Poor Will's Almanack
By Bill Felker

Aug. 16-22, 2010
Take Stock in August,
Count your Days.
Measure the Harvest,
The Hours of Sunlight.
-Celtus

Lunar phase and lore
The Lily Moon waxes throughout the period, becoming completely full at 1:05 p.m. Aug. 24. Rising in the afternoon and setting after midnight, this moon is above you through the night.

Nighttime fishing is expected to bring the best results this week (with the moon high in the southern sky). Conditions should become even more favorable at the approach of the Aug. 21 cool front.

As the moon waxes, put in your last lettuce and spinach seeds of the summer. Full moon on Sunday is expected to make the weekend a relatively difficult one for law enforcement officers and health care workers. The stock market could be especially volatile on Friday and Monday, and our troops in Afghanistan may encounter higher-than-average resistance.

Full moon time is often hard for animals and trainers at the fair. And if your children (or parents) are starting back to school, be prepared for anxiety and stress.

Cross-Quarter Day, Aug. 22, is the halfway point between summer solstice and autumn equinox.  The sun enters Virgo on the same day.

August takes about an hour and a quarter from the day’s length, but though the night grows longer, the percentage of possible sunshine per day increases to the highest of the year throughout the country.

Weather patterns
The weather in this third week of August is usually stable, bringing highs in the 90s on 20 percent of the afternoons, milder 80s 55 percent of the time, and cool 70s the remaining 25 percent.

Aug. 19, however, breaks from the pattern many years, and has the highest frequency of 90s (35 percent chance) of any other day in the week. On the other hand, the chance for a high of 90 degrees on Aug. 22-24 is only 5 percent.

Daybook
Aug. 16: The moon enters its second quarter today. Pick wild plums, elderberries, pears, apples, blackberries and everbearing strawberries while the moon is still waxing (between now and Aug. 24).

Aug. 17: As late summer deepens, the chances for snow and frost increase at higher elevations in the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains. Humidity, however, builds up at lower elevations in the lower Midwest.

Aug. 18: After you pick the last of the elderberries, scout the fields for second brood corn borers, the second generation of bean leaf beetles and rootworm beetles. Then listen to the insect chorus: Cicadas chant from an hour or so past sunrise to dusk.

The crickets start in about half past eight in the evening. By nine o’clock the katydids have joined them, replacing the cicadas, and chanting katydid until morning when there is a brief period of silence – and then everything starts all over again.

Aug. 19: Prepare the soil for the planting of winter grains. Then look for the first puffball mushroom of the year to swell in the cool, damp nights.

Aug. 20: Black walnut foliage is thinning more rapidly now, and black walnuts are falling to the ground.

Aug. 21: Scarlet has appeared in the sumac, Virginia creeper and poison ivy. Ash, wild grape, redbud and cottonwood can be yellowing from age and summer heat.

Aug. 22: Today is Cross-Quarter Day, marking the halfway point to autumn equinox (only 6.5 weeks away). Cross-Quarter Day also is the average date for the strongest cool front of late summer to arrive in the Midwest.

Countdown to early fall
Wildflowers tell the time of year from March through the beginning of October. Late summer brings the last of the flowering plants: Japanese knotweed, white boneset and prickly mallow in the first week of the season, and then tall goldenrod, three-seeded mercury and great blue lobelia flower in the second week.

Jerusalem artichokes and beggarticks mark the third week of late summer, and the blooming of the asters fills the final week before early fall.

Living with the seasons
Track your moods carefully as late summer comes to a close. When the days shorten, many people experience a gradual increase in energy and optimism. Whether this change is directly related to a shift in hormonal balances or to conditioned responses that relate to social or sports events (such as the start of football season), the end of the warmest days of the year alters human perspective.

Almanac literature
Dogs and ducks don’t always mix, but – as these two stories demonstrate – the ducks may end up becoming relatively famous.

The Duck that Had Bad Luck
By Fanny Lindsey
Greenwich, Ohio

I had a pet duck named Sue, and she almost lost her life one day. What happened was that there was a bird dog that came in our yard and got inside the henhouse where Sue stayed.

We heard trouble at 7:30 in the morning, jumped up and ran outside. We pulled the dog out of the house, and poor little Sue came out with blood all over her.

We called the dogcatcher and then brought Sue in, put her in the sink and washed the blood off her. She had been bitten under both wings.

She did really well, and now everyone comes around to see how white as snow she is.

The Duck with the Pink Wing
By Sara Beck
Louisville, Ky.

Every Easter our two girls, Annette Ruth and Barbara Sue, would receive a baby fowl. One year they found two baby ducks that the Easter Bunny had left them. Annette named her duck Ann, and Barbara named hers Sue.

One afternoon, we decided to take a ride, but when we returned we noticed that Ann (the duck) was lying on the ground. The other duck, Sue, was agitated and quacking loudly. Our dog, Enro, had apparently attacked Ann.

My husband, Ralph, examined Ann and found she had been bitten on her wing. He quickly got a bottle of Mercurochrome and swabbed the torn places. Her wing stayed red for a long time, but finally it turned pink.

Visitors would enquire about this pink-winged duck, and sometimes Ann would swim nearby and be admired.

Last week’s Scrambler
In order to estimate your Scrambler 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.
AUUINTLS – NAUTILUS
VINSOUE – NIVEOUS
TINGORNESOU – NITROGENOUS
SOUGAHP – PHAGOUS
UUOSCPICONNI – INCONSPICUOUS
SOUTISSECEN – NECESSITOUS
ROUSINCED – INDECOROUS
OSEGPHSU – ESOPHGUS
NNIOCUOUS – INNOCUOUS
REXPOHLISOU – XEROPHILOUS
NAXHOTUS – XANTHOUS

This week’s Scrambler
OMCLYP
EIVRFY
YFILIMPS
CCRFUIY
TUBRETYLF
TIFYON
IFURPY
YFIRTEP
QUFEYLI
MMMFUIY

Readers of this Almanack are invited to send their own comments about seasonal virtues and vices to: Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387. A royalty of $3 will be paid for each letter of 100-300 words used in this column. If the item is included in the annual version of the Almanack, it will pay an additional $7.