Aug. 17-23, 2009
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influences of each ... In August live on berries ... Be blown by all the winds ... Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season’s influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies mixed for your special use.
-Thoreau, Journal, Aug. 23, 1853
The astronomical outlook

The Hummingbird Flocking Moon waxes throughout the week, entering its second quarter at 6:42 a.m. on Aug. 27.

Aug. 22 is Cross-Quarter Day, the day that marks the sun’s halfway point (a declination of a little more than 11 degrees, 50 minutes) to autumn equinox. Now the summer’s leisurely progress toward winter quickens, and the sun moves twice as quickly toward the horizon as it did in July.

The house-shaped star group, Cepheus, has moved right into the middle of the sky by midnight. To the east of Cepheus, find the zigzag formation of Cassiopeia, followed by Perseus (looking vaguely like a horse) rising in the northeast. The Big Dipper continues to hug the northern horizon throughout the night.

The weather

Autumn comes another step closer this week, as the daily chances for high temperatures only in the 70s increase to 50 percent. Although certain days are exceptions to the trend (Aug. 25 is typically one of the hotter days, with almost no chance for cool 70s), statistics are clearly now on the side of September, and the chances for a high of 90 degrees on Aug. 22-24 are only 5 percent.
Aug. 23-24 are two of the days most likely to bring mild afternoon temperatures. The possibility of early morning lows in the 50s also gains momentum after Aug. 23; four nights in 10 typically reach below 60 degrees.

Rainfall can be somewhat heavy this week of the year. Expect a 35 percent chance of showers on each day except Aug. 22 (which carries just a 10 percent chance for precipitation). Totally overcast days occur just one day in four.

Almanac daybook

Aug. 17: The second-last wave of wildflowers – clearweed, virgin’s bower, white boneset, field thistle and Japanese knotweed – comes into bloom.

Aug. 18: Plums and pears are ripe in the orchards, and the summer apple harvest is more than half complete. Farmers are making preparations for the seeding of winter rye, wheat and barley.

Second-brood corn borers, the second generation of bean leaf beetles and the rootworm beetles still work the fields. Banded ash clearwings attack local ash trees.

Aug. 19: August and September are soil-testing months, both for your fall and winter garden as well as for the fields where you intend to sow winter wheat and rye, alfalfa, clover and timothy. Plant or renew pasture in September or October for April and May.
Aug. 20: Black walnut foliage is thinning, foretaste of the great annual leafdrop, which begins in only 60 days.
Aug. 21: Elms and poison ivy are turning pale yellow. Cabbage moths and monarchs cluster on the late flowers. Greenbrier has its blue-black berries.

Aug. 22: Violet Joe Pye weed grays like thistle down. Spicebush berries redden. Fireflies are almost gone. Resurrection lilies are still in bloom, along with phlox, Shasta daisies, rose of Sharon, Royal Standard hostas, black-eyed Susans, July-planted gladiolas, ironweed and Queen Anne’s lace.

Aug. 23: Cicadas chant from an hour or so past sunrise to dusk. The crickets start in about half past eight in the evening. By 9 o’clock the katydids have joined them, replacing the cicadas, and chanting until morning when there is a brief period of silence before everything starts all over again.

Mind and body clock

Late summer continues to deepen, and the landscape gives clear signs of the cool weather to come. More sensitive to those changes than the mind, the body begins to reverse its typical summer tendency toward weight loss and starts to keep more of its calories in preparation for winter. The body’s immune system also becomes more active in order to guard you against cold-weather diseases.

Fish, game, livestock and diet

All creatures may begin to eat a little more as autumn approaches, especially when the moon moves overhead in the afternoon this week. The approach of the Aug. 21 and 29 cool fronts should increase the oral activity of fish, game, livestock and bingers.

Almanac classics
Guess who?
By Vicki Sue (Mrs. David) Wilkins

My older brother had a habit of racing me to the outhouse. Naturally he was bigger and older, so I always lost.
One night, just before a big, ugly storm, he beat me out as usual. This time, I waited a few minutes then grabbed a ball bat. Just as I clobbered the back of the outhouse with the bat, a bolt of lightning struck the front part.

No one got hurt, but guess who got to go first from then on?

Poor Will pays $3 for any strange story that appears in this column. Send your tale to: Poor Will, P.O. Box 431, Yellow Springs, OH 45387.