I used to sit on the Spring Slough Trestle to read and write and dream, spending time as wisely as I knew, watching the years pass, at first slowly, and then with increasing swiftness, and never counted a moment there ill spent. – August Derleth

The Phases of the Moon

Aug. 26: The Field Cricket Moon is full.

The Weather in the Week Ahead

This is the week that frost becomes possible in the northern states; snow even occurs at the upper elevations in the Rocky Mountains and in Canada. Here in the Midwest, the third major high-pressure system of the month brings chances of highs in the 70s a full 40 percent of the time on Aug. 24, the first time since July 6 that odds have been so good for milder weather.

As that cool front moves east, the period from Aug. 25 to 27 usually brings a return of warmer temperatures in the 80s or 90s. The 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th each carry a 30 percent chance of highs in the 90s, and the 25th and 26th are the last days of the year on which there is only a 10 to 15 percent chance of mild weather in the 70s.

On the 28th, however, the final cool wave of August approaches, and even though chances of 90s remain strong, the likelihood for chilly highs only the 60s or 70s jumps to 30 percent. Aug. 30 is typically the coldest day of the month, and it brings a 50 percent chance of a high just in the 70s, the first time chances of that have been so good since the last day of June.

Nights in the 40s or 50s continue to occur an average of 40 percent of the time, and the morning of the 29th brings the slight possibility (a 5 percent chance) of light frost, for first time since the beginning of June. Chances of rain are typically 35 percent per day now, with the exception of Aug. 28, on which date thunderstorms cross the region 65 percent of the years in my record. The 25th and 26th are usually the sunniest days this week.

Natural Calendar

The lowering sun accelerates its message to the monarchs and swallowtails, to the fall webworms and to the Hickory Horned Devils (the caterpillars of the Citheronia regalis moth). It is high Late Summer: Beds of false boneset and trellises of virgin’s bower break into bloom. Tall blue bellflower and burdock and euonymus keep their blossoms, and fields glow with seven-foot wingstem, tall coneflowers, early purple ironweed, late bouncing bets and black-eyed Susans. The autumn crop of raspberries darkens.

The latest flowers of the season are getting set to open. Bur marigolds, zigzag goldenrod, tall goldenrod, Jerusalem artichokes, broad-leafed swamp goldenrod and small-flowered asters are budding. Plums and grapes and elderberries sweeten. Insects still are everywhere. Cicadas and katydids and crickets are still loud. Fold-wing skippers still chase each other in the morning sun.

The very first of the black walnut leaf turn and leafdrop began in the middle of Leo, and now the walnut trees are quickly yellowing. Yards and paths fill with their leaves. Sometimes the black walnut trees are completely bare by the first days of September. The horse chestnuts follow, then the cottonwoods, then box elders. Judas maples, betraying the messiah of June with red and orange, foretell October.

Yellow jackets come to feed in the fallen fruit, and ground hornets build nests. Murmurations of starlings sweep over the fields, and long flocks of grackles and blackbirds follow the harvest. Robins congregate in the woodlots, gathering for migration. Peaches, blackberries, second-crop raspberries, plums and elderberries sweeten, then close their seasons. Hickory nuts, buckeyes and pecans fall to earth.

ALMANACK LITERATURE

Always Look Where You’re Going

By Eunice Hicks, Willard, Ohio

One evening when she came back from the outhouse, mom told dad, “Tommie, there’s got to be another outhouse built.”

Dad said then he would build another one beside the old one. He would tear the other one down later.

So, one morning, mom and I and little Sister Polly walked up to the barn, and mom found out one of her hens had hatched out a gang of little chickens, or bitties, as mom said.

Then Mom said, “I can’t let the hen and little bitties stay at the barn. Some varmint will get them,” meaning some animals.

So she said, “I know where I will put them,” and she took them to the old outhouse beside the new one, but she didn’t tell dad.

Then one morning early, dad walked out to the outhouse, and he went into the old outhouse instead of the new one. That old hen flogged him so badly he didn’t take time to get his pants all the way up.

He came back to the house and said, “Rose, why did you put the old hen and her chicks in that old outhouse? Darn near scared the wits out of me!”

Mom laughed and laughed and said to dad, “The next time, look where you’re going.”

Then all our family laughed together.