Aug. 8-14, 2011
There comes a fuzzy time then, when the berry picking mixes with the end of hay gathering and the beginning of late summer and everything seems to fall into a stew. Dog days, when the dog literally will not move from beneath the porch and the weather come down hot and muggy so the teams of horses stand in sweat even then they are not working.
-Gary Paulsen, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass

Lunar phase and lore

The Ragweed Moon waxes throughout the early part of the week, becoming full on Aug. 13 at 1:58 p.m. Rising in the evening and setting before dawn, the full moon is always overhead in the middle of the night.

Fishing is favored after dark (around midnight) at full moon time, especially as the cool fronts of Aug. 10 and 17 push the barometer down. Domestic violence and other crimes often rise at full-moon time, but wholesome root crops like radishes, carrots and beets should thrive, especially if seeded on Aug. 14-15 in Pisces.

On the nights of Aug. 12-14, the Perseid meteors appear in the east at the rate of one shooting star a second. The shower takes place an hour or so after midnight below the Milky Way in Perseus. The bright gibbous moon, however, will make it difficult to find these meteors.

In the night sky, the Summer Triangle shifts into the west, following June’s Corona Borealis and Hercules. Delphinus, the Dolphin, is due south. After midnight, autumn’s Pleiades rise up over the northeastern tree line.
The house-shaped star group, Cepheus, has moved right into the middle of the sky by midnight, forecasting early fall. To the east of Cepheus, find the zigzag formation of Cassiopeia, followed by Perseus (looking vaguely like a horse) rising in the northeast.

An hour or two before sunrise, walk out and look to the east. Orion will be in the same position he keeps at midnight on Christmas Eve. The Pleiades and Taurus will be almost overhead. Cygnus will be setting in the northwest.
Weather patterns

With the arrival of the Aug. 10 cold front, the 10th and 11th have a 40 percent chance for precipitation as well as the slight possibility of a high only in the 60s for the first time since July 13.

Aug. 10-14 are more likely to bring evening lows below 60 degrees since June. And within the next seven days, lows reach into the 40s 15 times more often than they do during the first week of August.

Daybook

Aug. 8: When you see wild cherries are half ripe, then start hickory nut hunting and check to see if hemlock loopers are out eating up all your hemlocks. Then, gather great mullein leaves for herbal potions.
Aug. 9: When bittersweet has golden berries, then oak skeletonizers are eating the oak leaves.

August 10: In the perennial gardens, red, white and violet phlox, golden and purple coneflowers, bright helianthus and pale Resurrection lilies define the season of late summer. Along the roadways, beds of white boneset have come into bloom beside June’s blue chicory and silver Queen Anne’s lace.
Aug. 11: Second-brood corn borers, second-generation bean leaf beetles and rootworm beetles still work the fields. Banded ash clearwings attack local ash trees. Sodding and seeding of the lawn is often done now before the cool growing time of fall.

Aug. 12: Goldenrod is turning. Rose pinks and great blue lobelia color the waysides. Cottonwoods are yellowing. Buckeyes hold heavy on their branches. Green acorns fall to the sweet rocket growing back among the budding asters.
Aug. 13: Full moon today begins garlic-planting time in Canadian gardens or plots in the Rocky Mountains. In the rest of North America, plan to set out shrubs and trees between now and new moon on Aug. 28.
Aug. 14: The major months of seasonal change – September, December, March and June – are also excellent times to vaccinate animals. Change can bring weather extremes as well as stress, so you will be taking care of routine health matters at the most important times of the year.