The event was a big success—collecting almost 50 Christmas trees and other holiday greens and multiple boxes of food donations and $1,700 for the Lee Food Pantry, which serves residents from several communities in the area.
When I turned around at the crest of the hill, I saw brilliant light with a rosy glow spread across the top of the mountain to the southwest, above the dim hillside below, where I stood.
See January’s shining Full Wolf Moon go dark, the stars appear in a nearly moonless sky and the brilliant orb return to full light, outshining all but the brightest distant suns.
My response is to cook the vegetables before they decline, make improvements in storage conditions for the rest of the harvest and refine my choices of varieties for the new growing season.
Below and left of Jupiter, relatively faint planet Mercury twinkles close above the skyline while, to the right of Mercury, red star Antares, also pale in the dawn light, rises into the winter morning sky.
By Friday, the 29th, a half moon, last quarter, rises close to midnight, accompanying springtime’s quintessential all-night constellation, Leo the Lion, visible now during the hours after midnight.
Where the glistening bay reached the sea, a rosy red rounded radiance colored the skyline, a concentrated shape of color above the east-southeast horizon.
Last week, on the eve of the deepest chill and wind chill of the season, I reached into reserves of dogged determination to secure my harvest of fennel, dill, peppers, French sorrel, amaranth and most of the turnips.
Among the late summer bloomers in my landscape are a fragrant heirloom phlox, Japanese anemone, Oswego tea, Russian sage and New York ironweed, all perennials.
The rain, the sight of the Sun at the top of the sky, the quickened greening of the earth and the press of crops ready for harvest pull us into the rising tide of the growing season.
Namesake of the Roman king of the gods, Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and the third brightest object in the night sky, next to Venus and the moon.
