildflowers, when winter wheat is a soft pale green, and the clovers and vetches are all coming in, then it’s the best time of year for golden parsnip blossoms throughout the countryside.  
    Catalpas and privets and hawthorns and pink spirea bloom at parsnip time, and the number of fireflies grows in proportion to the flowers on the day lilies.  The first nodding thistle, the first chicory, first daisy fleabane, the first great mullein, the first Asiatic lily, and the first tall meadow rue open.  The first raspberry reddens, and the first orange trumpet creeper blows.  Bindweeds and sweet peas color the fences with pastels.
    The peak of the parsnips in the fields is the high time for the wetlands’ poison hemlock and angelica.  In the shade, poison ivy, fire pink, and honewort are flowering.  At the edge of the forest, wild plants include blue-eyed grass, silver yarrow, yellow sedum, bright moneywort, fire pink, daisies, yellow sweet clover, wild roses, wild iris, dock, and smooth brome grass.  In the garden, the blue veronica, yellow coreopsis, deep purple loosestrife, and the first wave of the floribunda roses come into flower.
    In the middle of parsnip week, oaks and black walnut trees and osage orange have set their fruit.  There are bud clusters on the milkweeds, buds on the delicate touch-me-nots, buds on the giant blue hostas, buds on the yucca, the purple coneflowers, the mallow, the balloon flower and the gayfeather.  Wild strawberries are red.
     As the morning birdsong quiets, young blackbirds join their parents to harvest the ripening cherries and mulberries.  Cucumber beetles come to the pumpkins, squash, gourds and cucumbers.  Painted turtles and box turtles are out laying eggs.  The fearsome (but harmless) stag beetle waddles across your porch after dark.
    The end of parsnip week is the last week for sweet rockets.  Chickweed dies back, exhausted and matted.  May apple foliage is yellowing.  Jack-in-the-pulpits are wilting, and brown seeds drop from the small-flowered crowfoot.