The End Of A Strange Summer
It’s the end of a strange summer. It actually ends on Thursday, shortly after 9 p.m. And what a season it was! For those who play all summer, it was a dream come true. But for gardeners, it was a nightmare. The madman was sure Mother Nature had gone on vacation and had taken her rain duties with her. He got pretty tired of hauling water all summer.
Remember, our gardens need 1” of water per week. The summer started dry and just got worse from there. Meteorologists kept promising relief. But it seems these big storms kept drying up before they reached us. In Farmington, we had one storm that dropped 1” of rain and then a couple of half inchers. What little water fell was quickly blasted away by the sun. Connecticut was facing a severe drought, a far cry from the conditions of last summer when some farmer’s fields were under water.
A Dry Summer
This year many fields were dry, just like our gardens. Irrigation and hauling water helped, but that’s not as effective as Mother Nature. So, when she woke up near the end of summer in early September and sent us 4” of rain in one storm it was too little too late. It was a great shot in the arm for fast growing radishes and greens, but it overwhelmed our almost-ripe tomatoes – many of them cracked. The 4” of water helped ease the drought a bit but didn’t end it.
“What a screwy summer,” the madman said. “We even had the Harvest Moon on September 10. It seemed way too early.”
Harvest Moon
In fairness, the date of the Harvest Moon isn’t determined by the type of summer we have had. And, Mother Nature really has no control over this date. The Harvest Moon is the full moon that rises at the end of summer, closest to the Autumnal Equinox. Sometimes this happens in September, replacing the Corn Moon; sometimes it’s in October where the Hunters’ Moon gets bumped. Actually, the Harvest Moon can occur as early as September 8 and as late as October 7. What makes the Harvest Moon special?
Usually, the moon rises around 50 minutes later each day. But around equinox time, the moon’s path around the earth is closer to the celestial equator. And the moon only rises 20 minutes later each night. With the moon rising during twilight hours, it seems as if we have light from dusk to dawn for several nights in a row. Wonderful light for harvest. Remember, our early ancestors didn’t have tractors with lights, so the moonlight really came in handy.
We make a big deal of the extra light around harvest time. The madman reminds us that the same thing happens during the Vernal Equinox in March, but no one seems to care about it because it’s not the end of summer and it’s way too cold to plant. (Unless you’re planting peas).
Supermoons
Our early Harvest Moon this year followed another celestial happening that doesn’t occur too often. During this hot dry summer, we had four Supermoons in a row. So, what is a Supermoon?
Remember, the moon’s orbit around the earth is not circular, it is elliptical. That means it has close points (called perigees if you want an SAT word) and far points (called apogees, SAT again). If a full moon occurs near a perigee, it can appear 15% brighter and larger. Most people don’t notice this. We used to refer to them as Perigean Full Moons, but then astrologer Richard Nolle started calling them Supermoons in 1979. That sounded so much cooler that it stuck. We often get three Supermoons in a row, but rarely four.
The madman was really annoyed because one of them washed out the Perseid Meteor Shower in August. And a total Lunar Eclipse on May’s Supermoon was washed out by one of our infrequent rainstorms.
Visit From Jupiter
As an aside, if you were out there looking at the full moon earlier this month, you may have noticed a bright star-like object to the east. This is the planet Jupiter which is making a close pass to the earth. It will keep getting closer until its path turns and it starts to distance itself from us around September 26. This giant planet will come closer to us than it has in 70 years. Because the moon will turn new on the 25th, its glow will not spoil your view of Jupiter. EarthSky.org has a great article on viewing the planet’s moons.
The madman says, grab a pair of binoculars and look for Jupiter’s Galilean moons. By the way, there are four of them (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto), and they are in a straight line around the planet. They also move pretty quickly so they will change position every day. The madman thinks this is pretty cool.
Yeah, we’ve had a busy month. He looks for things in the garden all day, and he looks for things in the sky all night.
ISS
By the way, we sometimes get to see the International Space Station fly across the sky – best viewing is at dusk or at dawn. Want to know how to find it? Check out this NASA spot the station link. As if we don’t have enough to do bringing in the harvest and putting the garden beds to rest, the madman is busy getting ready for the arrival of his new greenhouse. The one we told you about in June is coming soon.
So, in a couple of days it will be the Autumnal Equinox. The madman has no bonfires or huge feasts planned for this year, but he does have plans to celebrate – we’ll tell you about them in the next post.
But now it’s time for lemonade. Then he’ll haul more stones around.
