It is August

The flocks are beginning to form

I will take with me the emptiness of my hands

What you do not have you find everywhere. – From “Provisions” by M. S. Merwin

The Phases of the Moon

Aug. 5: The Katydid Moon enters its final quarter.

Aug. 12: The Field Cricket Moon is new.

Aug. 19: The Moon enters its second quarter.

Aug. 26: The Field Cricket Moon is full.

The Weather in August

Between the last week of May through the first week of September, the 14 major cool fronts of summer cross the United States. As these high-pressure systems approach, temperatures and humidity typically rise. After the passage of the fronts, slightly cooler weather occurs, suitable for outdoor work and recreation, followed by up to a week of heat and humid conditions. August fronts often reach the Mississippi around the following dates; they come through about two days earlier in the West, a day or two later in the East:

Aug. 4: The weather in advance of this minor front is some of the hottest of the summer. Highs in the cool 70s and lows in the 50s are rare in most of the nation between August 1st and 3rd.

Aug. 10: The Aug. 10 cool front can bring frost to the higher elevations in the West. Its strength also frequently causes violent weather throughout the Great Plains and the South.

Aug. 17:  This is the weather system that brings the chance of a killing frost to portions of the North; snow occurs at upper elevations in the Rocky Mountains.

Aug. 24: This high erodes summer a little more, often bringing an end to the Dog Days.

Aug. 29: Rain precedes this front two years in three, and when the Aug. 29 high-pressure system arrives, the likelihood for chilly highs only the 60s or 70s becomes almost autumnal.

Natural Calendar

As Deep Summer ends, ragweed pollen fills the humid afternoons, wood nettle goes to seed, honeysuckle berries and wild cherries ripen, and hickory nuts and black walnuts drop to the undergrowth.

Blackberries are ready to eat when ragweed blossoms. And the season’s second-last wave of wildflowers – the Joe Pye weed, monkey flower, tall coneflower, clearweed, horseweed, white snakeroot, jumpseed, prickly mallow, virgin’s bower, false boneset, field thistle and Japanese knotweed – bloom in the open fields and along the fence rows.

Golden and purple coneflowers, and red, pink and violet phlox still rule the gardens. Orange-and-gold-flowered trumpet vines still curl through trellises. Ephemeral resurrection lilies briefly replace the day lilies, the Asiatic lilies and the Oriental lilies. Mums and stonecrop start to color the dooryards.

In the shade of the woods, leafcup is the dominant flower, touch-me-nots beginning to complement its bloom. Along the lakeshores, arrowhead blossoms as rusty dodder winds through tattered black raspberry bushes.

In the mornings, cardinals and doves still sing, starting half an hour before dawn, often continuing through the day, sometimes greeting the night with vespers. Blue jays still care for their young, whining and flitting through the bushes, but starlings and warblers become more restless. In some years, the robins give long singsong performances. Crows and hawks spar in the high trees. Cicadas compete with crickets at dusk.

Across the Midwest, almost all the corn is silking by now, and a third of the crop could be in dough. Two-thirds of the soybeans are flowering or setting pods. Oats and the second cut of alfalfa, running neck and neck, are ordinarily three-fourths harvested. Farmers are making corrective lime and fertilizer applications for August and September seeding.

Hummingbird moths still come to the impatiens. Touch-me-nots are in bloom, tall bell flowers strong and blue, burdock holds beside the oxeye, bouncing bets, and new six-petalled wild cucumbers, the yellow and the blue flowered wild lettuce, bull thistle, virgin’s bower, tall nettle, prickly mallow, small woodland sunflower, soft velvet leaf, sundrops, and heal all.

Along the rivers, bur marigolds are budding, zig-zag goldenrod, and broad-leafed swamp goldenrod. Water horehound, willow herb and swamp milkweed are still open, still a little wood min, too. Late Summer’s jumpseeds aren’t ready to jump yet. Damselflies still hunt by the water. Cabbage butterflies still mate.

In the Field and Garden

Sodding and seeding of the lawn is often done before the cooler days of fall. Test soil in your fall and winter garden as well as in the fields where you intend to sow wheat, rye, alfalfa, canola, clover and timothy.

Cut corn for silage after completing the second and third cuts of hay. Dig potatoes and pick commercial tomato plants clean. Complete harvest of plums, pears, watermelons, blackberries and peaches.

The breeding season opens for your goats and sheep. Consider supplements for the rams and bucks: carrots, oats, bran, iodized salt and good greens are popular additions to feed.

ALMANACK LITERATURE

A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME

By Susan Perkins, Hardtimes Farm, Ky.

While I was hanging clothes on the line, a black-capped chickadee flew down and landed just a few feet from where I was working. It jumped up and down, twittered and carried on like I was doing something wrong. I had never had a wild bird come this close before, so I knew a baby bird must be close to where I was working.

I started looking for the baby. Sure enough, a baby had fledged from the nest and ended up on the ground. But the baby was nowhere near where I was working. Something else was wrong.

I looked around and noticed a piece of tin lying up under some scrub brush. I knew there had to be a snake hiding there and it was after the baby chickadee. It may have already got some of the fledging babies, as I only saw one.

I picked up the tin and jumped back. Just as I suspected, there was a four-foot black snake under the tin. One of my dogs jumped in and made quick work of him.

I put the baby bird up in a tree and mom and dad continued feeding it till it finally flew away. This has never happened again.

Guess there’s something to the saying, “A little bird told me so.”