This week
The Hummingbird Flocking Moon, sending messages to the hummingbirds to get ready for migration, enters its second quarter at 6:42 a.m. on Aug. 27. Rising in the afternoon and setting near midnight, this moon is over Clark County around suppertime.
As August comes to a close, the sun reaches a declination of 8 degrees, 30 minutes, almost two-thirds of the way to autumn equinox. The sun’s position is the same now as in early April, and the rate of the night’s expansion increases from middle summer’s two minutes per day up to three minutes. In another week, the day’s length will drop below 13 hours.
Weather
Aug. 28 is a clear pivot time of the year, as the likelihood for afternoon highs in the 60s or 70s suddenly surges to 40 percent in Clark County. Aug. 30 is typically the coolest day of the month, with a 60 percent chance for highs below 80 degrees. Cool nights in the 40s or 50s continue to occur 40 percent of the time, and the slightest possibility of light frost appears on the regional weather charts for the first time since the beginning of June.
Daybook
Today, Aug. 24:
A few sycamore leaves have fallen now, and Judas maples multiply. Pokeweed berries shine purple through the undergrowth. Hickory nuts are lying on the woodland paths. Burs of the panicled tick trefoil hang to your pant legs. The white vervain is gone, and the flowers of blue vervain climb to the top of their spikes, measuring out the last days of August.
Aug. 25: The first of autumn's beggarticks and bur marigolds bloom in the wetlands. The first fall violets appear beside the dry stems of May's garlic mustard. Fields of brilliant oxeye, coneflowers, goldenrod, wingstem and ironweed hide the decay of Canadian thistles, fringed loosestrife, skullcap and wild petunias. The wood thrush vanishes into Kentucky and Tennessee, and lizard's tail is dropping its foliage into the rivers. Restless seeds of the jumpseed plant leap from their stems.
Aug. 26: Before the hectic pace of harvest and breeding, take care of repairs to the barns and outbuildings. Review projected harvest shortfalls, and adjust your estimates of feed purchase requirements for the winter months.
Aug. 27: The harvest of apples, tomatoes, tobacco, potatoes and corn silage and the third cutting of alfalfa hay continue throughout the week. Corn is denting on about a fourth of all the area fields. A few more soybean leaves will be yellowing, pacing the late maturing of the corn, and pods could be set in two-thirds of the soybean acreage.
Aug. 28: Peonies and other perennials may be fertilized next month to encourage improved flowering next spring and summer. Early September is also an excellent time to enlarge your day lily and iris collections.
Aug. 29: The final August cool front, due around this date, brings the slight chance of very light frost as far south as Kentucky.
Aug. 30: Elderberries and wild grapes should be perfect for juice and wine. Pansy time has begun for the autumn pansy market, and garlic-planting time opens along the Canadian border from Washington State to Maine.
Mind and body clock
The pressures of the season are likely to push hard against you this week. The end of August brings associations of the beginning of school, the prospect of harvest, the end of summer’s possibilities and projects. Nostalgia often accompanies the steady transformation of the landscape. Memories proliferate, the mind traveling back through the concentric circles of the years, sorting and ruminating.
And the day’s length, which shortened only two hours between solstice and today, suddenly collapses, shedding an entire additional hour between now and September’s equinox, creating a sudden surge of energy in some people, a sudden sadness in others.
Moon and livestock
The waxing moon is overhead in the afternoon and evening this week, telling all creatures to feed more heavily at that time. As the cool fronts of Aug. 29 and Sept. 2 approach, the barometer will drop, and everyone will want to eat even more.
Bill Felker has been writing almanacks since 1984. Contact him at wfelker@woh.rr.com or visit his Web site at poorwillsalmanack.com.