Poor Will’s Almanack for the last week of early summer.

At the end of early summer, the days are the longest of the year, and mulberries and black raspberries are sweetest. Milkweed beetles look for milkweed flowers on the longest days; giant cecropia moths emerge. The first monarch butterfly caterpillars eat the carrot tops.

Damselflies and daddy longlegs are everywhere when black raspberries come in. Mosquitoes, chiggers, and ticks have reached their summer strength. Giant black cricket hunters hunt crickets in the garden.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the fourth week of early summer.

A few days ago, I received a letter from Jeffery Goss, a correspondent of mine who lives in Missouri.

"This spring has rattled everything I thought I knew about phenological time measurements," wrote Jeffery. "For example, in March, zeitgebers came three to four weeks early and not even in the right order. Maybe it's climate change."

Operators of a nuclear plant in Ohio say they've discovered and contained a pinhole-size leak spraying radioactive coolant at the plant.

Nuclear regulators and plant operators say the leaking coolant at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo never got outside the building and posed no threat to the public.

Workers discovered the leak Wednesday as they were getting ready to restart the plant after a month-long maintenance shut down.

A spokeswoman for the plant operated by a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. says they don't know how much coolant spilled out, but it was contained by its collection system.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the third week of early summer.

The orange flowers of the day lily are the signature of early summer across the nation's midsection. With them come waves of parallel seasons.

When day lilies bloom, other things are happening too: soft smartweed flowers in the alleys; prickly blueweed flowers in vacant lots; poison ivy flowers in the woods; Queen Anne's lace flowers along the backroads; shy avens flowers along the hedgerows; tall meadow rue flowers in fields; trumpet creeper flowers on the walls and trellises; great mullein flowers along the old railroad tracks; thistles have taken over the vacant lots; purple coneflowers blossom in the garden.

Wright State University is among 6 Ohio universities that are partnering with the state as part of a new program aimed at training students and health care professionals to better serve Ohio's Medicaid population. Medicaid provides coverage for the poor though state and federal funding.

The state's Medicaid director on Monday said Ohio had secured almost 2 million dollars in federal funds for the initiative this budget year and more than 8 million dollars for next fiscal year. The funds will train more than 1,000 students, residents and practitioners, who will then work at clinics in neighborhoods that need doctors and other health care professionals.