july full moon

Even the breeze is warm, and air smells of fresh cut hay, drying under the clear noon sky.  the sun reflecting off the stubble and ground making your legs feel  like they are too near the coalstove.  This is haying, those  dry days  in early July when the hay is cut, dried and bailed to be stored in the barn, fodder and bedding for the animals this winter.  And sometimes the hay loft is a place for the young man and his best girl to sneak a cuddle or two. 

A time when the fireworks  Mother Nature fills the sky with can be at least as beautiful and the man made ones that mark the 4th of July, and a whole lot more  frightening.

7-2-12

The full moon of July has been called the Hay Moon, and the Thunder Moon for obvious reasons, it is also known as the Buck Moon because  antlers are beginning to grow.


 Currants, with their rich fragrance, much better than their flavor, are almost done now, they got an early start because of the mild winter.  I once added currants to the mead I made from surplus honey given to us, it was tasty and powerful.   This moon is also called the Mead Moon.  With the ripening of blueberries and raspberries during this month it is now wonder it is sometimes called the Berry Moon.  The long hours of picking and watching the clouds overhead, thinking  as you avoid thorns and sometimes bees, a contemplation, meditation, watching for shapes in the clouds and of course sampling the sweetness of ripe berries.


It really is true, you can hear the corn growing, those eerie pops, and snaps, zips and rustles one hears as the "knee high by the 4th of July"  stalks try to reach their full height, a wondrous thing that  during the Moon, when some  called the full moon the Ripening corn Moon.