Country folks have the privilege of seeing the entire heavens. It is our bonus for choosing to live outside of the city limits and under the constellations.
We especially like the beauty of the night and the phases of the moon. There is something in particular that we did during each phase of the moon.
New Moon – We females trimmed our hair by this moon phase. When the moon is growing, clipping the hair helps the hair grow faster, longer and thicker, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. True or not, we religiously adhered to this practice when pruning our hair.
Harvest Moon – This is the moon phase that gives the earth more daylight hours. It makes the day longer as the moon, supposedly, reflects more of the sun’s light. Now, if I got that part wrong, go ahead and laugh at me, but at any rate, these extra hours give farmers, gardeners and those who work outside more light to see by, to gather in their crops or to do whatever they have to do. With this moon phase, it’s probably not light enough to read a newspaper outside, but it is light enough to see how to do field work – that is if you don’t need a lot of light to see by and if you are not doing close or detailed work. This is a very romantic time of the evening. It’s not day, and it’s not really night. It’s sort of a twilight kind of time.
When country people walk home from work or go any place in the late evening, harvest-moon time of year is idea for traveling. Though it’s not daylight, it is light enough to see where you’re walking and to distinguish objects. Even at a distance.
Full Moon – This big moon is especially interesting to look at. I don’t know about you, but whenever I look at the moon really hard, the unusual shape in the corner looks somewhat similar to a fetal-shaped man. You know that expression “the man in the moon?” I assume this is where that expression originated.
We country folks like to look at this big, yellow, round ball of “cheese.” Since I love cheese, this moon phase reminds me of the delicious-looking, crater-pocked cheese I see in grocery stores. I can never get enough of it.
Living in the country is so romantic, especially when the moon shows off by changing its shape like the beauty of each changing season. We see the moon go from a fingernail size, thin crescent to the round, yellow cheese, and then to the large, round, luminous, over-sized, transparent “plate.”
We lived under the wide, open skies, and as country folks, it was our pleasure to feast our eyes upon whatever was above our heads – day or night.
Photo: iStock/Sinelyov