The Ice-Forming Moon...

This same November moon, the Ice-Forming Moon, rose over our own familiar snow-covered hills, but we saw it rise above Millenium Park in the Windy City.

photo by Aisling, November 24, 2007 - Chicago

The Thunder Moon

As I told my friend Nan, I've been running around trying to get a decent photo of the moon for several days. I started on Saturday, when the moon rose almost-full and beautifully orange over the stand of birch trees near the southeast corner of our property. I was working in the garden, but ran in the house for the camera. This photo is unfortunately blurry, but the one that I liked best will not load on Blogger correctly. My moon photos are never quite what I hope for, and apparently I am not alone in that sentiment. Sky and Telescope has some good advice for snapping photos of the moon.

My camp-fire girls resource refers to July's Full Moon as The Thunder Moon. If only this moon had brought with its rising, some much-needed thunder and rain.

Once in a Blue Moon

I know, the moon above is orange not blue, but this is the moon that rose the night before the full moon. As the second full moon of June, it earns (by some definitions) the label of a "blue moon." Here is a good explantion.

Almost as rare as a blue moon is having me write two blog posts in one day, but I did! I didn't want to ignore the moon, which was shining and silver and pouring in all of the uncovered windows last night, though I don't have one of my old-fashioned Camp-Girl moon names to correspond to it.

The Song Moon...

This seems to be my year to miss every opportunity to see the full moon! Nevertheless, I went back to my favorite source for old moon names to find out whose light was seeping in around the bamboo shades last night. It was the Song Moon, whose softness cast a glow of light throughout the night.

The transition from April into May finds the occupants of the Quiet Country House unusually busy. I have been working at two different school libraries, doing my best imitation of a Soccer Mom, and pampering myself just a bit. Tonight I will be modelling two vintage wedding gowns in a bridal fashion show. More about that tomorrow (maybe even photos...?)

Out in the garden, the bees are as busy as my family has been of late. Things are blooming, the bees are busy gathering and pollinating, and tender seedlings are pushing through the soil as if eager to see what all the buzz is about. I know exactly what it's all about, and I know of what the Song Moon is singing: It is spring. It is beauty, and energy, and vitality, bursting forth in fragrant, colorful, commotion. It is life renewing itself. And maybe, as I have been today, the Earth is pampering herself just a bit!

photos by Aisling, 1) the setting sun over the lake, 2) narcissus

Of Wild Geese and Snowy Skies..

The photo above is from the butterfly garden last April 6th.

And this photo is from the same garden yesterday.

A few days ago, April's full moon rose as round and bright as always, but I could not see it through the banks of heavy cloud that have filled our skies for most of April thus far. My favorite source for moon names, from Sharon Lovejoy's book Hollyhock Days, calls April's moon The Wild Goose Moon. This seems appropriate to me, for we have been seeing wild geese these past few weeks. They fly overhead, proclaiming their arrival in noisy, gladsome chorus. They land in the fields along with pairs of Sandhill cranes, providing an entertaining focal point as we peer through our windows in the late afternoon hours. I have not seen them in the last four days of blizzard-winds and heavy snowfall.

The red-breasted robins also returned to our northern climes a couple of weeks past. Since the blizzard arrived, the robins have been congregating near the edges of the paved back roads and highways. The snow melts faster on those dark road surfaces. Perhaps the robins are seeking heat or hoping for a morsel of food, which the frozen snow-covered ground cannot provide. I have never seen this behavior by robins... the congregating or the lingering at the roadsides. We will be happy when the snow melts and Mr. Wiggles (our name for the first robin to visit our property each year) and his friends can seek their worms amid the greening grass and flowers in our fields.

The Glories of March...

March blew in "like a lion" on a wild wind, but has been behaving like a lamb for the past couple of days... a white and sparkling lamb beneath a blue, blue sky. The morning glory seeds in this photo that I took in the garden yesterday will have to wait a few more months before sprouting. Winter weather will make several appearances before June, and our "frost free date" arrive. Despite that wait, I feel hopeful as March progresses.

I caught only a glimpse of March's full moon: The Crow Moon or the Full Worm moon, according to my two usual references. Feeling that neither of those names summed up the feeling of March for me, I used the internet to look further afield. I learned that the Celts called the full moon of March the "Moon of Winds." Ah, that is exactly it! I caught my brief glimpse of the full moon the other night as the wind swept the clouds across the dark sky.

I believe my response to March is inborn, inherited from my pagan ancestresses rather than my Christian forefathers. Each year in the early days of March, a surge of wild expectancy courses through my veins. I feel as if I am coming back to life after long gray months of dormancy.

photo by Aisling, March 7, 2007