July 16th
The 197th Day of the Year

At the turn of summer’s tide, there can be quickening of the psychic pulse, panic that it’s now too late, that all the promises are still to be fulfilled, that there will never be sufficient time, never be summer enough. Then the days become so short they spur a different chemistry, one that points to survival instead of fulfillment; we batten down our souls, make ready for the great test.

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Sunrise/set: 6:19/9:02 Day's Length: 14 hours 43 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 100 - 1988 Record Low: 52 - 1945

Weather
Today is one of the hottest, sunniest, and driest days in the whole year. Highs above 100 come 15 percent of the time; 90s are recorded 25 percent of the time; 80s occur on 55 percent of the days, 70s just five percent. The sky is typically sunny to partly cloudy, with completely overcast conditions recorded just five percent of the days. Rainfall on the 16th occurs on fewer than 20 percent of all the years.

Natural Calendar
A slight turning of the leaves is beginning on some of the redbuds, Virginia creepers, box elders, and buckeyes. Foliage of Japanese honeysuckle and the multiflora roses is yellowing. Ohio peaches are coming in to the markets now. Late summer’s white snakeroot is budding in the woods, Joe Pye weed starting to flower in the wetlands.

Daybook
1983: South Glen, 7:30 a.m.: Virginia roses finally gone. Oxeye identified, soapwort, avens, leafcup, enchanter's nightshade, wood nettle, touch-me-not, wood mint, daisy fleabane, Queen Anne's lace, thimble plant, germander, swamp milkweed, black medic, great mullein, common milkweed, southern loosestrife, wild petunias, goatsbeard, an occasional yellow sweet clover all in bloom. Dock seed browning, yarrow starting to fade. Tall meadow rue and timothy have gone completely to seed. White snakeroot has buds. Small and large milkweed bugs identified.

1984: Grinnell Swamp: White snakeroot budding, adolescent cattails emerging, yellow with pollen - while along the roadsides, they've been mature and brown for weeks. At home, apples are half size.

1985: Vale Habitat just south of town: First white snakeroot blooms. Boneset and small-flowered agrimony budding. Mountain mint found, hoary tick trefoil, and scutellaria versicolor, a scullcap. Tall bell flowers full, white vervain well past its best. First thin-leafed coneflowers, first burdock flowers, first Asiatic day flowers, full bloom of the gray headed coneflowers, St. John's wort, butterfly weed, bergamot, avens, Deptford pink, Indian hemp, and spurge. Huge foxtail grass perfect for chewing. Good-sized thimbles on the thimble plants. Yarrow dry and brown, a few blueweed still flowering. Field thistles tall and budded. May apple foliage tattered, eaten by insects. A few hickory nuts fallen. Crab Bermuda grass everywhere to seed.

1988: Germander in mid bloom, another early white vervain, very first touch-me-not blooming in standing water, and next to it the first flower of wood nettle. Cicadas stronger today, damselflies congregating on the thin-leafed coneflower at dusk. Carp by the shore, frolicking in the shallows, frogs croaking, more osage leaves falling, cherry tree dropping some leaves. The shedding of the gray sycamore bark seems more intense, bark building up in the sloughs like autumn leaves, and the pieces crunch under my feet as I walk along the path.

1990: First woolly bear caterpillar seen today. No cicadas yet. Rose of Sharon early bloom.

1992: First fog of autumn this morning, thick and wet. First berries of the second crop of strawberries. Rose of Sharon has been out a couple of days now.

1993: I became aware of the first sense of late summer today, a hunger for the color of the zinnias and cosmos, a disorientation, a sentimental confusion of sadness and excitement. The wind took on a different meaning, this July cool wave presaging other changes, the August breakdown of the weather systems, the coming of fall, the inner changes I will undergo, the exterior, dramatic alterations coming in my life. The wind uncovered all those feelings and fed them at the same time, nurturing an almost wild, bittersweet death wish, anticipation of the cocoon and rebirth. anguish at the loss of the old spring, longing for the transformations to come. I became full of a maudlin tenderness for the creatures around me, went fishing and couldn't kill the catch, had to carry it to the river and put it gently in the water with a prayer. Tears welled in my eyes at the bumblebees sleeping in the zinnias.

1998: The season leaving as quickly as it came, pulled away by the first ripe blackberries. John and I picked quite a few as we walked the woods near Caesar Creek. And they were soft berries, as much as five days old.

1999: Blue jays very loud and active for the past three to five days. Last night I heard katydids calling in the yard. Fireflies scarce this year because of the drought. The mornings become quieter and quieter, no robin singsong, no early chorus. Feverfew declines and loosestrife moves higher on its stalks. Phlox open all about town. Gay feather late bloom, oak leaf hydrangea late full, lilies still full. End of the gooseneck, yarrow aging. Mallow holding. Ironweed buds appear. Late full teasel. Early bloom of the showy coneflowers. Midseason hostas in decline. Frog quieter. Queen Anne’s lace and rose of Sharon lush.

2003: Butterfly bush has its first purple blossoms in the south and north gardens. Day lilies in full bloom. Sum and Substance hosta, huge and pale green, in full flower. Ramp flowers have wilted, stems toppled. First cicada of 2003 heard about noon in the back yard.

2005: Giant swallowtail in the red monarda this afternoon. Still no cicadas. Mike Miller found a nest of newly hatched wrens in a box in his garage this evening. Pollen noticed on hawthorn berries in the triangle park.

July 17th
The 198th Day of the Year

The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm
wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours seems
longevity enough.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunrise/set: 6:20/9:02 Day's Length: 14 hours 42 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 102 - 1888 Record Low: 51 - 1976

Weather
The 17th typically has fewer clouds than almost any other day of the entire year. And it is normally free from precipitation: this is the second day of a three-day dry spell during which the chance of rain continues at 15 percent. Highs reach into the 90s forty-five percent of the time, to the 80s another 45 percent, and to the 70s just ten percent.
Average temperatures in Yellow Springs reach their peak today with highs at 85 and lows at 65. Averages remain at that level through the 28th of the month, after which they begin their autumn descent. The coldest averages of the year remain steady for a similar period, reaching a normal high of 34 and a normal low of 18 on January 16th,d starting their rise to summer on January 29th.

Natural Calendar
Just another week until blackberry season. Two weeks until ragweed starts to flower, three weeks until fireflies stop flickering, a month until the first Judas maples turn and goldenrod comes in, five weeks to corn silage cutting and the end of the oats harvest, six weeks to tobacco cutting time and puffball mushroom time, seven weeks to grape harvest, eight weeks until acorns, buckeyes, and osage fruits fall, nine weeks until the corn and soybean harvest and the sowing of winter wheat, ten weeks until the beginning of middle fall.

Daybook
1981: First red raspberry of the second raspberry season.

1982: First garden tomato today.

1983: Pointed-leafed tick trefoil blooming. First goldenrod (solidago odora) seen along highway 68 (but never seen so early again near Yellow Springs). Joe Pye Weed heading. At the Cascades, enchanter's nightshade, lopseed, avens, hobblebush, agrimony still in bloom. Bull thistles seen in Wilberforce, spiny-leafed sow thistle found.

1984: Joe Pye weed heading.

1986: Cicadas strong. Blue jays and wren are quiet, blackbirds too. Last week, they were all over the yard, boisterous. Crickets are moving in, a vague increase in the background sounds tonight.

1988: South Glen: Narrow-leafed mountain mint in early bloom. One small batch of St. John's wort in middle bloom. Yarrow declining on schedule, soapwort full, wingstem wilted in the drought, ironweed holding on. Wild cherries and roses seem to be dying. Blackberries reddening on schedule, but the foliage is withering. Sycamores, young, and away from the river, are dropping their leaves like they do in October. Ginger dying. The Miami River is at its lowest level in recent history. Milkweed decaying without rain. But miles of blue chicory along the highways, untouched by the weather.

1990: First stag beetle of the year gets into the house.

1992: Heavy rains cause flooding throughout the state, Miami River out of its banks. Coneflowers, snapdragons, and north wall hosta are in early bloom now.

1993: First white hairy caterpillar appeared in the garden, a day later than in 1987. First local sweet corn on the market. The worst flooding on record continues along the Mississippi in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri.

1998: I have not been so attentive this summer, but the colors are shifting around me, and things are feeling so different. The morning is quiet now. The monarda slowly disappears as the showy coneflowers of August open fully. Liatris is still blooming but seems to be on the other side of its peak. The first burdock blossomed a day or so ago. Hollyhock season will end soon in the yard; if I kept the leaf miners away from it and managed the blooms a little better, maybe it would last until August. Mallow still holds along the south wall. All the Oriental Lilies except the turbans have lost their petals.

2002: Doves still call, but there were no cardinals singing this morning until 7:50. Only a few starlings cackling in the back trees when I got up. Then at breakfast time, maybe a dozen baby robins came to play in the sprinkler. One cedar waxwing and young blackbirds came too. The robins flocking and their flocking clucking signals clearly begin in adolescence, preparation for the great October migration south.

2003: Last of the lizard’s tail. Another black swallowtail seen in the north garden. More baby robins sighted in the yard. Second day of cicada song. Midseason hostas full and lush. Day lilies still lush. Mallow and hollyhocks tattered and old.

2004: Mulberries have almost ended, but starlings still call from the high canopy, perhaps still feeding on remnants. Tonight, Dayton Street was loud with cricket song for the first time this summer.

2005: Muggy, cloudy weather, no cicadas, no crickets, a few cardinals in the mornings, but only sporadic birdsong during the day.

2006: No robinsong this morning - 4:00 a.m. – 5:00 a.m. (EST). Cardinal at 4:30 a.m. (EST) and then steady for a while. Lilies, monarda and mallow continue at their peak in the north gardens. Cicadas strong.

2007: Flock of starlings seen on the way to the mall, the first flock of middle summer. Very little activity at the bird feeders. No robins have come to the yard for quite a while, maybe two weeks. A rabbit ate off almost all the buds of the new toad lily plant.

July 18th
The 199th Day of the Year

But I will walk dry stream beds,
break sycamore skin beneath my feet….

Liz Porter

Sunrise/set: 6:21/9:01 Day's Length: 14 hours 40 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 101 - 1888 Record Low: 51 - 1911

Weather
July 18th is almost always a Dog Day par excellence. Temperatures climb above 90 degrees 50 percent of the time, more often than during any other 24 hour period of the year. Highs in the 80s occur on 45 percent of the afternoons, with cool 70s coming just five percent. A thunderstorm moves across the area one year in five, and the sky is clear to partly cloudy 95 percent of the time.

Natural Calendar
In the eastern sky, the stars of the late-summer triangle are moving into position for August. The easiest of these three stars to find is Deneb, which is the large “tail”star of Cygnus the swan (shaped like a large bird in flight, its long neck pointing to the south). To the right of Deneb lies Vega, the brightest star overhead these nights. The third corner of the triangle is Altair, below and about halfway between the other two corners.

Daybook
1983: Large cricket seen in the yard.

1984: Last black raspberries picked.

l987: Fewer fireflies now, their numbers closer to those of the first week of June when they were just emerging. First katydids heard at midnight. Cicadas were strong this morning. Shrill cricket cries increase after dark.

1988: After the first rain in months, the woods recover from the drought in just a few hours. The first burdock suddenly blooms, the first lopseed. Touch-me-nots straighten up, filled with moisture, and even the wild ginger stands up again. Carp are still feeding in the shallows, climbing over the submerged branches, sucking leaves, making slurping sounds. A mother mallard with eight ducklings seen maybe three-fourths grown.

l989: First day of full cicada song.

1992: No cicadas yet in this cool summer.

1995: At the triangle park, the spruce trees have completely absorbed their spring growth now, the pale green of the new needles having darkened to match the rest. The box elder seeds are drying, the last spring-red leaves of the red maple have turned to match the green of the other maples. I feel nostalgia, midsummer sadness, in the pause between June's fresh abundance and August's lush defiance.

2000: Tonight, katydids were in full song at 11:00. A few crickets were joining in the night chorus, the first time this summer I have heard them in the yard.

2002: Half a dozen baby robins played for almost half an hour in the sprinkler again this morning.

2004: Cicadas strong through the day. Crickets continued for the second night, katydids joining in for the first time this summer.

2005: Everything is so quiet and dark this cloudy day, the birds receding, the insects still not appearing to replace them.

2006: Sitting at the back table, Jean and I heard something that sounded like squirrels in the trees. When we looked closely, we saw the sound was coming from four or five baby crows, maybe just out of the nest, talking to their parents, being coached into the world.

2007: We heard whining crows on the 28th of June this year. Hard rain last night. This morning, the lilies seem on the wane, even though the many of the plants are still bright and full. The alley shows tall coneflowers just starting to unfold, lots of blue chicory, burdock budding, goldenrod and great ragweed very tall, a patch of sow thistles and a few fences of blue morning glories full bloom. Weed locust trees have taken over one area, euonymus and poison ivy growing back on the old asbestos-sided garage. Several tiger swallowtails today. Whistling crickets heard this evening when I walked Bella.

July 19th
The 200th Day of the Year

July is weeds grown lush, horseweed in the waste place, and milkweed and nettle and forbidding thistle; and pigweed and purslane and rough-leafed German weed in the garden. It is string beans, and bean beetles; it is squash flowers, venerable symbol of fertility, and squash beetles; it is tomatoes coming to fruit and horned tomato worms which turn into sphinx moths.

Hal Borland

Sunrise/set: 6:22/9:00 Day's Length: 14 hours 38 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 98 - 1930 Record Low: 49 - 1910

Weather
Today is one of a handful of days on which the chance of a high below 80 degrees is less than five percent: about 45 percent of the afternoons are in the 90s, and the other 55 percent in the 80s. The likelihood of rain increases from 20 to 30 percent, and odds for a completely cloudy day are one in four.

Natural Calendar – The 200th Day
The first 100 days of the year move the center of North America through the seasons of deep winter, late winter, early spring and finally, at the end of March, into middle spring.
By the 100th day, April 10th, the landscape has entered its most benign period, even in the coldest years. When the fields are dry enough, farmers plant the first corn. Pastures turn purple with purple deadnettle, gold with dandelions. Winter wheat is bright green. Robins sing at 5:00 a.m., cardinals at 5:25 (Eastern Daylight Time).
In the gardens, daffodils, grape hyacinths and early tulips reach full bloom, replacing the crocus, aconites and snowdrops of February. Mulberry, locust, tree of heaven and ginkgo send out their first leaves. Pear trees and serviceberries blossom. Crab apples open. In the woods, Virginia bluebells, hepatica, periwinkle, toad trillium, cowslip, rue anemone and spring beauties are all in bloom.
Between the 100th day and the 200th day, the land along the 40th Parallel completes middle spring, and passes through late spring and early summer, then enters middle summer. By July 19th, the robins no longer sing before sunrise, and cardinals sleep late. Katydids and crickets fill the nights. Cicadas whine through the afternoons. The field corn is tall, the sweet corn and tomatoes are coming in, and the wheat harvest is complete.
Only a few varieties of wildflowers bloom now under the dense canopy: leafcup, tall bellflower, wood nettle, touch-me-nots. The fields and fencerows show most of the color: bouncing bets, St. John's wort, teasel, milkweed, gray-headed coneflowers, white vervain, wild lettuce, oxeye, germander, skullcap, great Indian plantain, blue vervain, wingstem, bull thistle, black-eyed Susans and small-flowered agrimony. In town, lilies and phlox have replaced daffodils and tulips; rose of Sharon flowers instead of pears and apples.
In another 100 days, on October 27th, most of the canopy will be gone. Middle and late summer, early fall and middle fall will have passed. The wildflower and garden seasons will be almost over. Witchhazel will be the only shrub in bloom. Farmers will have cut their soybeans and their corn for grain. The birds and the cicadas will be silent; only the crickets and katydids will remember July.

Daybook
l986: South Glen: Tall coneflower with buds. Milkweed has very small pods. No ironweed in bloom yet, and only a very few wingstems. Along the roadsides, Canadian thistledown is coming undone in wads, spreading puffed and disheveled. The first elderberries are turning purple, marking the last course of middle summer. When they are all dark, it will be late summer.

1988: The drought continues to recede: more rain, the grass immediately greening, forsythia recovering.

l990: Cicadas first heard today. Katydids first heard in the yard after dark. Dame’s rocket seed pods drying out, some brought inside to save. Joe Pye weed is heading, lilies thinning. At Caesar Creek in high water, four catfish caught in the late afternoon on doughballs, three channels and a blue.

1992: First cicadas heard in the yard as field corn tasseling begins toward Fairborn.

1993: First late-summer cricket seen in the garden. Downey woodpecker calls off and on through the day. Nuthatch seen at the bird feeder this afternoon, the first ever in the yard.

1997: The pond is almost complete now. The small water beetles dive continually and the water striders (which arrived within a week or so after the water) eat the small insects that fall in. The first huge blue dragonfly came by yesterday, circled the loosestrife and the pickerel plants then flew off, then zoomed back and forth over the house and trees and pond for maybe ten minutes. The first robins and starlings came to bathe the day before yesterday. In the north garden, the mallow is finally yellowing, more than half the large pink flowers going to seed. The hosta are in full bloom in the east garden.

2000: First yellow jacket of the year seen in the lawn.

2001: First ironweed blooms in Marc Duckwall’s fields.

2002: Cardinals, blue jays and doves at 5:50 a.m. Crows at 6:05. Only an occasional robin chirp.

2006: As I was doing katas this morning on the back porch, three young skunks scampered across the edge of the yard underneath the tall hostas. Around noon, the fledgling crows talked again with their parents. A black swallowtail and a tiger swallowtail seen in the garden today.

2007: More hard rain, thunder and lightning last night. This morning, the flowers and the bamboo are drooping and dark; the day feels like late summer. Crows in the back trees this morning about 7:30. Monarch butterfly visited the garden this afternoon. Katydids and crickets heard in full song tonight at 11:00 – the first time they’ve come in this summer.

July 20th
The 201st Day of the Year

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scales of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.

Walt Whitman

Sunrise/set: 6:23/9:00 Day's Length: 14 hours 37 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 101 - 1934 Record Low: 49 - 1947

Weather
More Dog Day stability: highs in the 70s are recorded just five percent of the afternoons; 80s come 55 percent of the time, 90s thirty-five percent. Today is one of the early pivot points in the progress toward winter: it is the last day of the year on which 100 degree temperatures have a five to ten percent chance of occurring. Showers come 35 percent of all the years.

Natural Calendar
Mallow, Asiatic lilies, and day lilies disappear in the garden as red, white and purple phlox unfolds throughout town. Lizard’s tail and wood nettle go to seed along the riverbanks. Blueweed, white vervain, motherwort and white sweet clover end their seasons. Petals of the hobblebush darken with age. Parsnip heads, honewort pods and sweet Cicely pods are dry enough to split and spill their seeds.
Late summer’s burdock blooms now. Wild lettuce opens around 9:00 in the morning facing the sun, closes by noon. Tall blue bellflowers, pale violet bouncing bets, and pink germander color the waysides. Water hemlock and arrowhead blossom in the swamps. Round galls swell on the goldenrod. Fruits of the osage orange are two-thirds grown, heavy enough to drop in a storm.

Daybook
1983: Grinnell Pond: Cattails, small, thin, heavy with fresh, loose pollen. Boneset close to blossoming. White sweet clover fading. Swamp milkweed just starting. A few last moneywort. June's clustered snakeroot being overgrown by August plants. First tall bellflower blooming, the first few touch-me-nots ready to burst. White vervain identified today.

1986: Boneset blooms in the garden, bull thistle along Grinnell. A few tall bellflowers just opening. At Ellis Pond, swamp milkweed and blue vervain early full.

1987: Cricket song increasing as July progresses, shrill monotone.

1988: Four inches of rain in just a few days after the long drought: hosta bursts into bloom, grass turns green, spring’s thyme-leaved speedwell flowers again. Wild strawberries ripen.

1989: First stag beetle on the porch.

1990: First geese flew over today at noon: the first sound of fall. Most lilies are gone. First late-summer crickets heard outside the house tonight.

1991: Giant fat six-inch green seed pods on the trumpet vines behind Weaver's parking lot.

1993: On a walk with Buttercup: Most gardens full of coneflowers and coreopsis. First burdock seen blooming. Scent of late summer in the morning air, dew heavy, the smell of old leaves, of spent flowers and leaves. Locust trees rusting from leaf miners at Wilberforce.

1997: Down the bikepath: First cicada heard halfway to Jacoby - but the only cicada heard all morning, this afternoon one more. Along the way to Xenia, tall bellflowers were in full bloom, like the campanula here at home. I saw early germander, full catnip, budding burdock (none of it open), blueweed turning black - just a few late flowers, white sweet clover ending its cycle, a few pokeweeds with green berries, the first Jerusalem artichoke, a lobelia in full bloom. The first woolly bear caterpillar of the year crossed the path in front of me.

2000: Resurrection lilies in full bloom both here and in Wilmington. Tonight, I went outside at nine o’clock. The last birds were going home, the last swallows were flying over the yard. When the fireflies started to signal at 9:05, the birds had disappeared. I saw bats at 9:10, heard crickets at 9:15.

2001: First cardinal at 5:40 a.m. Screech owl whinnying at 5:50. Early hostas, the Francis Williams, have completed flowering. Hollyhocks eaten by leafminers. But the pink mallow and the lilies keep their color, and the annuals, zinnias and cosmos, help to hide the end of pervious perennial sequences, help to create links and tie together, prolong, introduce.

2002: Fog in the early morning.

2003: In Wisconsin: parsnips, purple coneflowers, day lilies, bellflowers, Asiatic and Oriental lilies, and bergamots early full, some prairie false indigo. Much lopseed and agrimony in the woods. Arrived in Yellow Springs at 8:30 p.m. to find the first stargazer lily open, several more zinnias and the first dahlia unraveling.

2004: The last Oriental lilies fade. A Judas maple seen on the way out of town. In the backyard, a patch of yellow leaves on the white mulberry. In the triangle park, a few crabapple leaves are turning.

2005: First cicadas heard today, the latest date since I started to keep track. They all seem to have emerged at once after the arrival of a cool front last night. And they are late, in spite of a July full of hot and muggy weather. The early part of the month, however, was dry. Did that keep them in the ground?

2006: Cardinal song steady from 4:30 a.m. (EST). A tiger swallowtail visited the hosta flowers this morning. The red monarda is beginning be fade.

2007: Most red monarda gone. Several tiger swallowtails this morning. Full robin song before dawn. First robin in days seen in the yard at 10:00 a.m.

July 21st
The 202nd Day of the Year

How insignificant appear most of the facts which one sees in his walks, in the life of the birds, the flowers, the animals, or in the phases of the landscape or the look of the sky! --insignificant until they are put through some mental or emotional process and their true value appears.

John Burroughs

Sunrise/set: 6:23/9:59 Day's Length: 14 hours 36 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 105 - 1934 Record Low: 49 - 1974

Weather
High temperatures are above 90 four days in ten, between 80 and 89 five days in ten, in the 70s one in ten. Even though the record low is 49, morning lows almost never reach below 60 on this date. Chances for rain are 40 percent, for completely overcast skies 30 percent.

Natural Calendar
The best of the morning bird chorus is over now for the year. The cardinals still greet the dawn, but they stop singing after sunrise. Swallows are migrating; they can often be seen congregating on the high wires. When the mornings are cool, fog hangs in the hollows before dawn.

Daybook
l982: At South Glen, blackberries ripening, should be ready in less than a week. First burdock and horseweed are flowering. Milkweed pods are forming. Wingstem, field thistle, and ironweed early bloom.

1983: To Goshen, Indiana: First goldenrod seen in northern Indiana.

1986: Tall coneflower with big buds, wingstem budding, ironweed budding. Milkweed pods are an inch long now, most of the milkweed flowers past their prime. Great Indian plantain, seven feet tall, found in bloom. Locust seed pods are soft and green, about nine inches long.

1987: Hummingbird moths still coming to the impatiens, milkweed beetles still mating, even with the milkweed pods a full inch long and the flowers drying up. Some Virginia creeper is red.

1988: Tall bellflowers open overnight in the woods. Red clover blooms again. First blackberries eaten.

1989: Flicker still sings, 2:35 p.m.

1990: The first garden pumpkin, discovered under the Japanese knotweed, is a foot in diameter now. My garlic harvest complete today, the cloves a little loose; I should have dug them a week ago. Purple coneflowers are at their best in the east garden. Red admiral butterflies are gone.

1991: One Resurrection lily blooming on Dayton Street. Katydids start calling at 9:15 p.m. For a while, cicadas, crickets, and katydids all sing at once.

1993: Louis the cat captured a young blue jay. This afternoon, I saw the first woolly bear caterpillar by the forsythia, full rust orange color. Last of the cherries eaten by the birds.

1997: Rose of Sharon: first blooms. August’s tall sedum is budding, first blooms seen on some in Xenia.

2002: Cardinals at 5:20 a.m., but no robin chorus. A few robins peeping by 5:45. Blue jay at 5:55. Dove at 5:57. Crow at 5:59. Most lilies gone by now. I counted fewer than a dozen blossoms along the north garden this morning. Phlox and rudbeckia speciosa are in early full flower now. Heliopsis, Shasta daisies, Queen Anne’s lace, gooseneck, and the butterfly bush are steady bloomers. Purple loosestrife is still in full bloom in the pond and in the drainage ditch near the Clark County fairgrounds. Last of the monarda.

2003: One cardinal at 5:40 a.m., one robin twittering in the distance. By 6:00, the doves were calling, more cardinals, more robins. The early robin chorus, though, is over.

2004: Blue jays restless in the back woods, crying back and forth.

2006: One black swallowtail, one monarch or viceroy. Several buckeye butterflies. Thirty lily plants in bloom around the yard, down maybe three from two weeks ago, but many of those plants are thinning quickly. The white phlox are just starting in the yard, full bloom in town. Red monarda ending quickly. The black-eyed Susans planted from seed this spring are in full bloom now with the other yellow rudbeckia. Mallow holds. Fields of Queen Anne’s lace everywhere. Crab apples are red now, bitter but not completely inedible.

2007: Beeflies mating on the wing, zoomed across the back patio.

July 22nd
The 203rd Day of the Year

The rain is never unforetold:
Cranes fly before it,
Heifers know its scent,
Swallows circle low above the pond,
Bullfrogs chant its coming.

Virgil

Sunrise/set: 6:24/8:58 Day's Length: 14 hours 34 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 108 - 1901 Record Low: 49 1911

Weather
Afternoons in the 90s are recorded 35 percent of the years on July 22nd, and 80s come 40 percent. Cool 70s occur on 25 percent of the years, the highest likelihood for moderation since July 11th. On the other hand, the hottest official temperature ever recorded in the Dayton area, 108 degrees, occurred on this day in 1901. Chances for rain are almost 50 percent, with completely overcast conditions occurring 40 percent of the days.

The Week Ahead
The coolest days of the week are typically the 22nd and 23rd of the month, when mild 70s are recorded about a fourth of all the years. The 23rd brings pleasant sleeping weather more often than any time in July: a full 35 percent of the nights drop below 60 degrees. The most consistent day of the period, and of the whole month, is the 24th when highs in the 80s come 95 percent of the time. Sunshine remains the rule for this week of the month, with three out of four days bringing at least a partial break in the clouds. Chances for rain typically decline as July comes to a close, dropping from 40 to 45 percent on the 24th down to just 20 percent on the 30th and 31st.
A cool front passes through the lower Midwest between the 27th and the 29th. Five years in ten, at least one afternoon in the 70s follows that late-July cool wave . Evening lows in the 50s, unusual only two weeks ago, often return. Average high temperatures drop one degree on the 28th, their first decline since late January.

Natural Calendar
The last week of middle summer comes with the last week of July, moving in to the song of cicadas, the katydids, and the new generations of crickets. Now, the yellowing locust and buckeye leaves, and the brown garlic mustard give a sense of fall to the woods. Around town, a few Judas maples redden. Shiny spicebush, boxwood, greenbrier, and poison ivy berries have formed.

Daybook
1986: First ironweed seen blooming today. Small white caterpillar with black markings found in the garden. For the first time, the katydids and crickets were prominent together at 11:00 p.m. when I walked the dog.

1987: Wingstem and bull thistle sighted blooming from the road. First three-seeded mercury is open in the garden, the earliest I've found it. Burdock full bloom now. Velvet leaf has emerged well above the soybeans and has started to bloom. Nights loud with
katydids, crickets; mornings and afternoons are filled with cicadas.

1988: Crows loud this morning, blue jay still comes around, cardinals subdued.

1989: First sweet rocket pods drop their seeds into the grass. Cardinal heard only a few times today. Doves seem to be getting much quieter each week. The blue jay that lived in the yard has left.

1991: First bright blue dayflower found blooming. Grapes are turning purple now. No birdsong this morning, just crickets.

1992: First white "fuzz bug" in the yard.

1993: Cherry foliage begins to yellow more quickly now that the fruit has been picked clean by the birds. Mulberries continue to ripen, attracting starlings to the back trees. Tall coneflowers, at least seven feet, starting to bloom at the corner of High and Limestone. Small flock of robins, maybe ten birds, seen on the morning walk with Buttercup. Have they started to come together already for migration?

2000: Blue jays still restless in the yard, whining back and forth caring for their young.

2004: Last day of the star-gazer and the Turk’s cap lilies. More yellow mulberry leaves are falling.

2005: Osage fruit – about half-size – and black walnuts came down in last night’s storm. The river is high and muddy after two or three inches of rain. In the garden, the number of day lily plants in bloom is 27, but the number of blossoms seems to be have passed its peak. In the south garden, the huge patch of red monarda is suddenly drab, almost all the bright petals fallen.

2006: One black swallowtail. Hummingbirds showing up in the middle of the afternoon.

2007: To Old Man’s Cave in southeastern Ohio: the landscape deep green throughout, no yellowing in the woods except in a few places along the road south of Columbus. One monarch seen crossing the highway, no goldenrod noticed, but a few wingstem seen in bloom. Chicory provided a strong blue border to almost all the roads; scattered trefoil brought in gold.

July 23rd
The 204th Day of the Year

The observation of natural history is a simple and powerful form of meditation. In it we find that the chanting of the katydids and crickets is no less magical than the songs of monks or the mantras of gurus.

Eliades Quintana

Sunrise/set: 6:25/8:57 Day's Length: 14 hours 32 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 100 - 1933 Record Low: 50 - 1947

Weather
Today has a temperature distribution identical to that of the 22nd, and the chances for rain continue at near 50 percent; sky conditions, however, are usually less cloudy: the sun shines at least 95 percent of the time. Thanks to the cool wave that often comes through this time of year, there is a 40 percent chance for a low in the 50s, making this the coolest morning since the beginning of the Corn Tassel Rains. Although moderate nights do not stay for long, today could be considered one of the first meteorological signs of deterioration in the power of summer.

Natural Calendar
Pastures, roadsides, and alleys are full of chicory, Queen Anne's lace, great mullein, wild petunia, milkweed, pokeweed, black-eyed Susan, butterfly weed, tall nettle, soapwort, St. John's wort, gray-headed coneflower, blue vervain, white vervain, horseweed, oxeye, germander, teasel, fringed loosestrife, velvetleaf, wingstem, sundrops, small-flowered agrimony, bull thistle, tick trefoil, bush clover, burdock, showy and tall coneflower, jimson weed, pigweed, thin-leafed mountain mint, tick trefoil, downy false foxglove, and three-seeded mercury. Woodlands and wetlands keep their avens, enchanter's nightshade, lopseed, leafcup, touch-me-not, wood nettle, Joe Pye weed, monkey flower and tall bell flower.

Daybook
1986: Cardinal still waking me up about six in the morning.

1988: Crows loud this morning. Yellow mulberry leaves, hurt by the drought, fall in this evening's thunderstorm. Cardinal only heard once today, at sunset after the rain.

1991: Robins seem restless today, fluttering, sounding their short migration call.

1993: Crickets just beginning in the village. Catmint old now at Elm and Dayton Streets. Hawthorn berries fully developed, green, with one berry with orange pollen in every few clusters.

1996: To Crookston in northern Minnesota: Starting with golden fog and cool this morning, sun rising orange. The white bindweeds are blooming now by the side of the road, started on the garden fence a day ago. Queen Anne’s lace dominant throughout. Teasel half full, sundrops, trumpet creepers, gray-headed coneflowers, white sweet clover, a few elderberry flowers still, huge sow thistles, milkweed, some last hemlock, now goldenrod in bloom in Indiana, late fading crown vetch, huge cattails, great mullein near the top of its stalk, measuring out July, black-eyed Susans. By Chicago, June begins to return, yellow sweet clover common, and Canadian thistles coming back. Parsnips appear 50 miles from Rockford, then into full bloom by the Wisconsin border. Time is collapsing back into itself, contracting into the familiar spaces of early summer. Fields of knapweed, white sweet clover, tall yellow hawkweed common, swamp milkweed common and full near Tomah, Wisconsin , coneflowers, mulleins, butterfly weed, spurge, fleabane full. At Hudson on the Mississippi, cattails small, a month behind Yellow Springs. Wheat ripening above Minneapolis, mostly brown, corn at Ohio levels. At St. Cloud, spirea late bloom, full potentilla, wild raspberries ripe, lopseed late full, late motherwort and yarrow, catnip full, butter and eggs, milkweed. Wheat ready for harvest at St. John’s above St. Cloud. Fields of sunflowers about four-feet tall just starting to head, some wheat green near Aida in northern Minnesota,

1997: Corn in the area is a third tasseled. Garden mallow is maybe two-thirds gone. Song sparrows identified in the yard this week. At the post office, a young woman asked: “Are you the guy that writes the almanac?” I said I was. “I can’t read it now,” she said, “I don’t want to know all that stuff about summer leaving.”

2000: At 12:00 a.m. (EDT) at work: katydids, crickets, trilling frog calls. At 1:40 a.m. silence. At 3:00 a.m. crickets. 4:20 a.m. steady frog trilling. One small, green, tree frog (about an inch long) on the porch. Third-quarter moon high in the east. At 5:42 a.m. I heard the first cardinal. At 10:00 p.m. crickets loud. At 10:40 p.m. the katydids were singing. At 11:30, only crickets heard.

2003: Two tiger swallowtails in the north garden this morning.

2004: Cardinals steady in the early morning. At South Glen, the first ironweed has opened in the sun. Wingstem is starting to come in. A few blackberries are dark and sweet. Wild cherries are reddening, leaves yellowing on the silver olive, rusting on the buckeye. Several hickory nuts found on the path. Late summer is here for sure.

2005: When I walk Bella in the evenings, blackbirds are always flocking in the trees along Limestone Street at sundown.

2006: A cold morning, sunny and 60, heavy dew. A cardinal sang at 4:46 (EST) this morning, then was quiet. Only robin clucking sounds near dawn. No doves until 8:15. Tall coneflowers are open in the alley – their first full day. Tree of heaven seeds are red throughout the region, have been turning all month.

2007: Robin song continues strong and loud in the morning. The very first tall coneflower is open in the alley.

***

Nothing is too small, to insignificant to note in your journal. Like your life, natural history is simply a matter of detail. Some details eventually make sense. Some details never do.

Hepatica Sun

 

July 24th
The 205th Day of the Year

I often rode through the hours of evening and night along the country roads, taking pleasure in the night, in the nocturnal sounds so common to the summer evenings -- the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs, the crying of whippoorwills and killdeers, the calling of frogs, the stridulations of katydids and crickets -- and in the perfumes of the darkened countryside -- the fragrance of clover and cut hay, the pungence of mare's tails and other weeds, the cool exhalation of deep woods, and that strangely fertile musk of corn, of leaves as well as of bloom, which pervades the air in midsummer and holds to it for weeks.

August Derleth

Sunrise/set: 6:26/8:56 Day's Length: 14 hours 30 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 103 - 1934 Record Low: 50 - 1906

Weather
Today is almost always in the 80s: there is an 85 percent chance of that, and almost no chance for 70s. Heat in the 90s occurs just 15 percent of the time, the lowest incidence of such heat since June 28th. That is an indication of the residual power of the third major high pressure system which has ordinarily just passed through Ohio; it is also another minor step on the road to winter. Rainfall is typically common on the 24th: four days in ten bring a shower on this date. But the sun shines on eight or nine days out of ten.

Natural Calendar
Thistledown unravels completely. Seedpods are fully formed on the trumpet creepers. White vervain blossoms reach the end of their spikes as wingstem and purple ironweed begin their seasons. Swallows and blue-winged teal start to migrate. Ducklings and goslings are grown. Monarch and swallowtail sightings increase. Local farmers prepare for August seeding of alfalfa, smooth brome grass, orchard grass, tall fescue, red clover, and timothy.

Daybook
1982: First ironweed seen open today. Sundrops in bloom along the freeway.

1983: Some burdock blossoming on the south side of the yard.

1984: Amaranth heading now. Motherwort ends its bloom cycle in the yard. Velvetleaf flowering.

1986: Cicadas all day, crickets day and night, katydids all night.

1988: Upper Jacoby woods along the river: Following deer paths through nettle and avens gone to seed, the last fleabane, and new late-summer spider webs. Strong cicada song, through glades of young maples and box elders, with foliage floors of henbit and sorrel and moneywort and violets. Small-flowered agrimony, burned back in the drought, revives. The beans are long now on the catalpas, still green. Smell of late corn tasseling three weeks out of season. Wingstem still young, June size, mullein and white sweet clover still in bloom. Most burdock budded but not flowering yet. Garden phlox scattered throughout the woods, giant monarda still strong. Hobblebush past its prime. Pokeweed half full bloom, half full of green berries. Japanese brome is brown, decaying. Tonight, the first katydids and city crickets heard.

1989: South Glen: The river is flooding, has come up above the bank at Sycamore Hole. A few feet away, it’s the peak of wood nettle, even seeding now. First bull thistle and oxeye seen in bloom out in Middle Prairie. The ironweed is all budding. Late yarrow and dogbane still flowering. Timothy has brown heads and stem. Late fleabane holding. Black walnuts seem to be full size. A field of daisy fleabane flowering as though it were June. Tall bellflowers holding. First blackberry eaten. Early great Indian plantain found. Parsnip seeds are loose, some falling. Thin-leafed agrimony and thin-leafed coneflower budding. Full bloom St. John's wort. Some teasel done for the year. Burdock early full. Flock of gold finches seen on the way back to the car. Hundreds of feet up in the air, huge dragonflies hunt the skies like swallows, as I rock in the hammock, 7:30 p.m. A few fireflies hold on after dark. In the evening, no crickets, no katydids yet.

1991: South Glen: Swallowtails, blues, cabbage butterflies. A monarch pair mating as they fly along the path to High Prairie, perfect blending, harmony of movement in complex aerial give and take. High Prairie exotic and bright green, the rolling valley west and south, osage, ash, oak, locust random through the open fields. At the upper west brook, no damselflies, but they appear in the valley near the Little Miami. Monkey flower is open in the swamp. Goldenrod heading. One red poison ivy leaf. Long patches of fog fruit on the trail, crickets crossing in front of me. Catbird calling. Germander by the side of the path. White bindweed everywhere, old mint, old wood nettle, old avens, some sycamore leaves fallen, the last tip flower of white vervain blooming, yellow multiflora rose leaves. And the beginning of second spring: Some of the first fresh garlic mustard has just sprouted, probably after yesterday's storm (this year's mustard stalks are skeletons, like hay scattered along the way).

1992: Red phlox are in full bloom, whites just open. Sweet corn has finally arrived in the farm stands; Indiana melons have been here for a week or two. Hollyhocks way past their prime at home, but seen full other yards. Most all Asiatic lilies gone, all except the turban tiger lilies. Gay feather half done. A few dark red volunteer four o'clocks are opening. Mallow waning, yarrow full and strong, coneflowers full. Second bumble bee of the summer found resting, drunk or exhausted in the zinnias.

1993: Zinnias and cosmos still haven’t reached full bloom. Violet mums start to open in the south garden; also seen on Phillips Street. One black walnut seen in the alley. Motherwort at its last flowers. No katydids yet, cicadas weak.

1995: This morning as I drove through the Glen, a doe followed by two fawns crossed the road in front of me. I slowed; they stopped and looked at me and then continued at a leisurely pace to the fence, jumped effortlessly over, disappeared into the honeysuckle.

1999: The mornings become quieter. The early morning is the most changed since June: total silence. Then the cardinals and crows start in about a quarter to six, but they soon move away or lose interest in any sustained conversation.

2000: Along the bike path north: tattered white sweet clover, full blown tall bell flowers, aging great mullein, old wild lettuce, second growth moth mullein, leaves dark with August. A formation of geese flew over me just before dark. At work, this morning, sporadic cricket, katydid, frog calls. Tiny pale green frogs seen on the back cement patio and holding to one of the windows. The cardinal was singing when I unlocked the kitchen door at 5:40 a.m.

2002: First burdock seen blooming. First monarch butterfly seen.

2003: Fishing with John at the reservoir, high pressure building in after days of rain. No bites all day as we checked different locations, then a burst of activity around 4:00 p.m. at the dam, catfish hitting in the channel on worms and chicken livers. At home, the Turk’s cap lily has opened.

2005: Cardinals louder than usual this morning at a few minutes to six: almost like a robin chorus.

2006: Cardinal sang at 4:37 a.m. (EST). One tiger swallowtail, one black swallowtail, one red admiral (the first seen so far this year). From Madison, Wisconsin, Tat says that she has Japanese beetles in her garden for the first time ever. She blames global warming. Ironwood/Eastern Hophornbeam tree identified near the school, its cone-like fruit clusters pale green, hanging symmetrically, neatly, seeds still immature. Beeflies common now, bothered Judy as we sat on the back porch in the sun this afternoon.

2007: In the alley, rose of Sharon and chicory, a few orange day lilies, small white bindweed, large purple bindweed, goldenrod, pigweed and amaranth all about six feet tall, some burdock has bloomed, some just budding. Weed locust trees have grown tall behind one yard. Euonymus berries bigger now, maybe half the size of a BB. Robins still singing through the morning, no migration language yet.

2008: Young blue jay on the bird feeder this morning begging for food from its parents. More blue jay whining at noon time. And in the back trees, the whistling and clucking of starlings. First large beefly seen this morning. Panicled dogwood berries are fully round now in the alley. Some feverfew is still in full bloom, lilies declining at Frank’s. Lilies continue full in the yard. As I cut the grass this evening, I saw a young toad – or maybe even a frog – an inch or so long, hopping away into the hostas.

Mark the transient butterfly,
How he hangs upon the flower.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

July 25th
The 206th Day of the Year

I hear the blackbird in the corn,
The locust in the haying.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Sunrise/set: 6:27/8:56 Day's Length: 14 hours 29 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 104 - 1934 Record Low: 50 - 1906

Weather
As the third cold wave of the month moves out over the Atlantic Ocean, oppressive conditions are common on the 25th in Yellow Springs and the lower Midwest. Highs reach 90 on 45 percent of all the afternoons. Eighties take up the other 55 percent. Showers fall 35 percent of the years, but the sun shines at least eight years in ten.
The Week Ahead
After the 25th of July, a subtle change takes place in weather history statistics: the chances for a high in the 80s or 90s falls slightly from 90 percent down to 75 percent. That shift is the first measurable temperature signal that summer has begun to unravel. On the 1st of August, the percentage drops to 70 percent, then to 65 percent by the 5th.
Sunshine remains the rule for this week of the month, with three out of four days bringing at least a partial break in the clouds. Rainfall typically tapers off as July comes to a close, the chance for precipitation declining from 35 percent on the 24th down to just 20 percent on the 30th and 31st.

Natural Calendar
Tobacco topping is often begun today along the Ohio River -- guided by the first purple blossoms of tall ironweed. Blackberries are getting ripe. A few more red leaves appear on the Virginia creeper. Late summer crickets begin their mating season. At higher elevations of the Mid-Atlantic states, blueberries ripen. Along the Mississippi, the giant American lotus is in bloom.
Throughout the country, birds have begun to come together, flocking in anticipation of autumn. On the East Coast, shorebirds are beginning to move south, often stopping to rest on North Carolina’s outer banks. In the honeysuckles of Yellow Springs, adult robins teach their young migration calls.

Daybook
1983: South Glen: Green osage fruits more than half developed. Pale violet soapwort at the bend in the river, golden oxeye on the sun side of the path, white flowered wood nettle and blue tall bellflowers under the chinquapin canopy, silver Queen Anne’s lace, yellow showy coneflower at Middle Prairie, purple loosestrife where the third spring breaks through, still some pink wild petunia on the second path. Past the rainbow germander, spotted touch-me-not, fading and sprawling avens, late raggedy wood mint full, yarrow dry and brown. Tonight, the first city crickets heard.

1984: Corry Swamp: White vervain still blooms, ragweed heading, snakeroot and boneset budding. First burdock blossoms in the yard. Jimson weed found blossoming along Dayton street.

1987: I was sitting on the front porch when the sun was rising, and impatiens seed pods were popping in the front garden. It was so quiet I could hear the seeds falling to the ground.

1988: Blue jays still calling in the morning. Cardinal sings at 5:35, then silent.

1989: Grinnell Swamp: Early white snakeroot blooming, along with agrimony and enchanter’s nightshade. Hobblebush gone to seed. Jumpseed’s long thin flower stem heading. Some shiny green spicebush, boxwood, greenbrier, and poison ivy berries have formed now. Mist rising from the brook. First tall coneflower. New galium identified, galium asprellum, a late summer and fall variety. Water hemlock identified, first time. Red love vine climbing into the coneflowers, hops budding in clusters. Half of one leaf on a Virginia creeper has turned scarlet. Red-spotted purple swallowtail seen in the yard today.

1990: South Glen: Buckeyes and the high locusts losing some leaves, first major leaf drop of the year. Sycamore bark falling more heavily. Mosquitoes thickest in ten years of walking. First blackberry eaten. Cicadas sing, but weaker. Fireflies dwindling, cardinals still strong before dawn.

1993: A yellow swallowtail, a black swallowtail, and an orange fritillary in the back yard today, and a monarch in the east garden. The first white phlox opened at dawn in the south garden, by three in the afternoon in the north garden.

1995: Katydids heard down the block at about eleven o'clock tonight.

1996: Gentilly and Northfield, Minnesota: Gray woollybear caterpillars crossing the road. First commercial sunflowers are opening in the fields south of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Some Canadian thistles are still blooming 80 miles north of Minneapolis. White campion full, purple vetch, purple bergamot, early day lilies, blue vervain at mid stalk. Clovers everywhere, as though it were a yellow Springs June. First wheat harvest below St. Cloud.

1999: Some pieces of the summer seem to be accelerating with the high temperatures of the past month. Blackberries are black a little early, and ragweed has come in ahead of schedule. In our garden pond, the three-petaled flowers of the arrowhead opened overnight, ten days before they did last year. The yellow coneflowers, rudbeckia speciosa, are a week or so ahead of schedule. The August Moon hosta are almost done blooming.
The zinnias and the Shasta daisies I planted from seed are finally blossoming, bright oranges and reds joining the white phlox and the pinks of the petunias. The lilies are almost over now. July tent caterpillars hang from the apple tree. The cabbage moths cluster at the purple loosestrife, up to a dozen at once, joined by the bees and a tagalong spotted skipper. The dragonflies weave back and forth, a giant black and white skimmer, three or flour big blue-tailed skimmers, a few needle thin bluets or short-tailed damselflies too. The hummingbirds visit the rose of Sharon.
I almost killed a dark woolly bear caterpillar on the way to Xenia on the 21st. The first monarch butterfly came to the garden yesterday. The young daddy longlegs are growing up, have doubled in size over the past couple of weeks. The cricket hunters, long thin black wasps, started coming to the pond’s edge, scouting for their food that will sing this week. The resurrection lilies should be coming up in a day or so.

2000: First cardinal heard at 6:04 a.m., crows at 6:08.

2001: Monarda, mallow and lilies, all staples of early and middle July, are fading quickly. Purple loosestrife in the koi pond coming to the end of its season. First red Virginia creeper leaf has fallen to the undergrowth at South Glen. Blue cohosh berries seen. First black walnuts, full size, fell in today’s storm. First jumpseed flower along the front sidewalk. Full bloom of Resurrection lilies along Elm Street. One red admiral butterfly seen. First katydids and city crickets heard tonight.

2002: Cardinals, doves, and a few robins were singing at 5:50 a.m. when I got up. Jays came in at 6:00. Monarch seen this afternoon. First burdock flower seen.

2003: Cardinals strong at 6:00 a.m. I went fishing again with John at the Clarence Brown Reservoir. Thirteen small catfish caught in the same location between 10:15 a.m. and about 5:30 p.m., the activity following a fractal pattern of flurries of biting, then quiet, then more biting. On the way to the reservoir, we saw two monarchs flying south. While we were fishing, two more came by, heading across the water south. One tiger swallowtail seen in the garden.

2004: The robin calls have changed over the past week or so; now they have become migrating calls, insistent peeping. The weather has been atypically cool the past two days, foretaste of fall.

2005: The July heat wave continues, cicadas screaming all day. The day lilies and mallow are suddenly running out of blooms, the purple coneflowers weakening, the achillea blackening. The northwest garden takes on a scrubby appearance, spent lilies and weeds dominating. Hollyhocks have fallen over, their flowers at the top of their stalks. The pickerel plant still puts out its three-petaled blossoms in the afternoon. Joe Pye weed is bright purple, and the first butterfly bush has started to come in. The pale green Sum and Substance hosta is full, as are the bicolors along the north wall. The other midseason varieties, however, are losing their blossoms. At about 9:30 this evening along Limestone Street, I heard the first katydids of the summer. Whistling crickets were loud everywhere for the first time, too.

2007: Robins and cardinals still strong at 5:00 (EST)! Tat called last night from Madison, asking about cutting back her giant monardas, which are coming to the end of their bloom. No rain there, she said, since May, lawns all brown. Here, the latest crop report says the state’s topsoil is still short on 60 percent of the acreage.

2008: Cardinals woke me up at 5:30 (EDT) this morning. Photos taken of the north gardens, with lilies and hostas late but very colorful and dense.
Thoreau on this date in 1860 notes a few last cranberries in bloom, “though berries are 1/2 grown.”

July 26th
The 207th Day of the Year

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun,
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer....

William Shakespeare

Sunrise/set: 6:28/8:55 Day's Length: 14 hours 27 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 101 - 1901 Record Low: 50 - 1911

Weather
Chances for highs in the 90s fall from yesterday’s 45 percent down to 30 percent, and 80s occur 60 percent of the time, with 70s ten percent. Rainfall on this date is moderate: storms pass through one day in three. Sunshine is common: 85 percent of the days bring clear to partly cloudy skies.

Natural Calendar
In an average year, the first of the field corn is in dough, and almost every ear is silking. The soybeans are setting pods, the wheat is in, and soil is being prepared for the sowing of next year’s crop. The oats and the second wave of alfalfa are more than half cut, summer apples are more than a third picked, blueberries almost all gathered. The dry onion harvest starts, and the melon harvest is in full swing.

Daybook
1981: Most fireflies gone now.

1983: The first few crickets heard last night.

1984: Jacoby: Round-headed bush clover found just beginning its season. White snakeroot opening. Buckeye fruit an inch in diameter. Yellowing buckeye leaves and the gray garlic mustard give a taste of fall to the woods. First agrimony identified, a last moneywort seen, water hemlock full bloom.

1985: First woolly bear caterpillar seen today.

1986: Blue dayflowers opened today.

1987: Blue dayflowers opened along the north wall. Tonight at South Glen: After weeks without a walk, I found smooth brome and timothy glowing white in the moonlight, the first ironweeds in flower, plain as day, osage fruits full size, a mother duck and half grown duckling on the dark river, two great blue herons in the sycamores above me.

1989: Doves still call in the morning.

1990: South Glen: Buckeyes and a few high locusts losing some leaves, the first leafdrop of the summer. Germander late full. Wood nettle, tall bellflower, soapwort, and oxeye are in full bloom. The first wingstem has flowered. Ironweed has pale buds. Some wood mint holds. Sycamore bark falling heavily. In the yard, coneflowers are still in full bloom. Gallardia holds, yellow garden yarrow and purple mallow straggly. One tiger lily plant still has flowers, all the others gone. First ripe blackberry seen. Wild cherries darkening to a deeper green.

1993: This morning, a few yellow leaves were falling from one black walnut tree in the alley. Only a few fireflies tonight.

1995: I come back slowly to the season, having been pulled away by one thing or another. Merrill Gilfillan says that when you miss a piece of the year, you feel the emptiness; I feel that way now, disconnected and lost. This late in July, the Asiatic and day lilies are almost gone. The Resurrection lilies we planted in early June haven't come up -- maybe they will next year? The hosta is bedraggled, the flowers at the end of their stalks. The white phlox have started to come in, but most of the plants are covered with powdery mildew. With no zinnias or cosmos this year, the coneflowers are keeping the south garden alive, gold, white, and purple. A few violet mallow are still open. Lemon verbena is in full bloom.

1996: Northfield, Minnesota: Having driven seven hundred miles northwest from Yellow Springs, I find I have stayed home. The several dozen species of wildflowers, grasses and trees that I found today are virtually identical with those in the Glen and in Yellow Springs, and they are even close to the same stage of development. Only the yellow sweet clover, the newer milkweed, and the lighter shade of the sumac flowers tell me I have traveled back a few weeks in time by coming here.
This list from a short walk on the St. Olaf campus: tall cinquefoil (old), white yarrow, white sweet clover, salsify, orchard grass, swamp willow in bloom, reddening sumac leaves , daisy fleabane, tall germander, sundrops, goldenrod heading – many with huge galls, blood red patches on the Virginia creeper, lopseed all gone to seed, avens to seed, goosefoot, white campion, ragweed heading, Canadian thistles, rye grass, catnip, shepherd's purse, common plantain, dandelion, wild strawberry, black medic, sorrel, dock, yellow sweet clover, wild grape, wild lettuce, great ragweed, milkweed, brome grass, wild cucumber, honeysuckle with red berries, barberry with red berries, red clover, white clover, motherwort, wild raspberry, thimble plants with thimbles set; trees included box elder, spruce, oaks, cottonwoods, locusts, sumac in full bloom.

2000: At the Cincinnati botanical gardens, Joe Pye weed, phlox and coneflowers in full bloom. Oak leaf hydrangea is past its best, but in Yellow Springs it’s still in flower. Tonight after 11:00, the frogs, katydids and crickets were loud and wild. Two hours later, they were all quiet.

2001: Cardinal at 5:56 a.m. No robin chorus, only crickets: late summer for sure.

2002: Turk’s cap lilies are open now on Limestone Street. Yellow Heliopsis and white gooseneck hold in the north garden. In the south garden: phlox, rudbeckia, Queen Anne’s lace in full bloom. Blue-tailed dragonflies now common at the pond. Bee flies mating on the siding of the house. Whistling crickets strong tonight.

2003: A tiger swallowtail in the yard around 7:45 this morning. Arrowhead noticed blooming in the pond. The day lilies, more developed than previous years, continue to provide waning color to the north garden. Now the showy coneflowers are reaching early full bloom. The butterfly bush offers purple and magenta to the background. The white phlox are just staring to open. Zinnias fill in with reds and oranges and violet.

2004: Greg called this evening. He saw the first monarch butterfly of the summer at Stutzman’s nursery this afternoon. He also saw two giant swallowtails.

2005: Cardinals singing when I listened out the back door at 4:40 a.m. (EST), continued strong past 6:00. No robins, but a new bird call heard, four slow descending notes. Only 20 varieties of lilies blooming this morning, and only the large yellow day lilies had a sizeable number of blossoms.

2006: Cardinals sang from 4:39 a.m. until daylight, then they grew quiet. And then robins started clucking for a while. Seventeen different lilies blooming today, down from maybe three dozen at the mid-July peak. Now Joe Pye Weed is full of color, and all the tall coneflowers in the alley are open. The black-eyed Susans and the white phlox in the yard are all in bloom, mallow and Heliopsis holding. One monarch butterfly and one black swallowtail seen after lunch. Hummingbird came to the rose of Sharon around 8:00 a.m. Several black walnuts have fallen near the corner of Limestone Street, but the walnut trees in the park hold their mature fruit. I checked the ironwood tree, and some of its seed clusters have started to turn brown. No katydids or crickets heard this evening even though I sat out listening until about 10:00.

2007: Two blue jays at the feeder this afternoon with their two fledglings. Milkweed pods about half size and Resurrection lilies in bloom near Limestone Street. Lilies fading very quickly. A few Japanese honeysuckle continue to bloom along the forsythia hedge.

2008: On this date in 1860, Thoreau noted “very great flocks of young red-wing black birds.”

July 27th
The 208th Day of the Year

If we see Nature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as progressing, she is beautiful.

Henry David Thoreau

Sunrise/set: 6:29/8:54 Day's Length: 14 hours 25 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/65 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 104 - 1901 Record Low: 47 - 1911

Weather
Today is one of only four July days on which there is only a 20 percent chance of a high above 90 degrees. Temperatures in the 80s can be expected 65 percent of the time. Seventies come on just 15 percent of the afternoons. Rainfall often continues to lighten as the month comes to a close; a typical July 27th has a 30 percent chance for precipitation, 30 percent chance for completely cloudy skies.

Natural Calendar
Soft violet resurrection lilies begin their season as most other garden lilies disappear. White snakeroot, Joe Pye weed, blue dayflowers, and tall coneflowers signal the approach of August.

Daybook
1981: Crickets heard in town tonight for the first time.

1982: Day lilies almost all gone. First fall crickets sang tonight.

1985: Day lilies about done for the year.

1987: Cardinal wakes me up at 4:55 (EST). Katydids begin to call about half an hour past sundown.

1988: Birds still loud in the morning, cardinal wakes me up, crows moving through the neighborhood, blackbirds and starlings in the locusts.

1989: Cardinal woke me up at 4:55 -- the same minute as this date in 1987. Caesar's Creek: American lotus is full bloom. First arrowhead in flower, and mad dog skullcap, scutellaria lateriflora, full bloom on a log. Day lilies are almost gone.

1993: First city crickets, first katydids full force tonight. I heard the first “katy” this morning at around 3:00 outside my window. Then as I walked the dog before bed, there was no hesitation: full-fledged katydids up and down the block.

1997: The first morning for the four new koi in our pond; they are shy, hiding among the rocks, skittish at the slightest sound or movement. In the south garden, I found two resurrection lilies coming up, the tallest maybe eighteen inches, the second half as big. A sultry heavy day, starting out at almost 80 degrees. In the north garden, the Mexican sunflowers began to flower last week; this morning there are four of their bright orange blossoms. The cicadas were calling by 8:00 a.m. (EST). I felt immersed in middle summer, safe in foliage and sun.

2000: The very last of the day lilies today in the north garden. Only tiger Turk’s cap Oriental lilies are left; in the village, Resurrection lilies continue at full bloom. And phlox and all the coneflowers. This morning from 5:00 (EST), plenty of cardinals, a few crows and doves. Japanese beetles return with hot humid weather, decimate the few blooming roses. The beetles’ behavior seems linked to the level of humidity and heat in the middle 80s.

2001: Cardinal at 4:41 (EST) this morning, and again at 4:50, then silence. No chorus of robins. Screech owl at 5:00, an eerie autumnal sound.. Then increase of cardinals, then squirrels.

2002: Only a handful of lilies left. They have a one-month season starting about the third week of June, peaking near the 4th of July, ending in the last week of July. First arrowhead flower in the pond.

2003: Warm and overcast, barometer dropping: no birdsong at 4:15 (EST) or 4:45. Only a distant robin clucking and a faint cardinal at 5:00. Two tiger swallowtails in the garden again by 8:00.

2006: The weather has been hot, and it has been raining since yesterday evening. Walking Bella about 9:30 tonight, I heard katydids strong all around me for the first time this summer. The first whistling crickets and the first chanting crickets were calling, too.

2007: Blue jay parents and their babies continue to come to the bird feeder. One baby seen fluttering its wings, begging. The first two giant red hibiscus opened at the north end of the porch this morning. What I thought were berries on the euonymus are actually flower buds; they have just started to bloom.

July 28th
The 209th Day of the Year

The cricket to the frog's bassoon
His shrillest time is keeping,
The sickle of yon setting moon
The meadow mist is reaping.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Sunrise/set: 5:36/7:51 Day's Length: 14 hours 36 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 102 - 1901 Record Low: 51 - 1911

Weather
Although the fourth high-pressure system of the month often comes through Ohio in the last days of July, temperatures and precipitation patterns usually remain unaffected by it on the 28th. Thirty percent of the afternoons reach a high of 90 degrees, and 60 percent climb to the 80s, leaving only ten percent for 70s. Rainfall is similar to that recorded on the 28th: one day in three brings a shower. One day in three is overcast.

Natural Calendar
Now the Big Dipper is moving into the far northwest by 10:00 p.m., and will lie along the northern horizon after midnight. June’s planting star, Arcturus, has shifted deep into the western sky a few hours after sundown, and Pegasus, outrider of September, fills the east. Average low temperatures drop one degree today for the first time since January, one of many statistical movements of the thermometer towards winter.

Daybook
1982: Swinging Bridge habitat: First white snakeroot seen. Joe Pye flowering, and pale touch-me-nots full, tall coneflower full, jumpseed pods developing.

1984: Second crop of raspberries begins today: one pint.

1986: White boneset heading up now, promising August.

1988: Doves still call.

1993: Purple teasel pretty well done, but the white teasel is still in full bloom in Kettering. First violet resurrection lilies, three or four open, seen down the alley between High and Stafford Streets. Village day lilies are almost gone. Asiatic lilies in the yard are down to their last few flowers. Gay feather is tattered. The Judas maple in Byron has begun to turn red. A few brown sycamore leaves seen near Dayton. Going north to Springfield, I passed through a shower of black walnut leaves.

1996: Northfield, Minnesota south to Yellow Springs: Parsnips mostly to seed in the North. Purple loosestrife throughout the trip. In Wisconsin, I found knapweed, milkweed, sweet clover, trefoil, mullein, Queen Anne’s lace, chicory, bergamot and sundrops, the landscape lush and bright.

1999: When I get up before five these mornings, I sit by my window, and I feel the fall moving down onto Yellow Springs. Outside, there is no wind; the yard is quiet. The early summer chorus of birds has almost ended. Only a cardinal and a bullfrog sing off and on. Sometimes the jays are nervous and whine in the trees. Sometimes I hear crows across town. It’s too early in the day for cicadas and bees. The katydids stopped calling in the middle of the night. The August crickets are still growing up; they won’t chant for a few days.
I have often tried to list the births and deaths of plants, insects and animals that define the shift to autumn. But I have never looked closely enough, have not watched and listened and thought carefully enough, and so the emotions of late summer come on quickly and hard, and I listen in the stillness, trying to understand what has happened, wishing I had watched more closely, thinking maybe if I really understood the process better, then I wouldn’t feel so bereft at the end.

2003: A decided shift in the mood of the summer has been taking place all week. Yesterday, yellow leaves were coming down in the wind and rain. This morning is so quiet, no birds.

2004: Euonymus has just started to bloom in the alley between High and Stafford Streets. Katydids sang at 9:10 tonight.

2005: To the Covered Bridge before my surgery tomorrow: First wingstem open in the field. Wood nettle still strong. Cicadas wax and wane. One crow, a wren, two kingfishers, a cardinal. Sweet rocket seedpods are yellowing, some ready for harvest. Two mud turtles sunning. A few yellow touch-me-nots in bloom. The river low and quiet. Late germander. Honewort common with seed pods. Small jumpseed flower found.

2007: The lilies are almost all gone, down to eight different plants, each with one to half a dozen blossoms. Heliopsis, mallow, purple coneflowers, green-eyed Susans, other yellow coneflowers, some perennial speedwell and salvia, full purple Joe Pye above the late violet monarda, white and purple phlox, high rose of Sharon. and Queen Anne’s lace keep the perennial beds full of color. One resurrection lily has pushed up and is budded under the Korean lilac. At 5:00 a.m. (EST), robins and cardinals were in full song. The air was humid; high fog covered the valley.

July 29th
The 210th Day of the Year

There, through the long, long, summer hours
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.

William Cullen Bryant

Sunrise/set: 6:30/8:52 Day's Length: 14 hours 22 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 100 - 1901 Record Low: 51 - 1969

Weather
Highs reach into the 90s fifteen percent of the time on this date; 80s occur 65 percent, 70s twenty percent. Only one day in 15 is completely overcast, but thunderstorms come through one day in three. One night in three brings lows in the 50s; two out of three are in the 60s.

Natural Calendar
Ragweed heads up for August as honewort and wood nettle, mallow, and tall meadow rue go to seed. Early cottonwoods are weathering. Patches of yellow appear on the weaker ash trees. Black walnut leaves start to fall.

Daybook
1982: Ironweed open at South Glen.

1984: At the Mill: First wingstem open. Only a few lizard’s tail flowers are left. Pointed-leafed tick trefoil identified. Ironweed almost blooming.

1985: Covered Bridge, 3:00 p.m., 90 degrees: Yellow aphids in the milkweed, gray aphids on the wingstem throughout the walk. Buckeyes up to two inches in diameter and prickly, some of the foliage turning. Some ragweed heading. Lizard’s tail gone to green and brown seeds now. Tall bell flowers are aging. Jumpseed and Joe Pye weed are in early full bloom. Wingstem, showy coneflower, oxeye, ironweed full. Honewort has seed pods. A few tall coneflowers seen. Many wood nettle plants going to seed. Tall meadow rue has seeded; its leaves are turning pink and violet and cream, like sweet Cicely leaves in late spring.

1986: Jumpseed ready to flower. Tall coneflowers seen in full bloom across from Sycamore Hole.

1989: First city crickets sang tonight. First katydids started full force after dark.

1992: Mallow almost gone. Sycamore bark blown onto the street in a thunderstorm. Coming back from downtown, 8:45 p.m., I saw dozens of bats flying out from under the roof of St. Paul's church.

1993: Katydid found under the dining room table, must have gotten in last night. He was clumsy, and I caught him easily. At school today, a few yellow branches on the ash outside my window, maybe a dozen clusters of autumn. Scattered cottonwoods turning in the Massey Creek valley.

1996: Home from Gentily and St. Olaf's in Minnesota, two thousand miles in a week. Here, the mallow is almost done for the year, its pods opening in the humid afternoon, seeds ready to fall to the ground in a storm.

1997: The mallow the same as last year.

1999: The other morning, I got up early about four o’clock, and I stood listening to the katydids. When I tried to hold on to a single katy sound, it would recede from me so quickly, I’d lose it in the other sounds, mix it all up with them like I do when I try to watch one wave cross Caesar Creek and lose it in the flow of the other waves.
Then I let myself be carried off with the katys, like a leaf in the current of their rhythm, downstream away into fall. Then I pulled myself back to stand at the bank of the syncopated chatter, listening to their calls go into the dark morning without me, over and over, the rough particles of time passing through and then beyond my consciousness.

2000: At the arboretum in Dayton, coneflowers everywhere, and clumps of giant red perennial hibiscus. In the ponds, arrowhead and large water plantain are in bloom. At home, the Heliopsis shows some signs of decline just as all the showy coneflowers have opened. White phlox still in its prime.

2003: The first blackberry found at South Glen this noon, most of the berries still red, but a few dark and sweet. Along the sidewalk in front of the house, the first jumpseed is getting white buds (the ones further down the block have already bloomed). Tonight at about 9:45, I heard more city crickets and the first katydid.

2004: I saw the first monarch in the yard this afternoon, sharing the zinnias with a bright green hummingbird.

2005: Cardinals very late this morning, did not sing until about five to six (EDT). No doves at that time. Total silence at 5:30 and 5:45 a.m.

2007: To the Cox Arboretum: no signs of early fall, all the gardens full and rich. Monarchs almost swarming in the butterfly house there.

In her suit of green arrayed,
Hear her singing in the shade -
Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did!

Philip Freneau

July 30th
The 211th Day of the Year

Waiting, watching,
what more than this perfection:
white cabbage moths.

Hepatica Sun

Sunrise/set: 6:31/8:51 Day's Length: 14 hours 20 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 99 - 1913 Record Low: 50 - 1981

Weather
Today is hot, sunny, and dry eight years in ten. Temperatures rise to 90 or above 30 percent of the years, are in the 80s fifty-five percent, stay in the 70s just 15 percent. Rain occurs only once or twice in a decade. Only 15 percent of the nights are in the cool 50s.

Natural Calendar
Early pods of the touch-me-not burst at the slightest movement. Dogbane pods swing in the wind. Meadowlarks begin migration. Late-summer fogs appear at dawn. Grapes and pokeweed berries darken.

Daybook
1983: Jacoby: Wood mint, avens, leafcup, Joe Pye weed, lopseed, tall bell flower, agrimony, touch-me-not, teasel, chicory, daisy fleabane, germander, bindweed, late dock and pokeweed, tall coneflower, oxeye, dogbane, black-eyed-Susan, heal-all, white sweet clover, red clover, wild lettuce, thimbleweed, Queen Anne’s lace, milkweed, wingstem, tall nettle, thin-leafed coneflower all in bloom. Skunk cabbage is brown, beans hanging from the dogbane, large clusters of flat seed pods on the common hoptree, milkweed beetles still mating, pokeweed berries and wild grapes are violet in the silky clusters of thistle down, one blackberry eaten, a few black walnuts fallen, a young robin hopping along in front of me.

1984: Geese flew over this evening, the first flight of late summer.

1985: Covered Bridge: Yellow aphids in the milkweed. Gray aphids on the wingstem. Cicadas still strong. Tall bells aging. Buckeye leaves turning brown.

1987: Fog this morning, patchy from Corry Street the full eight miles to Wilberforce. When I went south to Kettering in the afternoon, white boneset was blooming along the freeway. At South Glen, some buckeyes fallen to the path.

1988: Doves still calling, cardinal singing before sunrise.

1989: Caesar’s Creek: Flowering rush (butomus umbellatus), water willow, monkey flower, arrowhead, lizard's tail, and swamp milkweed in full bloom.

1990: Crickets seem to be getting closer but are still faint when I stand listening at the back door. No katydids yet. Lilies fading quickly now. White carpetweed, morrugo verticillata, identified blooming in the garlic patch. Common and giant ragweed heading throughout the area now. At Jacoby Swamp, full late summer: golden wingstem, oxeye, helianthus, bright purple ironweed, the screaming insects, restless robins and crows, the cardinals and doves still calling.

1993: A strong cool front moved in yesterday. Today the sky is bright blue, clear, dappled with disheveled low cumulus moving steadily from the northwest, the sun so strong, all the flowers glowing, the deepest tones to the coneflowers and the zinnias. Sitting behind the south windows near the bird feeders, l watch finches, chickadees, tufted titmice in a steady, measured sparring, jostling, feeding, preening, waiting.

1996: I am settling into Yellow Springs again, my mind coming back to my body, which returned from Minnesota a couple of days ago. I left here at the end of middle summer, came back into late summer. The hostas are tattered, and the maple leaves are darker. The air is heavier, the birds so quiet. I can't enumerate everything that has happened to make it so, but the season has changed. This morning, I took Fergus out at six o'clock. As I stood at the west side of the house, I saw dozens of pale moths spinning in the air, just born maybe, testing their wings.

1997: The same weather as on this date in 1993: cool in the 70s and the sky pure and clear. Late day lilies are still strong. Phlox is in full bloom throughout town (although disease has taken over ours). The first resurrection lily is about to open in the south garden. Most of the mallow is done; all the zinnias are coming in now, all of the showy coneflowers. Garden tomatoes have started to ripen. The second generation of roses started maybe four or five days ago. Three monarch butterflies seen in the past four days. At the pond, Jean saw green darners laying eggs and mating. No katydids yet. Dragonfly naiad found today, almost invisible among the stones, large pale brown, walking slowly across the floor of the pond; it must have emerged from an egg laid only weeks ago - the pond barely filled on the fourth of July.

1999: The heat wave continues, today the 20th of this summer’s days above 90 degrees. Throughout the Northeast, down into the Carolinas, crippling drought. The bullfrog still calls in the pond.

2000: Cardinal at 5:34 a.m., then a few katydids, then quiet until dawn. Touring water gardens in the suburbs, we found coneflowers - purple and yellow, obedient plant, giant red hibiscus, late season hostas, butterfly bush, some late yellow day lilies, very late hollyhocks, Joe Pye weed and phlox. The first ironweed is blooming by the roadsides and at home.

2001: No birdsong at 4:30 a.m. (EST). Cardinal at about 4:45. A screech owl cried out as the sky lightened around 5:00. A blue jay’s bell call half an hour later.

2002: First ironweed opens in the North Glen. Very last purple loosestrife in the pond.

2003: The yard quiet at 4:45 (EST) this morning. By about seven minutes to five, the cardinals were singing down the block.

2004: To Jacoby for the first time in a year or so: All of the paths are overgrown now, and Bella and I followed deer trails, lost our way, finally ended up at the swamp and made our way back through the brambles to the road. Bella’s ears and my pants were covered with what looked like tick-trefoil burs. The undergrowth was decaying everywhere, but a buttonbush (cephalanthus occidentalis) was in bloom, some of the flowers already past their best; it probably blossomed first several weeks ago.

2005: Cicadas strong in the cool morning: sun, clear, high barometer. Squirrel chatters in the mulberry. Elephant ears flop in the gentle breeze. Wren comes by at 6:45 (EDT). Dozens of cabbage moths, a few skippers and blues, a tiger swallowtail, a spicebush swallowtail, a monarch. A humming bird vies with a monarch in the coreopsis and helianthus. Slow flutter of yellow leaves to the ground, one caught on a spider web spins in the wind. Robin clucking.

2006: Record heat wave baking the Plains and Midwest. High humidity and 90s here. Swallowtails and monarchs becoming common in the yard. Cicadas strong in the back trees from early morning until dark. At night, katydids and crickets as loud as I’ve ever heard them.

2007: Violet hosta flowers on bi-color leafed plants continue to add substantial color to the north garden. In the southeast corner garden near the pond, the August Moon hosta is stretching out its fat buds. Rose of Sharon blossoms are in full bloom, providing broad areas of violet and pink and white to the edges of the property. Tiger swallowtails, spicebush swallowtails and monarch seen every day now.

July 31st
The 212th Day of the Year

Our seasons have no fixed returns,
Without our will they come and go;
At noon our sudden summer burns,
Ere sunset all is snow.

James Russell Lowell

Sunrise/set: 6:32/8:50 Day's Length: 14 hours 18 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64 Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 98 - 1887 Record Low: 52 - 1895

Weather
Odds are good for a day just like yesterday: 30 percent chance for an afternoon in the 90s, fifty-five percent chance for one in the 80s, fifteen percent chance for 70s. Rain falls just two years in ten.

Natural Calendar
From the Mississippi to New England, the summer’s second-last wave of wildflowers – the biennial gaura, Joe Pye weed, monkey flower, tall coneflower, clearweed, horseweed, white snakeroot, jumpseed, prickly mallow, willow herb, white boneset, field thistle and Japanese knotweed – are blooming in the open fields and along the fence rows.

Daybook
1984: Geese fly over Yellow Springs 5:04 p.m. The maple tree behind Lil's house has started to turn, patches of orange and yellow. The fragility of summer is so clear.

1986: Downey false foxglove found past Mill Dam. Water horehound full bloom. Agrimony late, bell flower and lopseed worn. A few Virginia creeper leaves red at the bend of the river. Joe Pye weed just beginning to bloom, more fog fruit seen, white vervain and lizard's tail are gone, blue vervain on its final flowers. Violet resurrection lilies are blossoming throughout the village. Fireflies have dwindled to maybe a fourth of their June peak.

1987: Heavy August fog in the morning from Grinnell to Wilberforce, and I feel a deep excitement, restlessness, the old message that fall is coming.

1988: Doves and crows still call every morning, but no cardinal heard today. Wild lettuce opening about nine in the morning, facing the sun, closes at noon.

1989: Quiet foggy morning, no cardinals or sparrows. Only doves calling.

1990: Cardinal burst into song this morning at 4:55 (EST).

1991: To Hocking Hills, southeastern Ohio: Cardinal flower discovered in early bloom along the river. Knapweed found, either centarea nigra or centaurea jacea. Joe Pye weed common throughout the hill country, and goldenrod in early bloom along the roadsides (a shorter and earlier variety than here in Yellow Springs).

1992: Geese flew over 7:41 p.m.

1993: South Glen: The path is lush up to the Butterfly Preserve, wingstem and ironweed just starting to open. Blackberries are coming in. Oxeye full bloom.

1997: My journal records the beginning of autumn excitement; does that also signal a hormonal rise, the start of the fall surge of energy?

1999: By now, the arrowhead is in full bloom. It opened a week to ten days ago. All the yarrow is brown, and even the tall yellow achillea is turning. Every coneflower is open, and all the Shasta daisies. Zinnias are in full bloom (seeds planted the first week of June). Purple loosestrife is fading. Only a few petals left on the liatris. The white phlox hold with the golden heliopsis and the showy cones, and the pink petunias hang among them. So the south garden keeps its color while the north garden follows the lilies, which are gone except for the Turk’s cap and a few day lilies. The gooseneck paces the achillea. The obedient plant still has flowers, shy and hidden. Our butterfly bush was gone in early July, even though I’ve seen them in town full through the whole summer. Tonight, katydids were everywhere. Still a light chorus of birds this morning, and a few crickets.

2000: Overcast skies. Cardinal sings at 5:42 a.m.

2001: Monarchs in the garden every day for the past week or so, their momentum building. Tall yellow yarrow has started to brown along the south wall. Arrowhead not even budded in the pond.

2003: Four tiger swallowtails seen in the garden yesterday, but no monarchs have come through the yard so far this July. One possible sighting on the road west two days ago, but that is all since watching them on the reservoir on the 26th. This morning, cardinals were singing by 5:00 (EST). Along the north wall, the star-gazer lily holds, and the Turk’s cap, but the other Asiatics and Orientals are long gone. Day lilies are disappearing quickly, down to maybe 20 percent of their early July peak. Sum and Substance hosta still in bloom, but the midseason hostas are done and becoming tattered. All the white petals have turned to green seeds on the lizard’s tail.

2005: First faint cardinals at 4:47 a.m. (EST), the ones closer to the yard joined in by 5:00. Doves heard an hour later, but they were not singing when the cardinals began.

2006: First cardinal around 5:00 (EST). Doves are no longer singing regularly in the morning. Berries on the climbing bittersweet are still smooth and green. Saw four monarchs today, two in the yard, two crossing Dayton-Yellow Springs Road. Two more swallowtails also. Thirteen day lily plants blooming, but most of them had only a couple of final blossoms.

2007: Both cardinals and robins strong at 5:00 a.m. (EST). I listened for doves, but none heard. Crows came in close to 7:00, as they have throughout the summer. In the alley, the first great ragweed has yellow pollen when I stroke the heads with my fingers. The euonymus vine is in full bloom along the old shed. All but half a dozen lilies have completed flowering, the last lily in the front east garden was done yesterday. At the north side of the patio, seven giant red hibiscus blossoms were open, on the south side two pale pinks. The first dahlia finally bloomed, purple. Mother sparrow feeding her baby in the redbud.