May 12th
The 132nd Day of the Year
Now Venus herself enters the furrows:
Love learns the rustic words of the ploughman.
Tibullus
Sunrise/set: 5:23/7:40
Day’s Length: 14 hours 17 minutes
Average High/Low: 71/50
Average Temperature: 60
Record High: 90 – 1982
Record Low: 35 – 1938
Weather
As the third major high-pressure system of the month approaches western Ohio, today’s chances of rain increase significantly over yesterday’s. Showers occur on 45 percent of all May 12ths. Today is also one of the two cloudiest days in May: the 12th and the 25th bring completely cloudy conditions five years in a decade. Highs reach 90 ten percent of the time, warm into the 80s thirty percent, the 70s another thirty percent, the 60s twenty percent, and the 50s ten percent.
Natural Calendar
Mountain maples, lilacs and wild cherries flower. Poison ivy, like the Virginia creeper and wild grapes, develops to a third of its June size. The foliage of the green ash, rose of Sharon, ginkgo, sycamore, witch hazel, and sweet gum is all a third to half of full size. Last year’s sweet gum flower clusters complete their fall as chives blossom.
Daybook
1982: Strawberries have green fruit. Sweet rocket seen blooming for the first time today.
1983: Most cherry and apple petals have fallen. Yellow wood sorrel open at Wilberforce, chamomile too.
1984: First honeysuckle in the yard.
1986: Wood nettle and ragweed a foot and a half high now, other nettles and poke weed waist high. Ginkgo, leaves half an inch wide, getting round, brown seeds. Jacob’s ladder done blooming. Wild onions heading. Poppies full bloom in Mad River. Fields of gray dandelions. Mulberry fruit just starting to form from the flowers.
1987: September’s beggarticks are two to three inches tall now. First red-headed woodpecker seen since I was a boy in Marshfield, Wisconsin. First spitbug of the year noticed.
1988: Jacob’s ladder full bloom. First poppies open in town. Maple seeds have been falling all week.
1991: Tulip tree budding, a few flowers opening. All the locust trees in town are in full bloom, flowers hanging down like white grape clusters. End of the lilac season. Wild grapes budding. Flicker still calling through the day. Mulberry fruit is full size now. Ginkgo leaves full size. Goslings the size of my boot seen at the south pond. Grackle in the back locust nest flies back and forth as if trying to lead its young from the nest.
1993: First pale violet iris opens in the yard, first lupine flowers with it. Purple deadnettle yellowing now. First black medic at Wilberforce. Hemlock chest high along Clifton Road. Buckeyes past their prime. Wild cherry full bloom. First honeysuckle blooms in the yard. Chives now in early bloom.
1994: East to New York and then back in a day. Winter cress common throughout. The canopy a week or two behind Yellow Springs in central Pennsylvania, dogwoods and redbuds full bloom too (almost all gone in southwestern Ohio). Great golden fields of April dandelions spread across the mountain pastures. The trees filled in rapidly as we moved toward the coast, dandelions all went to seed. New York City, like here, was almost completely leafed out. First of summer’s yellow sweet clover seen in New Jersey, but just that one patch on the whole trip.
1995: Jacoby, 7:00 in the morning: Buttercups, cowslips, spring cress, ragwort, wild phlox still dominate the wetlands with violet and gold. The hills are white with garlic mustard. In the streams, water cress is past its prime, and chickweed has started to yellow by the paths. Wild geraniums have opened, the first white sedum and the first sweet Cicely. First gossamer webs of the year seen this morning.
A pair of geese with eight goslings (maybe a week old at most) swimming down the river. Further along, three wood ducklings playing in the water, waiting for their mother; she flies down, calling angrily (it seems) at them for being out alone. First star of Bethlehem is open by the vegetable garden trellis. This afternoon, I planted two flats of strawberries, two raspberry plants, two blackberry.
1998: Early morning robins still strong at 4:00 a.m. Forgot to note the other day, maybe two or three days ago: the first red admiral butterfly came to the garden. At the entrance to South Glen, toad trilliums have ended. First daddy longlegs seen. First scorpion fly. First buckeye nuts have formed. Purple waterleaf is in full bloom. First comfrey flowers.
1999: Bridal wreath, white Spirea vanhouttie, full. Black chokecherry, also white Pyracantha in bloom. And red horse chestnut, Aesculus, with buckeye-like leaves and reddish spike flowers in Troy.
2000: One tadpole with legs. They are secretive now, hiding out at the edge of the pond, difficult to find and catch. Soon they’ll be gone. At the west end of the water, the first wild iris brought from Caesar Creek two years ago opened this morning in 85 degree heat. Arrowhead leaves are still small, having emerged a week or so ago. Over 20 leaves on the water lily today. First pink carnation opened, first snapdragons unravel, first pale pink peonies in the south garden. Almost all the clematis are blooming, the rhododendrons showing all their color. This afternoon, wild roses came in and the first blue flags in the north garden. In Columbus, crown vetch and patches of daisies open along the freeway. The canopy closing quickly.
2001: First dark pink peony in the yard. All the azaleas down. Buds on the privet and the spiderwort, locust flowers decaying.
2002: Sudden decline of the white bridal wreath spirea. Locust bloom spreading.
2003: I got up early Pentecost morning, made a cup of black tea, and went out into the back yard to watch the dawn. By 4:00, the robin chorus was faint but steady in the distance. The volume grew until cardinals began to sing at 4:37, and then the doves came in at 4:40, and then the blue jays at 5:48, and the red-bellied woodpecker at 4:56, crows at 4:59.
By the time the grackles woke up at 5:00, the bird chorus was loud and raucous. Then a sudden breeze passed through the trees, and, to my surprise, the grackles, adults and fledglings, became more boisterous, their calls drowning out the other songsters as the sun came up.
Earlier in the month, the birds had become quieter after sunrise, but that Pentecost morning, it seemed to me, the grackle babies had all hatched at once, and the entire community of grackles was aroused and excited.
The wave of their language grew and grew as though every grackle that lived in our woods had been filled with a great message, and that each one knew it was time to speak.
I sat there wondering, as I sipped my tea and listened to this grand gathering of creatures, if maybe the human saints were gone, the apostles and their fervor long decayed, and, in their place, these joyous birds had now received the overwhelming wind of Revelation, and were clucking and cackling, in universal, earthy tongues, the good news of summer and rebirth.
2004: Hawthorns at the little park on Dayton Street are in full bloom. Locusts started yesterday throughout the countryside, and wild cherry blossoms are coming in. Most of the maples have full-size leaves. Hemlock is up to my neck. The deep purple clematis is blooming, and one patch of daisies is open. One strawberry is reddening.
Driving to Washington Court House, I watched the mist rising from the dark, moist fields. Near Jamestown: great patches of golden cressleaf groundsel stretched to the horizon. At night, small long-bodied spiders have started to weave their webs across the pond.
2005: To Dayton: Locusts are in full bloom throughout the city. Silver olives blossoming along the freeway. In the afternoon, I found honeysuckles opening along the north border, and the first iris was blooming in the yard.
2006: To Dayton: Locusts in full bloom again this year.
2008: The first sweet rocket has opened overnight in the rain, pink.
2009: Maple seeds collecting by the side of the highway. Tight bittersweet buds and large leaves. Indian hyacinths fading quickly. New spruce growth an inch to two inches. American beech leaves to two inches.
2010: The yellow iris Tat gave us in Madison opened this morning. A new (or returning) toad has found the pond, began to sing about 1:30 this afternoon. On Dayton Street, the lilies-of-the-valley are rusting and disappearing. The kousa dogwood at the park has green flower petals.
2011: Tour of Spoleto and Monte Luco with Neysa and Ivano: Ginestra, wild locust, tea and rugosa roses, lily-of-the-valley, giant buckeye trees, elderberries, black medic all in bloom. Cottonwood cotton floating through the valley (placing the cottonwood season about three weeks ahead of the average in southwestern Ohio, linden trees with berries. Small zebra swallowtail seen. The valley fully green, the canopy seeming complete.
2012: Sage has bloomed overnight in the circle garden, alliums and chives still holding well there. This morning when I was transplanting ferns, Rick brought over a bottle full of tree frog tadpoles, a few with legs, for the pond. I seeded one flat of zinnias, a few marigolds and tithonias. Jennifer in Portland, Oregon, says that her tadpoles don’t have legs yet.
Liz writes: “Zeitgeber for today! A black swallowtail butterfly has been resting on a hosta stem all day, hardening its wings. I accidentally discovered it because I sprayed some water in that direction, and must have knocked it off of wherever it was. It frantically shook its wings over and over, especially the right one, and then very delicately found the nice stem to attach itself to, and just be still. It has been such a meditative day for me, knowing that it was there preparing for its final stage of life. It is awe-inspiring to think that it came out of its chrysalis so very competent, and of course, so very beautiful.”
2013: One sky-blue spiderwort opened yesterday, and Don’s rhododendrons are beginning to flower. Neysa in Italy said she saw her first small wild orchid today. Some progress in the trees at Ellis Pond. The bald cypresses are greening up now, and all the oaks except the English oak (which had been planted for Vern Hogans, the famous Yellow Springs cat fisherman) have one-to-three-inch leaves (the scarlet, the red, the white, the sawtooth, the shingle, the chinquapin). The hickory still only shows flowers. Ashes are filling in, sugar maples all full, butternuts and black walnuts sparse still.
2014: I noticed a sudden change in violet bloom today, so many of the flowers disappearing with the dandelions. And throughout town, dogwoods are losing their petals. The honeysuckles started to blossom in today’s 80-degree heat, the rich, sweet smell filling the dooryard garden. I saw poppies in bloom in the alley and on the way downtown, and Mateo’s weigela is emerging. In Italy, Ivano reported that five merli (the Italian blackbirds) eggs had hatched, the mother covering them with her wings in the rain.
2015: Yesterday, the warm spell was broken up by wind and rain. Now this morning, the locust trees in the back yard are suddenly in bloom. Daisies are blooming at Peggy’s, and the first flowers on Moya’s mock orange are opening. Indian hyacinths almost gone from the circle garden. One spiderwort bud seen, some phlox budding, primrose getting tall enough to flower.
2016: This afternoon, I found the first scorpion fly, and saw the first beetles eating the phlox, penstemon, mint and primroses. Wood frogs heard close the bike path, steady chant.
2017: First scorpion fly found, first orange beetles (nymphs of the four-lined plant bug, Poecilocapsus lineatus) eating the phlox. In the shed, the spiders have woven their webs and are ready.
2018: A Baltimore oriole visited the hummingbird feeder at about four this afternoon. I planted the last of the zinnias with Tat. First peonies seen today on the way downtown, a full shrub of pink blossoms, a buckeye tree open by the old tennis courts. No beetles eating the phlox. Throughout town, dogwoods and bridal wreath spirea are blooming. In the North Glen with Tat: giant skunk cabbage leaves, ragwort, violet wild phlox, wood betony, fat, white May apple blossoms, spring cress, white violets, golden alexander, waterleaf, small deep-purple larkspur, the last trillium grandiflorum pink and drooping, sweet rockets.
2019: In the field west of Ellis, orchard grass is covering the Early Spring wildflowers, but meadow goatsbeard is nodding above it; parsnip and curly dock are ready to open; hemlock stalks have shot up past my shoulders, budded.
Stroke her daisy,
make his hay:
May will never
come again today.
Smell her rose,
snatch his bouquet:
Love will never,
ever
come again this May.
bf