Aug. 15-21, 2011
In fields
along old trails, at pasture edge,
the ironweed bares its vivid tint,
profoundest violet, a note
from farthest star and deepest time,
the glow of sacred royalty
and timbre of eternity …
-Robert Morgan

Lunar phase and lore

The Ragweed Moon wanes throughout the week, entering its final quarter at 4:55 p.m. Aug. 21. Although most of the ragweed from the South has dissipated by this time of the month, new waves of ragweed pollen continue to arrive from the North until the Monarch Butterfly Moon (new on Aug. 28) waxes into September.
Rising well after dark and setting near midday, this gibbous moon will lie overhead after midnight. Fishing and post-midnight snacking are favored with the moon overhead, especially as the cool front of Aug. 24 approaches.

The darkening moon also favors harvest and the planting of rows of late radishes and fast-growing greens, especially under Taurus on Aug. 19-20.

Cross-Quarter Day, Aug. 23, is the halfway point between summer solstice and autumn equinox.  The sun enters Virgo on the same day. August subtracts about an hour and a quarter from the day’s length, but even though the night grows longer, the percentage of possible sunshine per day increases to the highest of the year throughout the country.

Weather patterns

This week brings highs in the 90s on 15-20 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 it has the highest frequency of 90s (35 percent chance) of any other day in the week.

Chances for rain increase from 25 percent at the beginning of the period to 30 percent by Aug. 21, then drop abruptly to just 10 percent on Aug. 22.

Daybook

Aug. 15: Daylight is now shrinking by more than two minutes every day, but it’s not too late to plan pasture improvements. Your herd or flock can graze an area close now, and then you can fertilize and seed those fields in early spring with a legume such as red clover or trefoil.

Aug. 16: The third week of August is the week during which the Judas trees often show their color, bright orange in the otherwise sold green of maples. It is the week that elms, box elders and catalpas start to wear thin, and showers of black walnut leaves foretell autumn.

Buckeye leaves are browning under the high canopy. Patches of scarlet have appeared in the sumac, Virginia creeper and poison ivy. Ash, wild grape, redbud and cottonwood can be yellowing from the heat.

Tree of heaven, locusts, poplars, buckeyes, catalpas and box elders fade in the sun (and sheep and goats often begin estrus cycling) as the day’s length approaches 14 hours.
Aug. 17: Violet Joe Pye weed grays like thistle down. Fruit of the bittersweet ripens. Spicebush berries redden in the woods, and goldenrod is turning everywhere. Velvet leaf, jimson weed, prickly mallow, wild lettuce, iron weed and wingstem are in full bloom, and puffball mushrooms emerge among spring’s rotting stems and leaves.

Mallards, whip-poor-wills, cedar waxwings and catbirds follow the signs of autumn south. The chances for snow and frost increase at higher elevations. Humidity, however, builds up at lower elevations and in the Central and Southern regions, and heat in the 80s and 90s is still the rule.

Aug. 18: Mums appear in the dooryards. The red stonecrop pushes out. In cool shade of the woods and along the rivers, leafcup is the dominant flower, almost the only one in bloom. Orange dodder spreads across the tattered black raspberry bushes.

Aug. 19: The heat stays, but the rhythm of late summer has shifted, the tones have been altered, colors and sounds and scents all pointing to September. The katydids are in full chorus after dark. The smell of the wind is becoming more pungent, sweeter, sharper as the vegetation evolves.

Aug. 20: When red leaves appear on the Virginia creeper along the 40th Parallel, then snow threatens in central Canada. And when northern telephone wires fill with migrating birds, then the rice crop is close to harvest stage along the Gulf.
Aug. 21: The moon enters its final quarter today, continuing to favor seeding root crops and harvest.