The Little Flowers

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The goldenrod just started a six week countdown 🌾

There is an old farm rule that has been passed down for generations, and it holds up better than you might expect. When goldenrod first blooms, first frost is roughly six weeks out. According to the Farmers' Almanac, this old folk rule is surprisingly accurate across much of the United States, and there is real biology behind why it works as well as it does.

Goldenrod is not blooming on a whim or reacting to a warm stretch of weather. It is what botanists call a photoperiodic plant, meaning it flowers in response to shortening day length rather than temperature. As nights grow longer heading into fall, goldenrod picks up on that shift and triggers its bloom cycle right on schedule. Frost arrival is also tied to the same underlying seasonal clock, cooling nights and a lower sun angle, which is exactly why two things that seem unrelated on the surface, a wildflower blooming and the first hard frost, end up following a fairly consistent timeline relative to each other.

This is different from a lot of garden folklore, because it is not really predicting the future so much as reading a calendar the plant already has built into it. Temperature can shift bloom timing slightly year to year, with a hot summer nudging goldenrod to open a touch earlier and a cool one delaying it, but the six week gap between first bloom and first frost tends to hold up reasonably well as a rule of thumb rather than an exact science.

There is a bonus to this old rule too. Goldenrod is not just a seasonal clock, it is one of the most valuable late season nectar sources in the entire garden. It fuels monarch butterflies fueling up for migration and gives bumblebee queens the reserves they need to survive winter, all while quietly counting down toward the season's first frost.

Goldenrod is native and hardy across nearly the entire country, from USDA zone 2 through zone 8 depending on the species, so this is a countdown almost any gardener nationwide can watch play out in their own yard. If you spotted that first gold bloom this week, it might be time to start thinking about your last tender plants and when to bring them in.

August is Tree Check Month! Check your trees for signs of Asian longhorned beetle. Learn more at:https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant-pests-diseases/alb

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Find it here:
👉https://selfsufficient-backyard.com/fpost/

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Six minutes of reading cuts stress by 68%, more than music or a walk. And in a 12-year Yale study, the heaviest readers were 23% less likely to die during follow-up. Here’s what reading does to your brain.

A University of Sussex study found that six minutes of reading slowed heart rate, eased muscle tension, and cut stress by 68%, beating music, tea, and a walk. Regular readers also show lower rates of depression, and brain imaging found that reading a novel creates connectivity changes that persist for days after you finish, strengthening pathways tied to empathy.

Then there’s lifespan. In that Yale study, adults reading more than 3.5 hours a week were 23% less likely to die than non-readers, a gap that held even after accounting for wealth, education, and health. Reading fiction even activates your sensory cortex, your brain processes the smells and textures on the page almost as if they were real. Scrolling doesn’t do this. The focus a narrative demands builds the exact attention circuits that endless feeds erode. One format trains the brain, the other drains it.

No subscription, no equipment. Twenty minutes a day produces measurable effects on stress, memory, and possibly lifespan. Most people think they’re “bad at focus.” They’re not, they’re overstimulated. Reading narrows the signal to one thing, and the mind finally settles.

In a world built to keep you scrolling, choosing to read is almost an act of resistance. Save this as your reminder to pick the book over the feed, like it so it comes back to you, and follow us. We decode one thing your brain quietly runs on every day.

REFERENCES:
Bavishi, A., Slade, M. D., & Levy, B. R. (2016). A chapter a day: Association of book reading with longevity. Social Science & Medicine, 164, 44–48.
Berns, G. S., et al. (2013). Short- and long-term effects of a novel on connectivity in the brain. Brain Connectivity, 3(6), 590–600.
Lewis, D. (2009). Galaxy Stress Research. Mindlab International, University of Sussex.

Shhhhh…….

Happy 4th of July!!! Happy 250!!!
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My peonies finally opened and my roses have now bloomed. If you know me well then you know I am so happy. On the mountain my blooms are usually one week behind the village. My roses made the June cutoff just in time. On the wild side, we didn’t mow so the oxeye daisies have filled the land. Oxeyes bring so much joy. I adore May through October where you can find a new bloom each month.
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One way to find a deeper connection with God is through God's creation, and many Catholic saints found this connection by working in the garden. Here are some saints and other well-known Catholics to help inspire you this gardening season.