Aug. 13-19 The air sizzles with insect song. Crickets and grasshoppers warn and work, rubbing their musical legs. They make the sound of beans rolling in a pan, tiny bells ringing on the ankles of dancers, fingers raked over the teeth of combs, waves rolling cobbles on the shore. -Scott Russell Sanders Lunar phase and lore The Monarch Butterfly Moon wanes until it becomes the Hickory Horned Devil Moon at 10:54 a.m. Aug. 17. This new moon rises after midnight and sets in the late afternoon and evening, moving overhead near the middle of the day. The dark moon favors autumn planting throughout the week. Midday fishing, with the moon above you, is expected to produce the most fish, especially as the barometer falls in advance of the Aug. 17 cool front. Jupiter rises just after midnight in August, almost overhead by the time Venus rises several hours later in Gemini. Mars and Saturn in Virgo are visible after dark, low in the southwest. Weather trends The weather in the third week of August brings highs in the 90s on 15-20 percent of the afternoons, milder 80s more than half the time and cool 70s the remaining 25 percent. Aug. 19, however, breaks from the pattern many years, and it has the highest frequency of 90s (35 percent chance) of any other day in the week. Chances for rain increase from 25 percent at the beginning of the period to 30 percent by Aug. 21, then drop abruptly to just 10 percent on Aug. 22. Zeitgebers of this week include ripe wild plums, dark berries on the spicebush and panicled dogwood, the blooming of wandering virgin’s bower and hickory nuts falling to the paths. Partial to the leaves of hickory, black walnut, ash and sycamore, the giant caterpillar of the Regal Moth (often called the Hickory Horned Devil because of its horn-like spines) prowls the woods in late summer and early fall. In spite of its fierce appearance, this caterpillar is gentle and easily handled. Holidays for homesteaders Aug. 18 is Id al Fitr (The Festival of the Breaking of the Ramadan Fast) – Sheep and goats for this market should not be older than a year. The best weight for Ramadan animals is around 60 pounds, but weaned lambs or kids between 45-115 pounds are often used. Daybook Aug. 13: Ragweed pollen invades the quiet afternoons. Wood nettle goes to seed along the bottomland. Meadowlarks and plovers fly south, leading the first sizable bird migrations of the year’s second half. Aug. 14: After you pick the last of the elderberries, then scout the fields for second-brood corn borers, the second generation of bean leaf beetles and rootworm beetles. When the first wild grape is soft enough to eat, then prepare the soil for the planting of winter grains. Aug. 15: When cardinals stop singing before dawn, watch the soybean leaves yellowing in the fields and get ready to cut corn for silage. And when you see long flocks of blackbirds moving across the sky, then it’s time for plums to be the sweetest of the year. Aug. 16: Rows of lanky great mulleins, black and gone to seed, line the roadsides. Pokeweed plants are the size of small trees, with purple stalks and berries. The panicled dogwood shows its pale fruit, its leaves fading pink. Aug. 17: Today is new moon day, a fine time to plant your fall garden. Seed lettuce and spinach for late autumn greens. Also, plant fall peas. Put out cabbage, kale and collards, too. Aug. 18: Wild cherries ripen, and hickory nuts and black walnuts drop into the undergrowth. Violet Joe Pye weed grays like thistle down. Spicebush berries redden. Wild grapes and plums are ready to pick. Aug. 19: In the wetlands of the Southeast, alligators hatch from their eggs and cottonmouth snakes give birth to their young. When northern telephone wires fill with migrating birds, then the rice crop is close to harvest stage along the Gulf of Mexico. |
