April 27th
The 117th Day of the Year
We praise now this renewal of the year:
Happy are they
who find their love therein,
their heart’s desire.
Manuscript of Benedictbeuren
(bf)
Sunrise/set: 5:41/7:25
Day’s Length: 13 hours 44 minutes
Average High/Low: 66/45
Average Temperature: 55
Record High: 90 – 1986
Record Low: 28 – 1907
Weather
Now a day in the 90s becomes possible; and there is a 30 percent chance of a high in the 80s, and a 25 percent chance of 70s. Highs in the cooler 60s occur on another 25 percent of the afternoons; chilly 50s come 15 percent of the years, and 40s once in a decade. Skies are mostly clear seven years in ten, and rain falls just three years in ten. There is a fifteen percent chance of frost.
Natural Calendar
The garlic mustard of Late Spring comes into bloom when the first indigo bunting reaches the Ohio Valley. Crocus and purple deadnettle leaves turn yellow in the grass as the growing canopy turns the hillsides green. Cobwebs appear overnight, glisten with morning dew. Most dandelions have gone to seed, and ruby-throated hummingbirds arrive at their northern feeders. There are buds on the black raspberries, mock orange, and mulberries. Star of Bethlehem and wood hyacinths have come up in the garden. Nettles are waist high along the fencerows.
Daybook
1979: The apple and cherry trees are have started blooming today.
1983: Crocus leaves turning yellow. Tulips in the yard are at their peak, first cherry and apple blossoms in the yard, magnolias holding throughout town.
1984: Ginger blooming. First white violet seen. Bloodroot finished for the year, wing-like leaves growing huge. Twinleaf gone, Dutchman’s britches mostly gone. One white trout lily seen. Skunk cabbage leaves have grown to two feet. Water cress, swamp buttercup full bloom. Kingfisher seen nesting near the Covered Bridge. At home, first small flowers on the bleeding hearts.
1986: Clifton Gorge, 7:00 a.m. Most of the upper canopy still bare. First honeysuckle flower, first catchweed, first Solomon’s plume, first garlic mustard, first star of Bethlehem. Geese fly over. Herd of ten deer seen, all does. Patches of dewy cobwebs on the grass. Small-flowered buttercup going to seed. Spring beauties, closed before sunrise, start to open at 7:30, are completely out by 8:15. Sweet Cicely low and young. Rich sweet pollen scent in the air. Ragwort, trillium grandiflorum, phlox, miterwort full bloom. Bluets discovered, full bloom. First Virginia creeper leaves. Mint a foot tall. Poison ivy vines three inches. First ladybug. First wild geranium. First goslings of the year, yellow and fuzzy, maybe a week or ten days old. In the village, first iris opens.
1987: First major crop of dandelions goes to seed.
1989: Yard and South Glen: Green stink bug found in the garden. First tick got in my hair. Peonies bushy and tall now, normal size. Ash leafs now, poplar leaves half size. First celandine flowers. Buds on the sweet Cicely. Violets, dandelions, winter cress, toad trillium, toothwort, bluebells, spring beauties, meadow rue, Jack-in-the-pulpit, thyme-leafed speedwell full bloom, shepherd’s purse late. Nettles: some past my ankles. Early full bloom of the garlic mustard. Wild lettuce is bushy, paces the field thistles, the angelica and nettles, has maybe ten-inch leaves. Honey locust budding. Swallows on the river, and a female scarlet tanager in the bushes by the river bank. In the village, tulips full bloom. Honeysuckles bud as grapes leaf out.
1991: Major petal fall season begins with pears, spreads to the apples. Wind throughout the day, cherries begin to lose hold in the afternoon. In the lawn, purple deadnettle is yellowing. First star of Bethlehem opens at the garden gate. First horseradish blossoms in the garden, first patches of yellow ranunculus at the south wall. First pyrethrums budding. All daffodils, hyacinth, and all the Early Spring bulbs gone, the east garden full of dandelions and violets now. First honeysuckles bloom.
1993: Half of my tomato sprouts killed by frost this morning. First celandine flowers found in the east garden. First bat seen around 9:00 p.m. Some house finches brighter red.
1994: Celandine and garlic mustard opened yesterday or this morning in the east garden. Most of the small, late daffodils are still blooming there. Tulips full in the north wall garden, ferns just starting to come up along the house, a foot high in the back bed. Asiatic lilies lush, some a foot high. Rhubarb seed heads fully developed, two and a half feet tall. Lilacs suddenly in bloom all over town, and crab apples and buckeyes, too. Cherries and redbuds hold. Wild hyacinth found at the Covered Bridge. Water cress and wild phlox full bloom along Grinnell, wild ginger open, first Jacob’s ladder. Wild geranium and ragwort well underway.
1996: The white lilacs are blooming – actually a little ahead of schedule in spite of the bitter cold.
1998: Late bloom of all the lilacs. Sun and cool today, greenhouse windows steamed from the contrast with the warm and humid indoor air. In the south garden, sweet Cecily is about eight or nine inches high and fully budded. The pink quince has long buds, almost twice as long as our azalea buds and ready to open. The largest tadpoles have spots or speckles today. Purple loosestrife in the pond is well along, maybe eighteen inches high. The pickerel plant is four to five, the lake rushes two feet plus. The water lily plant has sent up five leaves, but they are small, maybe two or three inches in diameter. Yesterday Jeanie brought home watercress and water hyacinths and duck plant, a small algae like plant that spreads across the top of the water. Things are looking like May.
1999: First garlic mustard and celandine seen. Cowslip still strong, and ragwort. First water lily leaf reaches the top of the pond, first major dandelion seeding throughout the countryside.
2000: North Glen: Solomon’s plume and seal, full trillium grandiflorum, colombo (Frasera caroliniensis) still holding at basal leaves, early wild geraniums, full wild phlox, some ragwort, a few toad trillium, May apples and ginger budding, Jack-in-the-pulpit, full miterwort, late periwinkles, violets declining, the canopy above still open. In town, apple petalfall almost complete, a few redbuds leafing.
2001: Buds on the silver olives, the first honeysuckles, and the blackberries at Middle Prairie. One yellow swallowtail seen, two admirals, one small black butterfly with prominent white bars on its wings.
2002: First buttercup in the south garden. Rose of Sharon starting to leaf. Wild grape and Virginia creeper leaves are half size. Cressleaf groundsel is tall and full bloom everywhere. North garden ferns are two feet, hops six feet and reaching for the upper branches of the budding honeysuckles. Rhubarb ready for pie. First two red azalea flowers appear in the front yard.
2005: Cowslip has disappeared, but ragwort is in full bloom across from the Covered Bridge. The first dandelion patches are going to seed.
2006: Thyme-leaved speedwell noticed blooming along Dayton Street this morning.
2007: One patch of dandelions near the freeway completely gone to seed. Doves are nesting in the trellis by our front sidewalk. Winter cress in full bloom at Peggy’s, one cressleaf groundsel plant open beside the sewer drain. Some lilacs have a few blooms, single purple flowers, some raggedy white clusters. I noticed that the first wood hyacinth had budded in the apple tree garden.
2008: Returning home from Tennessee, we watched the canopy thin as leaves ceded to buds. The dandelions that had all gone to seed in Kentucky reappeared and had taken over our lawn. The first wood hyacinth was budding in the circle garden, the star of Bethlehem was budding, lilacs were about a fourth out, peonies full of round buds, thyme-leafed speedwell had bloomed. Peach flowers were almost gone, much of the forsythia had gone to leaves, but the pink azalea was open, the red azalea with colorful buds, all of the apples and redbuds were in full bloom. In the pond, the head of our white and black koi, Emmett, had turned a solid pink while we were gone. Before supper, we went out with machete and shovel to cut off the bamboo sprouts that had taken over the south yard. Some of the shoots were more than a couple of feet tall.
2011: Rain continues much of the day here, with more tornadoes in the South. Outside the shop where I work, creeping phlox full bloom. Across from the Covered Bridge, the cowslip is still in flower. Throughout town, lilacs and crab apples are full, pears leafing or leafed, pink magnolias shedding. Rachel’s ginkgo’s leaves are about a third developed. The first large patch of dandelions along Limestone Street has gone to seed.
2012: In Peggy’s garden, violet iris and geraniums together. At home, the pink azalea blazes in the sun, and all the purple wood hyacinths are still in bloom. Lilacs are decaying quickly in the yard, but full in many other places. Another trip to the quarry: Two fingerling bluegills rescued from a drying pond area, brought over to a deeper pool. Many tadpoles found there. Locusts in full bloom all around, dogbane about a foot high, daisies flowering by the side of the road. Remnants of small white asters in one large field. Winter wheat deep green, maybe a foot or two high, and waving in the wind.
And Judy writes from Goshen, Indiana (200 miles northwest of Yellow Springs): “We slogged through the aptly-named Parson’s Swamp Woods on Wednesday and saw marsh buttercup, Jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium, paw-paw blossoms, fleabane, sweet cicely, blossoming May apple, violets of all kinds, wild ginger and wild geraniums. Today we drove for about an hour to a nature preserve on the edge of a moraine. Much upping and downing over lovely woods, rife with large trillium, some pollinated; blue-eyed Mary, Canada waterleaf, false Solomon’s seal and hairy Solomon’s seal, cleavers, wood poppy, nodding trillium, bishop’s cap, Canada violet, more Jack-in-the-pulpit and acres of blue phlox and wild geranium, along with ramps, hepatica leaves, and bloodroot leaves with flower pods for next year. Also one odd plant: (Aplectrum hyemale), puttyroot, a member (although a really unspectacular one, I must say) of the orchid family. We saw all three stages: leaf, shoot, and old flowers on a stalk.”
2013: First garlic mustard blossoms seen, and first speedwell. Don’s cherry and our sweet cherry keep their petals, the flowering of apple trees spreading through the village. Viburnums with multicolored flower clusters in bloom. Ferns up one to two feet. Alliums, Indian hyacinths and wood hyacinths are budded. Hostas offer color now in the some yards.
2014: Moya showed me another praying mantis ootheca in her yard yesterday, this one attached to a raspberry bush. Her bleeding heart did not come back this year, but she has a new abundance of Mrs. Lawson’s yellow heirloom tulips (with pointed petals).
2015: Still and chilly in the middle 30s, sky clear. First robins twittering at 4:22 a.m. EST, no birds earlier when I walked Bella around the block. Perennial salvia and two rhododendron shrubs planted. Bur oak leaves one inch across from the Antioch gym. I jogged to Ellis Pond for the first time in decades: Scarlet oaks and ashes budding with some flowers; white oak with very small leaves; sycamore leaves at least an inch long.
2016: Cold today after a nice warm spell and thunderstorms (tornadoes in the Central Plains. At Jill’s honeysuckles and the first burning bush flowering, blue speedwell in patches of her lawn. Deep into North Glen away from the river toward the Pine Forest area: bluebells wearing down, lanky chickweed flowering all across the forest floor, occasional Jack-in-the-pulpits, large-flowered trilliums, spring cress, abundant garlic mustard and wild geraniums, common ragwort, cressleaf groundsel, buttercups, white violets.
2018: Jeff writes: “Found nettles on a walk Yesterday. Brought some home and cooked them. Been a while. Delish. My right forefinger is still whispering ‘nettles’ to me.”
On the front porch: the first moth by the porch light. Ferns are up maybe eight inches in places. Along Elm Street, a medium-sized buckeye tree has clusters of buds.
2019: The pear trees have lost most of their petals. Red oaks flowering at Ellis. Carl says morel mushrooms were on sale at the farmers’ market this morning and that he found a few in his yard yesterday. In the lawns between Yellow Springs and Dayton, the great dandelion bloom is coming to a close, blossoms seeding or cut away with the grass. Heavy snow in Madison, Wisconsin today.
2020: First red admiral seen this year. It was exploring the euonymus at the north edge of the yard. In the alley, dandelions have started to go to seed, the Great Bloom, along with Middle Spring, coming to a close. Beyond Ellis Pond, a few bright winter cress plants outshining the groundsel.
From the moist meadow to the wither’d hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells and deepens, to the cherish’d eye.
James Thomson