June 16th
The 167th Day of the Year

Like the seasons, which are measurable in the minutiae of the changes that take place from day to day, our spirits, our selves, are made visible and given form in our observations of and our interactions with where we are.

Bradford Townsend

Sunrise/set: 5:06/8:06 Day's Length: 15 hours
Average Hi/Lo: 82/61 Average Temperature: 71
Record High: 96 - 1897 Record Low: 42 - 1908

Weather
Today is clear to partly sunny 90 percent of the time, with rain arriving only one day out of four. Today is also the first day of a three-day period on which relatively little precipitation occurs. Highs are typically in the middle 80s (65 percent chance), with hot 90s occurring 15 percent of the years, 70s fifteen percent, and cold 60s just five percent. After today, chances for a high below 70 drop to less than five percent (except for three scattered days in July and August) until the first week of September.

Natural Calendar
On the farm, today is an early date for starting the second cut of alfalfa around Yellow Springs. Commercial broccoli and squash harvests are underway throughout Ohio. Six to eight leaves have usually emerged on the field corn. Tobacco is 75 percent transplanted along the Ohio River. Strawberries are about half harvested here, but that season is just beginning along the Canadian border. Cherry picking is in full swing throughout the state. Wheat and oats are almost ready for harvest, and the Dog Days are just around the corner.

Daybook
1980: Some cherries red enough for pie. Raspberries turning now.

1982: Yucca stems tall, buds large. Chicory ready to open.

1983: Catalpas full bloom along Fairfield Pike and the north
highway. Japanese honeysuckle noticed in bloom.

1984: Mock orange completely gone. Yuccas open in Cincinnati, catalpas done there. No chicory blooming in Yellow Springs, gradually comes into bloom about 30 miles south of here.

1986: Some Canadian thistles going to seed, an occasional
burdock ready to flower. First web worms noticed in a crab apple.
First scarlet pimpernel found.

1987: Canadian and nodding thistles starting to seed.

1988: On the road east and then south, miles of blue chicory along I-70. Milkweed, only budding in Yellow Springs, was open on the other side of Indianapolis. Great mullein coming in south towards the Illinois border. Butterfly weed full bloom in southern Illinois. All thistles gone to seed below St. Louis. First blackberries were starting to turn in southern Illinois, red in northern Georgia. Elderberries, in flower all across the Midwest, were setting fruit near Atlanta. Wild lettuce was in bloom from there all the way to Florida. Horseweed open in Jacksonville, cattails completely developed.

1990: Red monarda seen in bloom throughout town.

1993: First pale-leafed hosta open on Stafford Street. Hawthorn
blossoms deteriorate all at once. First carnation blooms. Yellow
tiger swallowtails visiting the bright sweet Williams.

1995: From Salina, Kansas to Rawlins, Wyoming: The flat high
prairie continues as we climb from 1,000 to 5,000 feet into Denver. The Midwestern flora gives way to sagebrush and yucca.
Yucca is blooming in Salina as well as in Denver (like in Yellow Springs now). But a patch of dandelions found at a rest stop near Denver: the first sign so far of seasonal regression (two months!) due to altitude.

1996: First bright orange lychnis opened in the south garden this afternoon. Cherries ripening on the dying cherry tree (its leaves yellowing and thinning now). Black raspberries still hard and green.

1998: The garden chard has fully developed now as the last of the spring lettuce is used up. Twelve feet of it is giving us two or three times what we can use. Yucca is blooming now. Foxglove flowers end. First magenta fringed loosestrife opens. Asiatic lilies starting. Pink hollyhocks opening.

1999: Maine: Lupines getting old here and there. Privet budding in Bar Harbor.

2001: Blue Asiatic dayflowers open this morning at Susi’s. First black raspberry ripe in the garden. First heliopsis opened. Purple veronica coming in. Full bloom of tea roses, yucca, primrose, water willow, yellow day lily, pink achillea, late lamb’s ear, violet Asiatic lilies.

2003: First hollyhock, pale pink, opened today. Yucca stalks tall but not open yet. The dusky blue peach-leaved bellflowers have ended their season at the same time that the sweet Williams are quickly seeding.

2004: The month-long wet spell continues, showers almost every day or night. First Japanese beetles found on the ferns. First rust noticed on the ferns along the north wall. As I walked down High Street with Bella, a small, green osage fruit, maybe two inches in diameter, fell from a tree onto the sidewalk and broke in half.

2005: Jean got the first chigger bites of the year today, about five days later than the earliest years.

2007: A few black raspberries seen in the far alleyway.

2008: From Yellow Springs to Santee-Cooper Reservoir, South Carolina: Thistles and hemlock seeding near Lexington. Mimosa trees flowering from middle Kentucky all the way to Santee, thick as redbuds in April along I-26 in some places. A few last large-flowered magnolias in Carolina, full white crepe myrtles in full bloom at a rest stop below Columbia, full rose of Sharon throughout. Wheat cut at Santee roadside grasses turned like the wheat south of the mountains, corn crop shriveled in the reservoir area, peach trees on sale and hanging from the trees, mocking bird singing through the day.

June 17th
The 168th Day of the Year

Trompin' home acrost the fields: Lightnin'-bugs a blinkin’
In the wheat like sparks o'things a feller keeps a think-in.

James Whitcomb Riley

Sunrise/set: 6:06/9:06 Day's Length: 15 hours
Average Hi/Lo: 82/61 Average Temperature: 72
Record High: 96 - 1936 Record Low: 43 - 1899

Weather
This is generally a mild day with a decent chance for a high
in the cool 70s, the second greatest chance(50 percent) all month. Eighties come 40 percent of the time, 90s ten percent. Rain falls just one year in five on this date, and the sun appears nine years in a decade.

Natural Calendar
Now mulberries fill the last days of early summer, plump and sweet. It's high noon of the year, the opening of black raspberry season, goose molting season, the commencement of corn borer season, the center of timothy season, the end of asparagus and rhubarb season, the first of sweet-corn-tassel season.

Daybook
1982: First red berries noticed on the honeysuckle.

1983: First queen Anne's lace seen on Dayton Street. Strawberries
come in steadily. First black raspberry.

1984: Panicled dogwood blooms on King Street. A few last bleeding hearts remain. First small dish of black raspberries. First sow thistle blooming. Purple cow vetch open now.

1986: Mullein and pokeweed bloomed today in the yard. First yucca opened in the village. A question mark butterfly, wings stretched out to the sun, sat on the garden wall. There are two or three generations of that species born each summer; this is one of the first. At Jacoby, the first leafcup opened, first dogbane and black-eyed Susan seen. Deptford pink found. Enchanter's nightshade was budding. The great skunk cabbage, so lush and heavy a month ago, was weathered, eaten by insects. Watercress sprawling, pale, in the pools. Old yellow garlic mustard colored the woods floor. Avens full bloom in the sun.

1989: Catalpas still keep their flowers. Chicory open in places. Only one or two fireflies. Blueweed and feverfew noticed in full bloom.

1990: The last of the strawberry crop.

1991: Caesar Creek: Today a blue butterfly followed me, sat on my hand, two small orange spots on its exterior wings, one orange spot on the inner edge. Only a few of the red periodic cicadas were left. I saved one from the water about 2:30. Large pink wild roses were in full bloom at my fishing hole.

1992: First black raspberry and last strawberry eaten. The front
garden changing, astilbe has its color now. The blue veronicas are coming in, the purple coneflower three feet tall and budding. In the south garden, the coreopsis are all open, solid gold, the red-orange lychnis full beside them, mallow tall and budding, balloon flowers, zinnias, and gay feathers budding. First cosmos opened completely. First lilies opening along the north hedge. In the village, catalpas still hold.

1993: All strawberries gone, first black raspberry reddening.

1995: Rawlins, Wyoming north to Yellowstone Park in the northwest corner of Wyoming: Lilacs and iris seen blooming at 6,100 feet in Lander. Fields of dandelions appeared between 7,000 and 7,600 feet, the higher the elevation, the better the April Yellow Springs bloom. Blue upland larkspur common at 7,000 feet and above. At a rest stop, 7,800 feet, heartleaf arnica found, like a yellow bloodroot. Small-flowered buttercup here too, and my first scarlet globe mallow. Wild strawberries blooming at the lodge in Yellowstone. All around the park, huge yellow sunflower-like flowers on a short plant with big leaves: mule's ear wyethia.

1998: Astilbe suddenly gone. Flickers and blue jays calling. Cardinals and doves still sing before dawn. I am getting up too late to check the morning robin chorus.

1999: Asticou Gardens, Maine: Azaleas lingering, rhododendrons already gone. Columbine, forget-me-not, pink spirea starting, delicate cutleaf Stephanadra incisa, blue speedwell, white water lily, the end of the thin-leafed red bleeding heart. Coral bells in bloom. At Jordon Pond, yellow loosestrife, lysimachia and blue Batisia.

2001: First mallow shows pink. First buds on the gooseneck. Last year’s parsley gone to seed. Francis William hosta and great blue hosta come into bloom.

2002: Arrowhead leaves are starting to form at the edge of the pond.

2003: More lilies starting now: a pink one on the west end of the garden, another orange on the east end.

2004: Periodic cicadas are still calling but are dying in greater numbers now along the bike path. In the north garden, the mid-season hostas are budding, the August Moon hosta has bloomed, the Joe Pye is heading. Maybe this year – because of the heat and rain, and the plants being at least a week ahead of schedule – the annual cicadas will come out just as the periodic cicadas all die off. First chigger (?) bites in the garden.

2006: Tree of heaven is in full bloom throughout town, dropping flowers, spreading pollen. Yesterday, the first of the pale yellow Oriental lilies opened. A few serviceberries noticed, some red, some black. On the high branches of the spruce trees in the alley, pine cones about five inches long. Panicled dogwood flowers gone.

2007: No Japanese beetles or chiggers yet. Yarrow full. Primrose completely gone. Full oak-leaf hydrangea, lizard’s tail and great blue hosta. A few monarda plants becoming red at the top. Purple coneflowers gathering momentum, green-eyed Susans full and strong. Yuccas full bloom in Xenia. Parsnips still golden in the fields along the bike path. First earwig seen yesterday. A monarch came to the garden at noon. Japanese honeysuckle still fragrant. Great mullein flowering in Fairborn, hemlock going to seed quickly.

I sense the adequacy of the world, and believe that everything I need is here. I do not strain after ambition or heaven. I feel no dependence on tomorrow. I do not long to travel to Italy or Japan, but only across the river or up the hill into the woods.

Wendell Berry

June 18th
The 169th Day of the Year

This is high noon, Early Summer:
clovers and vetches, bindweeds and sweet peas,
trumpet vines, chicory, mullein and thistles,
honewort and fire pink, privets and parsnips.

Hepatica Sun

Sunrise/set: 6:06/9:06 Day's Length: 15 hours
Average Hi/Lo: 82/61 Average Temperature: 72
Record High: 98 - 1944 Record Low: 47 - 1903

Weather
Ninety percent of June 18ths are without rain, and the sun
appears 95 percent of the years. Temperatures are mild: in the 70s thirty percent of the time, in the 80s sixty-five percent of the time, with just a five percent chance for 90s. Evening lows are usually in the 60s, with cold 50s occurring 30 percent of the years.

Natural Calendar
Some multiflora roses and Japanese honeysuckles are dropping petals now, but August’s wingstem and tall coneflower stalks are five feet high. Virginia creeper is flowering. Canadian thistles and nodding thistles are at their best. Orchard grass is getting brown and old, English rye grass full bloom, exotic bottle grass late bloom, brome grass very late, some timothy still tender. Clustered snakeroot and honewort are going to seed as avens and wood nettle start their seasons. Bamboo grass has fresh growth, and July’s wood mint is budding. Blackberries have set fruit.

Daybook
1982: Last pint of strawberries picked. First small dish of black
raspberries. At South Glen, parsnips, angelica, yarrow, tall
meadow rue still dominate the fields. Milkweed is starting to
flower, first milkweed beetles discovered. Blueweed found along
the tracks, water horehound in the swamp. Honewort strong in the woods.

1983: First black raspberry turning a light shade of red. Chicory bloomed today. Mulberries ripening. Quickweed is open in the garden. Peak of privet blossom. Three young groundhogs, maybe eight weeks old, seen along Grinnell Road.

1984: First wild petunia found.

1986: Cardinal sang at 4:04 a.m. First pokeweed opened.

1987: The seventeen-year cicadas disappeared as suddenly as they
came; the woods is quiet. In the yard, all the strawberries are
gone, black raspberries peaking. North along the railroad tracks:
first catmint seen in bloom, poison hemlock going to seed, leatherflower identified – clematis viorna, lush. At Caesar Creek three carp caught at Far Hole. Wild petunia seen at South Glen, timothy bearded with pollen, hemlock going to seed, water willow full bloom. Young geese half grown, moving in an extended family, four adults, five goslings. Groundhogs a third grown. One indigo bunting identified. I'm full of chiggers after a day walking.

1989: Walking South Glen, I left the path and wandered from one small glade to another. I felt a sense of intimacy with myself in those enclosures. The sun so hot, air still a little cool, but no breeze inside the hollows with their timothy and bottle grass, surrounded by thick osage and honeysuckle. I was relieved to be isolated, out of sight, private in the sudden absence of the outside network, in the liberation of protecting woods.

1990: Veronica, astilbe, and coral bells full in the east garden. Four lilies have opened so far. One broccoli plant ready to eat. A few strawberries left. The very first black raspberry ripe. Privet flowers are gone. Primrose holds, mallow is budding.

1991: Purple loosestrife blooms in the yard, probably a week earlier along the Ohio River in Switzerland County. First stag beetle came to the porch after dark.

1993: Black walnuts half an inch to an inch in diameter. Osage fruit, blown down in the storm last night, is maybe a fifth of its autumn size. Bing cherries found ripening at the south end of town.

1995: Yellowstone: Low elk thistle, field chickweed, cow parsnip, woodland strawberry, western cressleaf groundsel, glacier lily, water hemlock, common yellow monkey flower, violet goosefoot. Aspen leaves the size of my thumbnail.

1999: Bangor, Maine: Potentilla, tansy, early pink spirea open. Foxglove budding. White campion seen, strawberries ripening (their festival is June 26th, three weeks later than a Yellow Springs festival would be). In Vermont: deep green wheat.

2000: Portland, Oregon and to Astoria and Cannon Beach, June 18th through the 21st: Litany of plants telling time: mid-season cow parsnip, Scotch broom (yellow pea-flower shrub) in full bloom. Tall pussy toes everywhere, tall buttercups, peonies and poppies at the ocean, late rhododendrons (Pacific rhododendrons) along Highway 26, full roses, clovers, alliums, small-leafed dock, yucca not blooming but ready, cattails just emerging, full yarrow, coastal thistles six-feet tall and budded, elderberry – many with fruit set, common purple vetch, seacoast lupine and wild purple foxglove very prominent, California poppies, chicory, redwood sorrel found, but not in bloom, goatsbeard, full early catalpas, rugosa type “Wood’s rose” full, thimbleberry shrubs in bloom, maybe a third had set fruit, full blackberry flowering season, rubus ursinus, spirea densiflora full, early teasel without blooms, white sweet clover, full moth mullein, Canadian thistle, Queen Anne’s lace.

2001: First purple loosestrife, first avens. First pale blue-bodied dragonfly at the pond. Chiggers have attacked me!

2004: To Madison, Wisconsin, the day clear and cool: The landscape is uniform throughout the trip: parsnips, chicory, elderberry, crown vetch, yellow and white sweet clover, trefoil, milkweed, hemlock, day lilies, wheat all turned, corn about knee high everywhere, red-winged blackbirds still sitting on the fences, guarding their territories.

2007: Small white bindweeds blooming in the alley yesterday and this morning. Full bloom of orange day lilies throughout the village. Jean heard the first cicada this morning, short, intermittent calls. The birds were quiet today, only one grackle baby being fed by a parent, very few birds around. A few chigger bites have appeared on my legs – the first of the year.

June 19th
The 170th Day of the Year

Observe the daily circle of the sun,
And the short year of each revolving moon:
By them thou shalt foresee the following day,
Nor shall a starry night thy hopes betray.

Virgil

Sunrise/set: 6:06/9:07 Day's Length: 15 hours 1 minute
Average Hi/Lo: 83/61 Average Temperature: 72
Record High: 96 - 1933 Record Low: 46 - 1909

Weather
Today is another sunny day (95 percent of all June 19ths are partly to mostly clear), but storms rise from the heat 35 percent of the time. Highs reach into the 80s fifty-five percent of all the years, and the chances for heat above 90 increase to 20 percent. Milder 70s come one year in four.

Natural Calendar
For the next week, the length of the day holds steady near fifteen hours in Yellow Springs. For one hundred and ninety-two hours, the sun's declination varies only six hundredths of a degree. Now, giant cecropia moths emerge. The first monarch butterfly caterpillar eats the carrot tops. Damselflies and daddy longlegs are everywhere. Mosquitoes, chiggers, and ticks have reached their summer strength. Long black cricket hunters hunt crickets in the garden. Grackles have come for the cherries. Orange and pink Asiatic lilies are reaching full bloom. The yellow day lilies lead the orange day lilies. Yucca is fully open. Yellow primrose, foxglove, pink and yellow achillea, late daisies, purple spiderwort and speedwell shine in the garden.

Daybook
1982: Yucca noticed blooming.

1984: First chicory seen in town. Deptford pink found at Grinnell
Swamp. Last bleeding heart disappeared in the east garden.

1989: Jacksonville, Florida: Some elderberry and yucca still in
bloom. Day lilies open west of town. Wild lettuce gone to seed.
In Belize: yucca blossoming, at the same time as in Florida, and
in Yellow Springs. Flamboyant trees and spider lilies in full
bloom, like in Miami

1990: On the way to Madison, Wisconsin: orange day lilies full,
Canadian thistle purple for over three hundred miles, bright
blue stripes of chicory all the way north, patches of daisies, yellow sweet clover, Japanese honeysuckle, fields of daisy fleabane, hedges of white elderberry, waysides yellow with parsnips, hillsides of violet crown vetch, wheat gold across Indiana and Illinois, the roadsides and fields basically unchanged from Yellow Springs to above Chicago. Summer, land, time, space blending in the heat.

1991: Mulberries almost all gone, cherries completely ripe, mid-season hosta budding. Carnations gone today, some yucca done blooming too. Flickers still calling in the morning.

1992: First cherry pie.

1993: To Texas, 6:00 a.m.: White sweet clover has started in a few places near Yellow Springs, and a few hemlocks are dying back. Chicory opening at dawn. Elderberries, and nodding thistles still full bloom near Cincinnati. A few thistles gone to seed just south of the Ohio River, first milkweed seen then, about 90 miles south of Yellow Springs, then in a few more miles, milkweed everywhere in full bloom.
Orange trumpet creeper open below Warsaw, Kentucky, about 115 miles from home. Cattails with pollen at 130 miles. Hemlocks, which are still pretty green and stable in Greene County are yellowing, many gone to seed near Louisville. Teasel twice as tall there as at home. Now fence rows full of trumpet creeper. First dogbane and first great mullein seen open at 220 miles, Virginia roses full bloom, fields of thistles, clover, fleabane. Most tobacco leaves are six to ten inches long throughout Kentucky.
Near Bowling Green, 285 miles from Yellow Springs, most thistles have gone to seed. Sweet clover mostly gone by Nashville, about 340 miles. First bright orange butterfly weed open at 375 miles. Clovers and thistles disappear from the landscape at 400 miles, replaced by Queen Anne's lace and fleabane. Elderberries start to set fruit 100 mile north of Memphis, at 450 miles. Watermelons are coming in throughout southwestern Tennessee, fresh peaches at 580 miles, new horseweed plants and old wild lettuce becoming the only roadside foliage.
Then horseweed in bloom in Arkansas, rice fields bright green, trumpet vines continuing to dominate the fence rows. All wheat fields cut, seems relatively recently. Hemlock holds at half to seed all the way through Arkansas. At 700 miles, false bishop's weed takes over from the Queen Anne's Lace (false bishop's weed is short, maybe six inches, but has a similar flower head), and black-eyed Susans become dominant to the coast, sometimes fields of them throughout Arkansas.
Large white magnolia flowers, the end of their season, seen in southern Arkansas, and hold through to Houston, yucca full bloom to the ocean. White egrets appear in a field near Marshall, 920 miles from home, elderberries continuing half set throughout, wild lettuce full bloom mid Texas. Pennywort in bloom in Houston. Thin-leafed mountain mint, Mexican hat (ratibida columnaris), thin-leafed dayflowers, coreopsis tinctoria, identified in Houston, the latter common throughout eastern Texas and into Arkansas.

1995: Blackfoot, Idaho, 4,600 feet: flax, yellow sweet clover, black medic, and full red and white clovers, salsify, full lupine, tall pink balloon flowers. Iris and peonies seen in south central Idaho at about 3,800 feet. Pelicans, white and black, soared above the Snake River.

1996: Another turtle in the middle of Grinnell Road this afternoon, the second turtle in a week. Are they out so late to lay eggs?

1999: Bennington, Vermont to Yellow Springs: Deep green wheat near Rutland. Black-eyed Susans and parsnips full bloom, cattails and great mullein blooming toward the New York state border, full elderberry blossoms, chicory, blueweed, peonies, white sweet clover, haying from Albany west (and strawberries coming in with the first of the hay) hemlock done, catalpas still full, milkweeds, bright orange butterfly weed. A swarm of 17-year cicadas near Canton, Ohio.

2001: To Madison, Wisconsin: early-summer fare throughout the 500 mile trip: crown vetch, parsnips, trumpet creeper, Queen Anne’s lace, chicory, elderberry, purple vetch, milkweed, white and yellow sweet clover, trefoil, coreopsis, daisy fleabane, black eyed Susans. Canadian thistles – full of down in Yellow Springs – showed the progress back into the first week of early summer, turning violet as we went north. Parsnips became brighter too, hemlock stronger.

2002: Very end of privet bloom. Only scattered peonies, sweet Williams, late dogwood, and cressleaf groundsel left from early June. Some black raspberries reddening. Pink spirea, Heliopsis, and the pale Japanese iris are in full bloom. Mulberries still falling into the undergrowth. One whistling cricket heard this afternoon.

2003: Dianna Mathews calls from the Children’s Center: the kids found one red cicada.

2004: Tat’s garden in Madison seems about at the level of the first week of Yellow Springs June – her beginning primrose perhaps the best gauge. In the arboretum, prairie false indigo was in full bloom, spiderwort, Heliopsis and purple coneflowers coming in. Throughout Madison, syringa reticulata, the dramatic Ivory Silk Japanese lilac, was at various stages of bloom. As I walked through the park with Maggie, I pulled fresh timothy to chew. I saw cottonwood cotton drifting across the fields.

2007: Robinsong began softly at 5:25 (EDT) this morning, but it was nothing like the strong springtime chorus. One cardinal sang at 5:45. Doves a little later. A blue jay at 6:00, red-bellied woodpecker at 7:20. In the north garden, lilies gradually coming in, daylilies and Asiatics. The earliest Asiatics (what I called the candy lilies) have already completed their seasons. Mallow, astilbe, yarrow and Heliopsis are now at full bloom. Finally a good rain in the middle of the afternoon, breaking the growing drought. One young grackle being fed by its parents this evening. Summer squash flowering but not setting fruit, perhaps because of the lack of bees.

June 20th
The 171stDay 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: 6:06/9:07 Day's Length: 15 hours 1 minute
Average Hi/Lo: 83/62 Average Temperature: 72
Record High: 100 - 1888 Record Low: 47 - 1980

Weather
Rain occurs 55 percent of the time on June 20th, making this the day with the greatest likelihood for precipitation since June 2nd. Clouds completely cover the sky three years in ten. Chances for highs in the 90s rise to 25 percent; 80s come 35 percent of the years, 70s thirty percent, 60s just one year in ten. The odds for a cool night in the 40s or 50s remain steady at their mid-June level of three in ten.

Natural Calendar
Across the lower Midwest, there are hedges of white elderberry flowers, roadsides of violet crown vetch, great fields of golden wheat. If you follow the Ohio Valley south, you will find hemlocks gone to seed near Louisville, teasel twice as tall as it is in Yellow Springs. Vibrant orange butterfly weed has opened up in southern Illinois.
All June’s thistles are decaying below St. Louis, and cattails have their pollen. Sweet clover has almost disappeared by Nashville, and the blackberries are turning a little red. Below Memphis, Queen Anne's lace blooms, wild lettuce and horseweed too, and elderberries set their fruit.
The wheat fields are bare in the Gulf states, the roadsides full of black-eyed Susans, pennywort, thin-leafed mountain mint, Mexican hat. In Florida, and even in Central America, yucca is blossoming – just like it is in Ohio. And the sugar cane crop, thousands of miles away in Belize, paces the sweet corn in Yellow Springs.

Daybook
1981: Wild raspberry season began in the yard today.

1983: Scarlet pimpernel found at Wilberforce today.

1984: First yucca seen.

1986: Milkweed is well underway now.

1987: Night walk: only a handful of crickets, fireflies no thicker than at home, small moths crossing my way, no mosquitoes. It was warm and close in the woods, cold and wet out in the open fields of Middle Prairie. Mist became much thicker after eleven o'clock. Full moon rising in the southeast, Arcturus overhead, Regulus and Leo west, Spica in Virgo, Vega behind Hercules, then Altair, Deneb with Cygnus the swan. Wingstem, blackberry, ironweed, daisy fleabane, soapwort, elderberry, all easily identified under the moon and stars. Timothy was sweet: I pulled and chewed the entire walk.

1990: Madison, Wisconsin: Peonies late full bloom, mock orange, coral bells, primrose, catalpas, snow-on-the-mountain, all the clovers, spurge, nodding thistles, honeysuckles, panicled dogwood are in the middle of their seasons, two to three weeks behind Yellow Springs. I drove up into northern Minnesota: the wheat (which is nearly all gold in Ohio) hasn't started to turn yet, sugar beets are six inches high.

1991: Black raspberry season moving to the downside now, also
cherries. Mulberries lead the way.

1995: Boise, Idaho to Portland, Oregon: As we drove west, the landscape became richer, and more similar to fabric of Yellow Springs. Cow parsnips, yarrow, late potentilla, moth mullein, yellow sweet cover, milkweed, great mullein, and Canadian thistles were in full bloom (the thistles at early June Ohio levels). Boise’s wheat was half turned, even green in some fields, like the wheat around Yellow Springs a week ago. Late iris near Boise, iris done close to Portland. Blackberries in full flower from Portland to the coast.

1998: Roses overcome by black spot. The July hosta is ready to open. Half the hemlock is gone, plants becoming rusty and drooping.

2001: Madison, Wisconsin: For the most part, this Wisconsin season is close to Yellow Spring’s. Potentilla, spirea, hosta, daisies, tall meadow rue, yarrow, white-flowered waterleaf, spiderwort, honewort, day lilies, snow-on-the-mountain all close to southern Ohio level. False prairie indigo common, full bloom. Avens are open here, as are Asiatic day flowers. Still, I saw one peony bush still in flower, one Solomon’s seal, remnants of late spring. Poke milkweed identified in Tat’s backyard, flowers just starting.

2002: Robin chorus strong when I got up at 5:15 a.m. (EDT). The first cardinal sang at 5:28, the first doves at 5:30, first titmouse at 5:41, blue jay at 5:45, wren at 6:00. By the time the bees came out at 6:30, the robins and cardinals were silent. By 7:00, the morning exuberance had dissipated, midsummer silence setting in. By noon, the robins were clucking their post-mating sound. In the North Glen, avens and yellow touch-me-nots in bloom. The cohosh has pale blue-green berries. The woods is quiet and dark. The first pink hollyhock opened in the north garden this morning, the first purple day lily at the east end of the north garden.

2003: The first tall pink mallow opened in the north garden this morning.

2007: Several monarda plants have fully developed flowers this morning, and several of the red phlox buds have opened. Young robins and doves feeding in the yard. Some robins open their wings in the sun, stretch them out on the lawn as if to dry them. The finch feeders are full of finches. Small white bindweed flowers have disappeared in the alley, replaced by a mound of purple morning glories.

June 21st
The 172nd Day of the Year

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
the higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

Robert Herrick

Sunrise/set: 6:06/9:07 Day's Length: 15 hours 1 minute
Average Hi/Lo: 83/62 Average Temperature: 72
Record High: 98 - 1988 Record Low: 48 - 1897

Weather
Highs in the 60s occur five percent of the time on this date, 70s come on ten percent of the afternoons, 80s on 70 percent, and 90s on 15 percent. The sun appears nine years in ten, but thunderstorms pass through 30 percent of the time. Morning lows in the 40s come only five to ten percent of the time; 50s occur on 25 percent of the nights; 60 percent of the nights are in the 60s, and ten percent are in the 70s

Natural Calendar
Solstice marks the end of early summer in Yellow Springs, but time is also space; movement and distance can take the season backwards or forwards, allowing what was and still will be to ride the hinge of the sun’s declination.
North in Maine, azaleas and columbine are still bright. Lupines hold in Bar Harbor. Foxglove and privet are budding in Bangor, strawberries just ripening. Through the valleys of Vermont, the wheat is deep green wheat (it’s golden and almost ready to cut here in Miami Township). Parsnips are opening in New Hampshire as they go to seed along Grinnell Road. In upstate New York, catalpas are still flowering, and peonies are still in bloom.
The flora of the upper Midwest reaffirms the late spring and early summer of the Northeast. The blossoms of mock orange are still fragrant in Minneapolis. Multiflora roses and the petals of blackberries repeat Yellow Springs May. Cottonwood cotton is drifting across the arboretum in Madison, Wisconsin. The thistles are stronger, the hemlock fresher, cattails more delicate and flushed with pollen all across the northern plains.
West in the Rocky Mountains, lupines are in full bloom at 4,000 feet, lilacs and early iris are coming in above 6,000 feet. Yellow Springs April appears in fields of dandelions and spring beauties at 7,000 feet. At 8,000 feet, the heartleaf arnica, like a yellow bloodroot, pushes Middle Atlantic time almost to the end of March.
Then down toward the Pacific, the landscape collapses forward toward Ohio June. Cow parsnips, yarrow, moth mullein, yellow sweet cover, meadow goat’s beard, milkweed, and great mullein line the roads to Tillamook and the ocean.

Daybook
1983: At Grinnell Swamp: Golden alexander, henbit, yellow and white sweet clover, privet, angelica, white violets, clustered snakeroot, honewort, forget-me-nots, moneywort, yarrow, fleabane, wild garlic, white waterleaf, black medic all in bloom. Catchweed has burs, foliage yellow. May apples leaves are spotted and old. Decaying garlic mustard leans across the undergrowth.

1984: First monarch butterfly caterpillar found in the carrots. At the Covered Bridge: a third of the parsnips, angelica, and hemlock going to seed. Wingstem and tall coneflowers are five feet high, avens flowering, honewort going to seed, multiflora roses completely gone, damselflies and daddy longlegs everywhere, first spotted touch-me-not and first yellow touch-me-not blooming, white flowered waterleaf and the late henbit still in bloom.

1985: First midsummer cricket heard in the yard last night. Most black raspberries gone.

1986: The sun rose over the house across the street at 60 degrees on the compass; if I'd been able to see it on the horizon, it probably would have been at 45 degrees, all the way northeast. I watched it go down over Fairborn at 310 degrees through the trees, close to perfect northwest.

1987: The inner woods seemed tattered this afternoon, some leaves yellowing, grasses turning. Along the railroad tracks, middle summer's wild lettuce was budding, avens was in full bloom.

1988: Belize City: Cactus at the Fort George Hotel blossoming at
the same time as in our greenhouse in Yellow Springs. Summer solstice in Belize: the sun rises at 5:19 a.m., sets at 6:30 p.m., the day 13 hours 11 minutes long: in Yellow Springs: 15 hours 1 minute. North to the Mexican border: some sugar cane three to four feet high, other fields just emerging. Blue and white day flowers, ipomoea throughout, just like in Yellow Springs. A waiter at Altun Ha told me that corn is planted here at the middle to the end of May, just before the rains begin. The Central American corn cycle, then, basically follows that of the Midwest.

l989: At south Glen, seeds have formed on half the angelica and maybe a third of the parsnips. First flowers on the wood nettle filling up the undergrowth. Orchard grass brown and old, English rye grass full, bottle grass late bloom, brome grass very late, some timothy still tender, damselflies common, mosquitoes bad. First touch-me-not, first thimble plant in bloom. Nodding and Canadian thistles still full bloom. Blackberries have set fruit. Panicum clandestinum just emerging. Multiflora roses are fading, along with some Japanese honeysuckle. Burning bush, euonymus atropurpureus, found full bloom at South Glen. Four cedar waxwings sighted along the river.

1996: I was doing exercises in the greenhouse about 5:45 a.m. and was surprised by something flying around me. I thought it might be a cecropia moth, but it turned out to be a bat which had somehow gotten inside. I opened the back door, and after a few swoops, it went out. Today the white mulberries were falling heavily to the sidewalk and the street.

1998: Indigo bunting seen by the pond today. Campanula opened in the east garden, the first purple coneflower unraveled completely along the fence, and the first rose of Sharon bloomed along the street. Trumpet vines and rugosa roses are full now. Wheat is brown. Five Japanese beetles in the roses, the most so far.

1999: Return to Yellow Springs after almost two weeks in Maine: dry here like across the Northeast, but crops holding. Birds still sing in the morning chorus, crows joining in near 6:00 a.m. (EDT). The wheat is champagne brown. There are fields of thistle down, patches of day lilies. The purple loosestrife is open in the pond, and the heliopsis, achillea and feverfew all started while we were gone. Daisies have been replaced by daisy fleabane. First fireflies seen; there were none before we left, and none in Maine or along the way. A few Japanese beetles in the roses.

2002: Queen Anne’s lace and goosefoot just starting to bloom as water willow fades after a week-long flowering period. New leaves are growing on the white rhododendron. Frances Williams and the great blue hosta are in full bloom.

2003: Green ash tree in front of the house trimmed back: flower clusters turning to seedpods.

2004: Home from southern Wisconsin: The red monarda and two transplanted hollyhocks opened up all the way while we were gone. The yellow primrose and the kousa dogwoods ended their seasons. Lilies are gathering momentum. Lizard’s tail still full – but its flowers are moving well up its stalk. Water willow is still blossoming. Japanese beetles have eaten the tea roses.

2006: At Santee in South Carolina, corn tall, tasseling, ears completely formed. Wheat fields cut over. Soybeans and peanuts a few inches high. One field of sunflowers in full bloom. Mimosa trees, first seen flowering in southern Kentucky (along with orange trumpet creepers) were common throughout the region. By the roadside, white swamp mallow full bloom, and a five-petaled, yellow water plant – picture taken. Catfish bit off and on night and day at selected sites, even though few fish were reported taken by others in the area.

2007: No Japanese beetles seen this morning. Birds quiet all day, very little activity at the feeders.

2008: Inventory on return from Santee-Cooper: Bright yellow primrose still full, some tall day lilies opening. Asiatic lilies: orange, violet, deep orange, white, yellow. Candy lilies completely gone. Mallow and veronica full. First green-eyed Susan. Full catmint, spiderwort, hobble bush, oakleaf hydrangea, white achillea, red phlox, great blue hosta, stella d’oros, coral bells, lamb’s ear, pink spirea, astilbe, Japanese honeysuckles, very late sweet Williams, monarda blushing, fragments of sweet rockets, heading Queen Anne’s lace, . Full hollyhocks all over town. Full violet clematis. Rhubarb has recovered. More endless summer hydrangea. Apples in the alley a third of full size, one golf-ball size, hairy black walnut, first blue campanula, last Japanese iris, last water willow. Lizard’s tail is bout a fourth to a third open.

June 22nd
The 173rd Day of the Year

A warm, gentle day, windless:
The seeds we plant are like our hopes.

Harlan Hubbard

Sunrise/set: 6:07/9:07 Day's Length: 15 hours
Average Hi/Lo: 83/62 Average Temperature: 73
Record High: 98 - 1988 Record Low: 48 - 1897

Weather
Highs are in the 80s six years in ten, and 90s occur 25 percent of the time. Cool 60s or 70s are recorded 15 percent of the afternoons. Sun is the rule for this date, with only two years in a decade producing completely overcast conditions. Chances for precipitation, usually in the form of a thunderstorm: 35 percent. Lows stay above 60 tonight more often than on any other June night.

The Weather in the Week Ahead
Sunny skies are the rule for the last week of June: clouds dominate less than 20 percent of all the days, and that makes this period one of the brighter ones in the whole year. Daily chances for rain throughout this period of the month are 30 percent except on the 25th and 26th; those two days are some of the driest of the entire year, carrying only a ten percent chance for precipitation. High temperatures rise into the 80s at least 60 percent of all the afternoons and climb above 90 on 20 percent of the days. Cooler conditions in the 70s or even the 60s are most likely to occur on the 23rd and 24th.

The Week Sycamore Bark Falls
When the wheat harvest begins, then bright orange butterfly weed opens, and acorns become fully formed. Sycamore bark starts to shed, and thistle flowers change to down. Hemlock season is complete, stalks collapsing into the tall grasses. Clustered snakeroot has gone to seed like the waterleaf. Parsnip heads brown in the sun. Privet is done blooming. Henbit has stopped flowering.
Leafhoppers and Japanese beetles are reaching the economic threshold on the farm. Daddy longlegs are mating. Katydids are silent but roving. The first woolly-bear caterpillars, harbingers of winter, cross the road. Some baby snappers and mud turtles are hatching.
Poison ivy has green berries. The first touch-me-nots and the first thimble plants are budding. Wild garlic and euonymus atropurpureus, the burning bush, are blooming. Rugosa roses are coming in, accompanied by black-eyed Susans, wild petunias, and hobblebush. Staghorns have pushed out on the sumacs. Cattails are almost fully developed.

Natural Calendar
Delphinus follows Cygnus in the east after 10:00 p.m., Altair, the bright star of Aquila shining below them. Just ahead of Cygnus, Vega leads the Milky Way west. Overhead, Arcturus moves into the western half of the sky, the Corona Borealis coming in to take its place. Libra lies due south, July’s Scorpius right behind it.

Daybook
1982: The red hollyhocks Jeni planted from seed bloomed today.

1983: Fireflies thick now. First wild black raspberry eaten.

1984: Timothy in full bloom.

1986: No geese heard for more than a month in town. When do they start their autumn flights? At the mill, lizard's tail early full bloom, first wood mint flowering, wild leek about to blossom. Small toads, half an inch long, hopping in the mud. Rugosa rose, tall nettle, avens, thimble plant full bloom.

1990: Into western Pennsylvania: Vegetation similar to Yellow Springs, crown vetch is magnificent, and all the clovers in bloom. Coreopsis here and there. Patches of hemlock still in bloom. Parsnips still strong at high elevations. Red (small) and large yellow-green staghorns have emerged. Catalpa flowers and thistles are holding in the mountains. Daisies, sweet clover, white and yellow moth mulleins, and sweet peas are everywhere. I don't ever remember the roadsides so lush.

1991: Picking the last black raspberries and cherries after the night-long rain. Misty morning, soft and cool. Robins, flickers, cardinals singing, filtered through the heavy air. Many raspberry leave yellowed, the smell of August, the humidity and late sweetness, the morning so gentle. I hang on to the longest days.

1992: Cherries all ripe, sudden decline.

1996: The first domestic raspberry eaten from the garden tonight. The first black raspberry should be ready in a day. Cherries red on the diseased tree, blackbirds coming to eat them. The lilies have come in now. The orange was the first. Then the pink. Then more orange, then pink. Throughout town, the small yellow stella d’oro lilies are all in bloom.

1998: The white and magenta monarda have started now, and the variegated hosta. The great blue hosta is in full bloom, and the Francis Thompson. Late high season for yellow primrose, for spiderwort, midseason for mallow and achillea. Gaura full, helianthus full. Along the roadsides, day lilies are all open.

2002: Kelleys Island in Lake Erie, 130 miles north of Yellow Springs: Panicled dogwoods and elderberry bushes common and in full bloom. Early summer lingering: late peonies, daisy fleabane, bright Canadian thistles. Cottonwood is drifting in the wind. At home, the wheat is mostly gold; in northern Ohio fields are lighter and greener, the season about seven days behind conditions in Yellow Springs. Constant chatter of red-winged blackbirds around the camp.

2003: The birdhouse on the west wall is empty. After weeks of constant activity, flying back and forth with food every few minutes, the sparrows have finally launched their young.

2006: Returned from three days at Santee-Cooper in South Carolina to find the pink hollyhocks open, many more lilies in bloom, the first yucca flowers blooming, a few alley raspberries ripe, Heliopsis full, sweet Williams gone.

2007: More red monarda comes in as lilies gradually increase in number. Lizard’s tail has reached full bloom. Small berries have formed on Mateo’s back honeysuckles. Goldenrod in the alley is almost chest high, and avens is in bloom.

2008: No grackles for the past three days. Transplanted of the east garden endless summer to the south garden.

June 23rd
The 174th Day of the Year

The heaven is now broad and open to the earth in these longest
days. The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Henry David Thoreau

Sunrise/set: 6:07/9:08 Day's Length: 15 hours, 1 minute
Average High/Low: 84/62 Average Temperature: 73
Record High: 98 - 1899 Record Low: 43 - 1902

Weather
This is often a cooler day than the 22nd, due to the arrival of the fourth major high-pressure system of the month. The chances for a high in the 60s or 70s jump to 40 percent; 55 percent of the time, however, highs reach into the 80s, and 90s come five percent of the time. The sun appears 85 percent of the days, but thunderstorms occur three times in a decade on this date.

Natural Calendar
This is the week that the wheat harvest usually begins in the fields outside of Yellow Springs, the same week that bright orange butterfly weed opens and acorns become fully formed.
Sycamore bark is shedding now that solstice has passed. It's the time of the major decay of thistles, their flowers changing to down. Hemlock season is complete, stalks collapsing into the tall grasses. Clustered snake root has gone to seed like the waterleaf. Parsnip heads brown in the sun. Privet is done blooming.

Daybook
1989: Virginia creeper in full bloom. Garlic headed in the garden. Clustered snakeroot now all gone to seed like the waterleaf. Peaches half size, apples a third size, cherries all ripe, mums cut back. Yucca is open in Xenia. First black raspberries come in. Mulberries at their peak.

1990: Virginia creeper seen in full boom, first garden mallow flowers, some sundrops dying back. Blackbirds in the mulberry tree all afternoon.

1991: Three young blackbirds were in the back yard this afternoon, fed cherries by their parents. Tonight, a cecropia moth, huge and soft, came to the porch light.

1992: Blackbird are here all day for cherries. Tree of heaven flower clusters high in the branches. Hemlock still strong. Carrots getting some orange to their roots. First tomato set. First mallow flowers along the south wall. Zinnias show color in their buds. Bleeding heart foliage is yellowing. Sweet Williams well past their prime, astilbe fading now.

1999: Only a few Japanese beetles so far.

2001: Arboretum at Madison, Wisconsin: Thimble plant, yellow leafy spurge, prairie dock (very first flowering), orange hawkweed, cottonwood cotton, late Rugosa roses, new privets, wood anemone (like at Susi’s), basal flowers of the compass plant, budding rattlesnake master, Indian plantain heading, baby toads hopping across the path, and a mourning cloak butterfly.

2002: Kelleys Island: Robins calling by 4:45 a.m. (EDT). By 5:30, the red-wings start cackling, and robins are all over the ground mating, bold and raucous throughout the campground. By 5:50, the robin activity declines, and blackbirds take their place in the grass. All day: mayflies swarming.

2003: Pale blue-bodied dragonflies appear at the pond for the first time. As I talked to Neysa about the morning sounds, I mentioned – and realized at the same time – how the crows have been silent all year. Were they all killed off by the West Nile Virus?

2005: Inventory before leaving for Florida: Full oak-leaf hydrangea, mallow, heliopsis, coreopsis, primrose, moonbeam coreopsis, stella d’oros, achillea, larkspur, spiderwort, blue hosta, yucca. Pink spirea half done. Last Japanese iris in the pond, last daisy. Fist monarda and dahlia opening, first pink and yellow hollyhocks, very late sweet Williams, one clematis. Lizard’s tail blooming about a third the way up the tail. Early Queen Anne’s lace and purple cones. Thirteen types of lilies open along the north border. Penstemon all done.

2008: The blue jay, sparrows, cowbirds, downy woodpecker and finches continue to appear at the feeder, but the grackles continue absent. The first monarda opens all the way. Don’s cherry tree is full of red cherries, and mulberries keep coming in. New elephant ears transplanted near the old ones that have only emerged an inch or two.