Every morning I watch the news and weather, especially the weather. Weather has always intrigued me. As soon as I hear a storm coming I'm the first one out the door looking up at the clouds. One thing that peaks my interest from my local weather forecaster is that he informs us each month on the old names of the Full Moon. I've heard a few of these names before and I'm sure most of you have heard of the Harvest Moon. This morning he said the August Full Moon was called the Sturgeon Moon. My curiosity finally got the best of me this morning, so I decided to "Google-it." A Google search turned up none the less, "The Farmer's Almanac," an old time favorite of our farmers and any countyfolk here in the Midwest. I copied their first paragraph here:
"Full Moon Names and Their Meanings
Full Moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. There was some variation in the Moon names, but in general, the same ones were current throughout the Algonquin tribes from New England to Lake Superior. European settlers followed that custom and created some of their own names. Since the lunar month is only 29 days long on the average, the full Moon dates shift from year to year. Here is the Farmers Almanac’s list of the full Moon names."
And a description of this month's full moon is here.
The August Sturgeon Full Moon: 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.
www.farmersalmanac.com/full-moon names
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