You hear the change in the birdcalls, fewer songs of ecstasy, more parental alarms and scoldings.... Harvest flies buzz and shrill in the heat of midafternoon. –

Hal Borland

The Sixth Week of Deep Summer

The Week of the Delta Aquarid Meteors

In the Sky

The nights of July 28-29 bring the Delta Aquarids after 12 a.m. in Aquarius. This shower can bring up to 20 meteors in an hour.

Phases of the Sycamore Bark Falling Moon and the Ant Migration Moon

July 27: The Sycamore Bark Falling Moon enters its final quarter.

Aug. 4: The Great Ant Migration Moon is new.

Aug. 12: The moon enters its second quarter.

Aug. 19: The moon is full.

Aug. 26: The moon enters its final quarter.

Weather Trends

The cool fronts of Late Summer ordinarily reach the Mississippi River around Aug. 4, 10, 17, 21 and 29. New moon on Aug. 4, so close to lunar perigee (when the moon is closest to Earth) is likely to cool the early days of the month.

Full moon on the 19th and lunar perigee on the 21st should put an end to the Dog Days and even threaten light frost along the Canadian border. Even though the night grows longer in August, the percentage of possible sunshine per day increases to the highest of the year throughout the country.

The Natural Calendar

Honeysuckle berries ripen, and hickory nuts and black walnuts drop into the undergrowth. Arrowhead is in full bloom along the shores of rivers and lakes.

This is the first week of ragweed time, and the first week of Late Summer. Golden and purple coneflowers, and white, pink and violet phlox still dominate the gardens. Red trumpet vine still curls through the trellises. Mums appear in the dooryards. The red stonecrop pushes out.

Robin calls increase, short clucking signals for migration. Starlings and warblers become more restless. Hummingbirds, wood ducks, Baltimore orioles and purple martins start to disappear south; their departure marks a quickening in the advent of Early Winter.

Green acorns fall to the sweet rocket growing back among the budding asters. Black walnut foliage is thinning. Violet Joe Pye weed becomes gray like the thistledown. Fruit of the bittersweet ripens orange. Spicebush berries redden. Rose pinks and great blue lobelia color the waysides.

In the Field and Garden

Sodding and seeding of the lawn is often done now before the cool growing time of fall. Do that work as the moon waxes. Also at this time, seed winter greens and grains, and tomatoes for winter greenhouses.

Pick wild plums, elderberries, pears, apples, blackberries, and everbearing strawberries as the moon gets fatter and fatter. Full moon is the best time for juicy fruits. Test soil now for your fall and winter garden as well as the fields where you intend to sow wheat and rye, alfalfa, canola, clover and timothy. The period of the month during which the moon is darkest (closest to new moon) favors vaccinations, surgery, and general livestock (and human) maintenance.

Perennials, shrubs and trees may be fertilized this month to encourage improved flowering next spring and summer. Try feeding your plantings – as well as putting in new shrubs and trees – in the moon’s third quarter. The third lunar quarter is also an excellent traditional time for planting autumn root crops, setting spring flower bulbs, and transplanting perennials. Crocus, aconites, snowdrops, daffodils and tulips can go in the ground across the northern states; this is also an excellent time to enlarge day lily and iris collections. In the South, wait for cooler weather to do bulbs and perennials.

 

Countdown to Early Fall

• One week until aster and goldenrod time

• Three weeks until the season of fall apples begins

• Four weeks until hickory nutting time gets underway

Almanack Classics

Curly, the Bottle Lamb

By Sandra Mouritsen, Logan, Utah

Curly is my little brother’s sheep. Those two are two of a kind. Curly is the tamest sheep in the flock. She can be really obnoxious. 

Curly was raised on a bottle. She thinks that she is one-third horse, one-third dog, and one-third human. She pals around with the horse. Even now that she is a mother, she still tries to pal around with the horse.

My brother made the mistake of training her the way you train a dog. When my dad needed to go out to the field to check on the sheep, he told the dog to hop in, and Curly hopped right on in just like a dog.

Curly always had to go with my brother out to the field. One time, they had to jump across an irrigation canal to check the flock. Curly missed the jump and fell into the canal. My dad had to walk over and pull her out.

Then when it was time to go home, Curly didn’t want to stay out with the rest of the sheep. She wanted to come home. She did not believe that she was a sheep!

ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S SCKRAMBLER

MAC    CAM

MALC    CLAM

RAMD    DRAM

AAEMMD    MADAME

MAWS    SWAM

IMAS    SIAM

MAHAARB    ABRAHAM

HAMINGMRIB  BIRMINGHAM

RAGMIEP    EPIGRAM

THIS WEEK’S RHYMING SCKRAMBLER     CQATUI   

TIFBE     

ADTIM    

WOBTIRSP    

ITPMRA    

ESCLO-NKTI    

BBCKAIT    

TPKCCOI    

DIDNAB    

MMCTOI

In order to estimate your SCKRAMBLER IQ, award yourself 15 points for each word unscrambled, adding a 50-point bonus for getting all of them correct. If you find a typo, add another 15 points to your IQ. Yes, you are a genius.

Copyright 2024 – W. L. Felker