Hunter’s Moon (Full Moon October 2008)

The Farmer’s Almanac has this to say about our moon this month:

With the leaves falling and the deer fattened, it is time to hunt. Since the fields have been reaped, hunters can easily see fox and the animals which have come out to glean.

Reading through the various Native American moon names for October, references to the leaves changing or falling stand out as well as references to cold and frost.

Harvest Moon (Full Moon September 2008)

The Farmer’s Almanac has this to say about our moon this month:

This is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.

Glancing the various Native American moon names for September, you can easily note how many tribes in the Americas referenced harvest, the ripeness of corn, the changing of leaves, and the drying of grass.

Sturgeon Moon (Full Moon August 2008)

The Farmer’s Almanac has this to say about our moon this month:

The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

If you look through the various Native American moon names for August, you will notice a few trends this month: the end of summer (and hot days), the end of ripening and harvest (with emphasis on blackberries and black cherries and acorns), and some stuff about waterfowl (geese shedding their feathers, young ducks start flying).  The Algonquins do reference it as the moon when “Indians corn is edible”, which matches one of the Farmer’s Almanac names.

In my neck of the woods, August usually stands out as blackberry season and the peak of Summer heat.

Build a better wind trap

Working in Haiti, Shawn Frayne, a 28-year-old inventor based in Mountain View, Calif., saw the need for small-scale wind power to juice LED lamps and radios in the homes of the poor. Conventional wind turbines don’t scale down well-there’s too much friction in the gearbox and other components. “With rotary power, there’s nothing out there that generates under 50 watts,” Frayne says. So he took a new tack, studying the way vibrations caused by the wind led to the collapse in 1940 of Washington’s Tacoma Narrows Bridge (aka Galloping Gertie).

Read the rest here.

Buck Moon (Full Moon July 2008)

Watching the wild (and not so wild) life in my yard, I see the flowering of last month turning to fruit. The elderblow has turned to green berries. The catnip and basil blooms have gone to seed. Other flowers have taken over, though. My maypop took off this year, and its showy passionflowers grace the twine trellis above my nettles and mint. Already the insects have fertilized several of the flowers, and the green egg-shaped pops have started swelling.

Strawberry Moon (Full Moon June 2008)

The full moon today goes by the name of the Strawberry Moon. You could just as easily name this moon for a variety of other foods like the Raspberry Moon or the Cattail Flower Moon or the Elderblow Moon. In fact, I notice a lot of activity going on right now in the other-than-human world. The catnip and oregano have both put out their blooms in my yard. The rabbits and muskrats have let me see them out and about more lately.