It has taken me half a lifetime of searching to realize that the likeliest path to the ultimate ground leads through my local ground. I mean the land itself, with its creeks and rivers, its weather, seasons, stone outcroppings, and all the plants and animals that share it. I cannot have a spiritual center without having a geographical one: I cannot live a grounded life without being grounded in a certain place. – Scott Russell Sanders

The Stars

After the sky becomes dark, Delphinus, the Dolphin swims due south. Above it, near the North Star, Cepheus is between Cassiopeia (to the east) and Draco (to the west). Just below the southeastern corner of Cepheus, the star cluster of Lacerta lies in the Milky Way. The Big Dipper is low in the north, and the Milky Way dominates the night, Cygnus, Lyra and Aquila, the constellations of the Summer Triangle, forming its brightest stars. At dawn, Orion stands in the middle of the southern sky; bright Capella shines high above him. Regulus, the spring planting star, approaches from the east in Leo.

The Weather in the Week Ahead

Early Fall arrives along the 40th Parallel during the second week of September. Average highs fall below 80, and normal nighttime lows move below 60 until the second week of June. Chances of highs in the 90s hold at less than 10 percent each day this week, the first time that has happened since the end of May. Highs in the cold 60s occur another 10 percent of the time (with the possibility of 50s for the first time since June 4th), with 70s and 80s sharing the remaining 80 percent. The rainiest days this week are historically the 9th and the 12th, each having a 40 percent chance of showers. The other days of the period carry about half those odds. Frost is rare at this stage of September, but chances of a light freeze increase to 10 percent on the 13th and 14th as the third high pressure system of the month comes through.

The Feed Outlook for Wild Game

Standing corn will tempt wildlife in many areas through the end of October, but the percentage of feed available from cultivated crops declines at the rate of approximately 2 percent per day beginning at the end of September.

Acorns increase in importance for whitetail deer between the first week of October and the first week of November. White oak acorns are typically consumed first, then the deer move on to the red oak acorns – some of their favorite autumn treats.

Wildflowers and grasses usually stop flowering by the middle of September, and nourishing seeds will be forming during autumn throughout fields and woods. Among the most common wildflower food, the nutlets of the goldenrod attract deer, especially after acorns are gone. Cranberries are popular as long as they last, and wetlands often provide other options for late fall feeding. Roadside foraging becomes extremely lean in November and December; early sprouting winter wheat, however, could bring deer to those tender green shoots well into the cooler months. Staghorn sumac fruit clusters stand out after leaf fall and can also be very attractive to game.

The Natural Calendar

Early Fall brings puffball mushrooms to the woods. Goldenrod, asters and Jerusalem artichokes dominate the garden, but most berries are gone from the wild cherry; berries are red on the silver olives, orange on the American mountain ash, purple on the pokeweed.

Cobwebs seem to be everywhere in the woods, and the number of butterflies swells in the garden: coppers, blues, monarchs, swallowtails, skippers, painted ladies. When the days are cool, the cicadas are quiet. On the colder nights, the katydids refuse to chant and the frogs are silent.

Sandhill cranes start to arrive in Midwestern wetlands on their way to the Gulf Coast. Doves usually stop calling in the morning until February. Young toads appear more frequently in cooler evenings. As lake and reservoir water temperatures drop into the lower 70s and 60s, bass and walleye become more active. Fall raspberries and peaches end their seasons in the Ohio Valley and the Middle Atlantic.

In the Field and Garden

Continue to cut zinnias and other annuals to encourage more blossoms through the month. Purchase mums: select some already in bloom, some just budding.

In an average year, soybeans have turned on a third of all the farms, and a fourth of the corn is mature. Some years, the soybean harvest has even begun.

Locust borers assault the locusts. Pine root collar weevils move to the pine trees.

ALMANACK LITERATURE

The Man in the Cellar

A Ghost Story by Fanny Mae Lindsey

New Haven, Ohio

I moved to New Haven in 1973. Not once did I think my house would be haunted. But one night around about 10 p.m., all that changed. I had just got into bed. My son and two cousins were up in the kitchen.

They yelled out that a man was in my cellar and had come up the stairs.

I jumped up, and there I saw him going out the door. I ran after him, but he disappeared right in front of my eyes. I never thought he would come back again.

But he did. I was looking out my bedroom window one night, and then there he was, dressed like back in the 1930s, looking like a doctor. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t.

Finally I got sort of used to him, and I decided to name him George.

And, well, he still walks up and down my stairway. Right to this very day everyone that comes to my house knows that Gorge lives here.

So, one day my uncle and his son and wife came up from Kentucky. They were going to spend the night. Well, you know George just had to walk. The relatives got so scared that they left in the middle of the night. Well, right to this very day no one wants to spend the night all night at my house.

Another time, our daughter and our son-in-law were sleeping upstairs. Well, around about two in the morning, down came the mattress. They both were scared so bad, you should have seen their faces, all white.

I could tell many more stories about George, but I’d better stop for now . . .