Many of the events of the annual cycle recur year after year in a regular order. A year-to-year record of this order is a record of the rates at which solar energy flows to and through living things. They are the arteries of the land. By tracing their responses to the sun, Phenology may eventually shed some light on that ultimate enigma, the land's inner workings.

Aldo Leopold, A Phenological Record for Sauk and Dane Counties, Wisconsin, 1935-1945 

    The Shining Grackle Moon becomes the Singing Toad Moon on March 26 at 11:06 a.m. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon is overhead in the early afternoon. By the time it moves above you in the middle of the night, it will have stirred the passionate American toads to intone their high-pitched mating songs.

SCATTERED NOTES ON PHENOLOGY

- Phenology pays attention to the regular recurring events in nature and sometimes connects those events to other phenomena.

- The rate at which solar energy “flows to and through living things” not only affects the rate at which plants sprout, grow, flower, and die, but also has some influence over human lives and the course of human events.

- Seasonal affective disorder, a recently named malady which appears to be tied to a lack of sunlight, is one example of an event in human physiology that is tied to solar conditions – and, therefore, an example of a phenologically based occurrence.

-The joy of observing color and scent in flowers is another seasonally structured experience. Humans have the ability to manipulate that joy by importing flowers out of season or, in a lesser way, by looking at sketches or photographs, but that artificial manipulation of physiology is still based on phenological truth.

- A phenological ephemeris has been used by farmers and gardeners for thousands of years. Modern planting wisdom reflects the same concerns as ancient planting wisdom:

        Plant radishes, peas, carrots, and lettuce when daffodils bloom.

        Set out bedding plants when the canopy of leaves begins to close overhead.
   
- Paying attention to phenological markers, I fashion a relationship with the events I observe. Living by this additional calendar, I fall into new phases of time, become open to new influences that reveal not only the land’s inner workings but also some of my own.

-The result of following an ecological agenda seems to be a more porous awareness, a blending of the solar-driven woods and garden with my impressionable, dependent inner self that would otherwise lean completely on a limited, man-made schedule and the people of that schedule.

-In the mirror of the natural calendar, my reflection changes from one dominated by a society of human beings to one belonging to the broader society of all creatures.

- In a time without numbers, I become ageless, my points of reference transcending Gregorian limits. I rebel against the old definitions, seeing my true measure.