July 11th
The 192nd Day of the Year
There is no plateau on which Nature rests at midsummer, but she instantly commences the descent to winter.
Henry David Thoreau
Sunrise/set: 5:16/8:05
Day’s Length: 14 hours 49 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64
Average Temperature: 75
Record High: 102 – 1936
Record Low: 45 – 1898
Weather
Chances of rain: 40 percent today, but the sun appears nine days in a decade on this date. Highs in the 90s occur 25 percent of the time; 80s come six days in ten, and the chances of a milder afternoon in the 70s remain at 15 percent. Tonight is the third night in a row during which chances of a low in the 50s are between five and ten percent.
Natural Calendar
Despite heat and humidity, the year is turning to autumn. The sun shifts lower in the sky, its movement easily measured by the five minutes of daylight lost this week. River sycamores shed their bark more readily now, and blood-red horns protrude from the sumac. Some green-hulled walnuts and hickory nuts are already on the ground. Thistledown fills the Dog Day winds. Hemlock is finally gone, and parsnips and dock are brown. The roadside clovers are past their prime. Black raspberries have been picked; the best red mulberries have fallen.
The crops are coming in. Early local sweet corn and apples are being picked. Wheat is ready to cut or has already been cut. Field corn is tasselling. Garden tomatoes are ready to eat now. Carrots and beets can be pulled for supper. Broccoli has headed, some of it bright yellow with summer bloom. June’s radishes are too hot. Lettuce has bolted.
Cicadas whine. Katydids come out after dark; only a week or so before they sing through the nights. Woolly bear caterpillars have begun to cross the country roads. New generations of crickets emerge; the autumn field crickets have begun to sing, and the soft buzzing of tree crickets fills the trees. New cabbage butterflies cluster on the lavender and purple loosestrife.
Daybook
1981: First rose of Sharon blooms.
1982: First rose of Sharon blooms. Jog to Ellis Pond: Chicory, white sweet clover, milkweed, sow thistle, fleabane, Queen Anne’s lace, black mustard, moth mullein, elderberry bindweed, bull thistle, Virginia roses, arrowhead, white campion, catnip, horse nettle, white vervain, teasel, yellow wild indigo, flower of an hour.
1983: First late-summer cricket seen in the yard.
1987: First sweet corn bought at farmer’s market, seller said a little had been ready a week ago. He’d planted in the middle of April.
1989: Hail and over three inches of rain today.
1990: White sweet clover has completely replaced the yellow sweet clover. Sow thistles are tall and blooming, horseweed shooting up, first wild lettuce open.
1992: First balloon flower opens in the south garden. First phlox buds. Leaf drop of apple trees and lower canopy begins here and there.
1995: Morning birdsong has been reduced to doves and cardinals.
1997: Dark green-leafed hosta has first violet blooms. Robins loud all day. At dusk, a mother robin flew with her baby to the top of the pussy willow. Then she flew back and forth from the south garden with morsels for him.
1998: Cardinal at 4:30 this morning. Crows at 5:00.
2000: The first showy coneflower opened all the way today, and many others are unraveling slowly. Eleven red daylilies planted, most in the new east day-lily patch, some in the south garden to add June and July color. Spiderwort cut back. The afternoon was filled with grackle chatter in the back locust trees. A dead young grackle found in the yard, probably a victim of Louis, the cat. In the cool afternoon, yesterday’s Japanese beetles were out of sight, and the cicadas were silent.
2003: The woods of South Glen is muddy and bedraggled after almost six inches of rain. Only a few flowers seen in my short walk under the canopy: avens, lopseed, enchanter’s nightshade, heliopsis. As I came back to the truck, the sky cleared, and the sun was shining through the trees, changing my mood and the mood of the landscape around me. Then, I heard a hoarse two-syllable birdcall in the Osage ahead; I was able to get close enough to identify my first Eastern towhee. At home, I sat on the bench by the pond and rested, surrounded by bamboo and loosestrife, coneflowers, monarda, Japanese iris, lizard’s tail, spiderwort. I felt safe and complete.
2004: To Wisconsin: The landscape was deep green with corn north and west through Illinois. Some redwing blackbirds were still guarding their territories on fences along the road. As we drove north from Bloomington, the corn and soybeans became shorter; in Wisconsin, parsnips were still golden, the clearest marker of our return to June. In the preserve above Maggie’s house, coneflowers were in full bloom, and the very first Indian plantain and rudbeckia speciosa were starting to open. Monarda was in early bloom (late bloom in the Ohio Valley). Daylily and mid-season hosta time was well underway. Wheat outside of Madison was dark brown, uncut. Black raspberries were ripe along the paths.
2006: The first cardinal sang at 4:21 a.m., and others followed about ten minutes later, then continued strong for an hour or so. No robin song recognized.
2007: Euonymus buds are maybe a millimeter or two, the same size as the honeysuckle berries on the shrub over the front trellis. Lilies at full bloom, red Orientals the most recent in the northeast garden. Two red admiral butterflies and one tiger swallowtail seen in just a few minutes.
2008: Robins were singing this morning at 4:30. A cardinal sang twice an hour later – doves were calling steadily then. Grackles came by an hour after that, and finally crows another hour after that. Young sparrows still begging for food at noon. A cardinal sang for us as we ate lunch.
Thoreau: “Haying is now generally under-way.” July 11, 1860. Here in the Ohio Valley, the first cut is complete, the second cut usually half done. In the alley, Mrs. Timberlake’s yuccas and feverfew are declining, her bellflowers still tall and bright. Liatris has been blooming over a week in Peggy’s garden. A small flock of grackles in the trees as I walked Bella tonight.
2010: Before eight o’clock this morning, crows and grackles were screeching in the mulberry. Later, robin singsong, cardinal call, sporadic, sparrows feeding heavily, black-capped chickadee weaving in and out of their flocking. Grackle and robin chatter throughout the day. Cicadas, hummingbird, spicebush swallowtails, skipper, cabbage moths, hummingbird moths, tiger swallowtails an hour or so later. Throughout the alley and down Stafford Street: mid-July plateau of ditch lilies and rose of Sharon. The first of our pink phlox is opening by the south border of the yard.
2011: Severe thunderstorms passed through the area this evening, knocking out power to the local radio station and bringing down trees in Xenia. Jeanie’s doctor said he even had two vigorous tomato plants pulled up by the wind.
2012: Twenty-seven different lily plants in bloom today, but the number of blossoms is falling so quickly. Drought continuing throughout the Midwest. Nathan reports from West Virginia that he has been without power since June 29 because of the late June storm. Rapid yellowing is taking place on the river birch and the white mulberry in our back yard.
2013: Thirty-eight lilies in bloom today, may be the best of the year. First blueberry in the yard is blue. One spiderwort cluster, all the astilbes and almost every ditch lily are gone. Shasta daisies full now, heliopsis still very strong, as a few more phlox open, ripe mulberries still prominent on the white mulberry tree. It seems the phlox should be the next step after the lilies, blending the seasons seamlessly. One zebra swallowtail came by, flying erratically through the north garden, not stopping to check the flowers.
2014: Thirty lilies in bloom today, the most so far. A few blueberries eaten from the blueberry bush. Most everything similar to last year except for the number of lilies and the zebra swallowtail. Two hardy, leftover, overgrown Rudebeckia speciosa plants starting to bloom, and at Don’s they are open. Shasta daisy season is here, as well. The trellis wisteria, which started to rebloom about a week ago, holds scattered flower clusters. (The hard winter had killed off its autumn foliage and its first buds.) At the upper walk in the North Glen, lopseed to seed, white vervain gone. At the Women’s Park along Corry Street: Purple coneflowers, yellow coneflowers, gray-headed coneflowers, milkweed, tall heliopsis, orange butterfly weed all in bloom, cup plant not open. And I even saw a monarch butterfly, the first I’ve seen this year.
2015: Teasel blooming on the way to Cincinnati, first I’ve seen this month. Large drifts of thistles to seed. Yellow sweet clover stems bare and brittle. The garden lilies: 60 plants today, a new record and twice as many as some previous years. One white “fuzz bug” thrip passed me as I walked out to mow the lawn. Still, the yard has passed some kind of high-timber line of summer. The astilbes are about gone; the ditch lilies are done; the Indomitable Sprit hydrangea’s large, pink blossoms are browning; the spiderwort still blooms, but its foliage is discolored and aging; the mid-season hosta flowers are more than halfway up their stalks; the circle garden still holds its greatest number of lilies ever, but the larger and most spectacular ones have fewer than half their buds to open. The amaranth has just started to send up its plumes, however, and day by day the Joe Pie buds show more color. One red admiral butterfly seen this afternoon.
2016: Sixty-one lily plants in bloom this morning, but the number of blossoms is down considerably. Only three of the sixty-one are Asiatic (tall with golden bell-like blooms. Three butterflies as I counted: one hackberry brown, two cabbage whites.
Amaranth plumes are one to three inches long, three bright orange flowers on the tithonias, more of the large-flowered zinnias coming in behind the north garden lilies. This afternoon, I heard my first cicada of the summer, and I saw the first monarch visit the sweet milkweed blossoms.
2017: Cicadas and buzzing crickets in mid-morning. Six robins feeding in the lawn next door, but no robin clucking or peeping noticed for several days. Yesterday’s lily abundance suddenly collapsed overnight, thanks to the new fawn and hungry mother, as well as from a rapid decline in new buds: ninety-one day lily, six ditch lily blossoms, a little more than half of what I counted yesterday. So phenologically speaking, the timing of the deer birthing and the assault on lily blossoms merge to put a quick end to flowering.
2018: Lilies suddenly fewer: one hundred-twenty seven day lily, two Asiatic, five ditch lily blossoms. Spiderwort now at maybe a third. Yesterday, the deer attacked the hollyhock leaves. Joe Pye weed blushing, daisies and heliopsis and purple coneflowers strong. Two great spangled fritillaries seen zooming through the north garden. Many Japanese beetles mating in the ferns, eating and browning the foliage. Sparrow feeding its young in Jill’s birdhouse. More blushing on the Joe Pye, color fading on the monarda, spiderwort foliage rusting and blossoms down to maybe a fourth of their June numbers. At the Indian Mound with Max: dusky tall bellflowers in full bloom lining the path. Two tiny toads and multiple daddy longlegs seen.
2019: The lily tide keeps rising. Two hundred and twenty-four day lily blossoms this morning, and 40 ditch lilies. The earlier-planted zinnias are in early full behind the patch of canna lilies. Above the back porch, the trumpet creeper vine is lush, its color glowing through the back bedroom window even past dusk. Monarda color holding on, in spite of rusting leaves and diminishing number of flowers. Don’s rudbeckia plants are coming in, his rose of Sharon shrub losing its first major wave of violet flowers. Purple coneflowers and yellow coneflowers are now common in the village.
Leslie and Bruce send field notes about watching fledglings, keeping me up to date on the season: “Crows: 2 parents, sometimes but not always feeding 3 begging young; Goldfinches: 1 fledgling alone and eating, flies stronger, nearly on its own? Titmice: 2 adults and 3 fledglings, lots of fuss/pester near adults, 1 gets fed; Cooper’s Hawk (large young one); House Wren: 1 adult with 3 fledglings, we watch parent feed one of them.”
2020: No robin chorus this morning, but one cardinal sang out at 4:09. Then only tree crickets and tree frogs until 4:34 when the cardinals began singing steadily, with robin peeping (not their mating calls) as they guided fledglings at 4:45, and doves joining at 4:49. Lily count: 188 day lilies, 28 ditch lilies, three Asiatics, the peak past. At the St. Francis shrine in Cincinnati, I heard the first cicadas call, and I found ginkgo fruits on the ground, black walnuts close to full size in clusters of three.
If I pay attention in July,
I can see that I am nothing
but a damselfly.
When I watch you in July,
I can see that you are nothing
more or less than I.
Hepatica Sun