25Jun 2026 by catbird
What is the Thunderstorm Moon & a Coloring Page

What is the Thunderstorm Moon & a Coloring Page

Folklore, Full Moon, Learning, Play, Thunder Moon
Many people call July’s full moon the Buck Moon because that’s the name that the Farmers’ Almanac has chosen, but the names found among sources (both Native American and European) are all over the place. There is no tribal citation for buck moon and I have not found any traditional sources for it. It refers to buck's growing their antlers in which is maybe a thing you notice this time of year, but I can't say I ever have, Of course, there are all kinds of different things happening in nature depending on where you live. Still, if a theme can be found among many July moon names, it’s probably berries, not bucks: Berry Moon from the Anishinaabe, Moon When the Chokecherries Are Ripe Moon from the Lakota and Arapaho, Red Berries…
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11Jul 2023 by catbird
Thunder Cake

Thunder Cake

Free Printable, Full Moon, Recipes, Thunder Moon
We love the book Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco, especially during a good summer thunder storm. There is a cake recipe in that book of course, but being a celiac it wasn't very useful to me. Besides I was intrigued with the idea of making a cake that contained or was inspired by some food that had historically been associated with storms and lighting. I kept coming across references to truffles (the mushroom not the confection) in my search-- it would seem that the ancient greeks believed that they were born of Zeus' lightning bolts. Very poetic, but I wasn't sold on truffle cake... I considered copping out and doing candy truffles instead, but that didn't seem in the spirit of things. (As an aside there is a whole group of…
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01Jul 2023 by catbird
Painting with the Rain

Painting with the Rain

Craft Project, Full Moon, Nature Art, Play, Thunder Moon
 In spring we talk about spring showers, but that is a gentle kind of rain, whereas in summer it’s a wild downpour with huge fat drops of water and thunder and lightning, and it feels completely different. The science backs that up-- generally it rains the most frequently in spring, but the most rain falls in summer. There really are more thunderstorms in summer in temperate parts of the world– summer brings humid warm air up from the south, which then bumps into cooler, drier air from the north. Whenever two air masses meet like this the air becomes unstable. The cooler, denser air wedges itself under the warmer humid air and lifts it up. (Called an updraft.) As all that moisture rises up in the atmosphere, it begins to…
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