Phases of the Nutters’ Moon
Sep. 2: The Nutters’ Moon is new.
Sept. 11: The moon enters its second quarter
Sept. 17: The moon is full
Sept. 24: The moon enters its final quarter.
Weather Trends
Equinox parallels a drop in extremes as well as in averages. Days in the 90′s are rare after Sept. 23, and even 80′s will be gone in about three weeks. The odds for an afternoon in the 50′s or 60′s this week doubles over those odds last week. The season of light frosts deepens in the Middle Atlantic region; the 24th and the 27th even carry a 20 percent chance of a mild freeze - the greatest chance since May 10. On the 26th, chances of a high below 70 degrees are better than 50 percent, the first time that has happened since May 4. New Moon and perigee at September’s end will greatly increase the likelihood of cold.
The Natural Calendar
The Earth reaches autumn equinox at 3:49 a.m. today, entering the sign of Libra at the same time.
In 60 out of a 100 years, a light frost has struck most parts of the region by this date.
A few monarch butterflies visit the late zinnias in the afternoon sun; other insects, however, become less common in the field and garden as the number of pollen-
In the fields, aster, beggartick, and goldenrod blossoms start to disappear; their departure parallels the beginning of leaf fall, the end of the spider season, acceleration in bird migration, everything seeming to unravel at once.
Yellow locust leaves shed steadily through the woods. The surviving ash trees turn maroon and gold. Many New England asters have gone to seed. A deep gilding taking place throughout the canopy.
Long flocks of grackles often pass overhead as October approaches.
Average temperatures now start to fall at the rate of four degrees per week almost everywhere in the nation.
In the Field and Garden
The new moon will favor the seeding of winter grains. As the moon waxes, set out cabbage, kale and collard sets. Seed the lawn. Gather up the squash and pumpkins as their stems dry; store in a cool, dry location.
Halloween crops have come to town, and the period of peak sales begins. Some years, fall apples and grapes are half picked. Most of the corn and half of the soybeans are mature. Farmers have cut two bean fields out of 10, planted the same number in winter wheat.
Nutting season is underway: gather black walnuts, walnuts, pecans and hickory nuts as they fall. Halloween crops have come to town, and more than two-thirds of the corn is normally mature.
Test your soil after harvest and fertilize as needed. Don’t wait until spring to feed the land. Do your Thanksgiving turkey marketing now. Have your turkeys all placed before the leaves turn.
Journal
Recently I have been counting lilies in my garden. I do this every year, and I have written about it once or twice. Counting lily blossoms, like counting iris or peonies or sunflowers is relaxing and seems to have no socially redeeming value.
On the other hand, I have found that it can be an occasion for lengthy ruminations on what is real, Rossi’s “blurred vision” and how things change and how I can never quite grasp the present.
Then number of lilies is different each day. They are, of course, daylilies and so I am never able to admire or count the same lily twice. Although sometimes the number of lilies remains relatively stable for up to a week, even that stability is a result of both death and birth of similar creatures that make time slippery, creating an illusion of a vigorous patch of lilies, whereas really just the instability of the patch is the secret of the illusion it creates. And all these things seem to be related to time. If I am befuddled by the temporality of things, their apparent permanence or vitality, then somehow I feel that all this has something to do with knowing how to live and die.
Because if time is embodied in what I count, then I am actually touching and holding time itself, which seems actually quite wonderful and available to anyone who pays attention to anything.
Bill Felker lives with his wife in Yellow Springs. His “Poor Will’s Almanack” airs on his weekly NPR radio segment on WYSO-FM (91.3).
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