Welcome to July's "Buck Moon"
 |
| Illustration from "Twelve Moons of the Year" |
"BUCK MOON
A baffler, but perhaps because
buck deer were fat and their meat
could be quickly dried in the
hot July sun."--from Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year"
Reading John Switzer every Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch got me to borrow a copy of Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year" from the library and eventually to buy it. Switzer refers each month to the name for that month's moon, given by Native Americans or early settlers.
The "Twelve Moons of the Year" is a compilation of Borland's nature editorials in The New York Times newspaper. What I like about the book is that he breaks it down by days of the month, so you can keep it alongside another book you're reading and just read--and re-read--a page or two a day--and re-read it all over again the next year, and the next...
I've been keeping that book and Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" and the Farmer's Almanac in a stack on our coffee table. To be honest, I tend only to read Borland's book lately because I can take it in smaller segments than Leopold's book and I don't fully trust the Almanac, especially after this past winter!
I do like the Almanac's astronomy section, though. It tells you about a year in advance about celestial events that are on schedule, while TV news tells you abou a week in advance. The main one I look for is the Perseid meteor shower in August, although the almanac says the shower on August 11 will be ruined by moon's light since it comes closest to earth this year on August 10. Last August I saw a shooting star every two minutes or so.
Tonight is a wild Nature night, showing that Nature is more powerful and entertaining than any July 4th fireworks show. While I was watching fireflies tonight, the sky kept lighting up like fireworks, but everywhere--due to heat lightning. We had a very hot and humid day. And as I type this thunder is making threatening sounds and vibrations, more thrilling than the sound of fireworks--and a lot scarier!
And the seeming failure of the Perseid meteor shower this August, the most reliable of the shooting stars show, proves to me once again that fireflies beat meteor showers as well as fireworks!
I've been keeping that book and Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" and the Farmer's Almanac in a stack on our coffee table. To be honest, I tend only to read Borland's book lately because I can take it in smaller segments than Leopold's book and I don't fully trust the Almanac, especially after this past winter!
I do like the Almanac's astronomy section, though. It tells you about a year in advance about celestial events that are on schedule, while TV news tells you abou a week in advance. The main one I look for is the Perseid meteor shower in August, although the almanac says the shower on August 11 will be ruined by moon's light since it comes closest to earth this year on August 10. Last August I saw a shooting star every two minutes or so.
Tonight is a wild Nature night, showing that Nature is more powerful and entertaining than any July 4th fireworks show. While I was watching fireflies tonight, the sky kept lighting up like fireworks, but everywhere--due to heat lightning. We had a very hot and humid day. And as I type this thunder is making threatening sounds and vibrations, more thrilling than the sound of fireworks--and a lot scarier!
And the seeming failure of the Perseid meteor shower this August, the most reliable of the shooting stars show, proves to me once again that fireflies beat meteor showers as well as fireworks!
 |
| Illustration from "Twelve Moons of the Year". |
No comments:
Post a Comment