Late summer’s smoky tint canopy becomes clear, bright with oranges, reds
BillFelker
Out of the west the wind comes over, over the yellow goldenrod, over the drying rattle-box pod,
comes heady with corn and apple smell now.
August Derleth
Astronomical Data and Lore
The newWinter Grain Planting Moon waxes throughout the period, entering its second quarter at 8:56 p.m. on Sept. 23. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this moon passes overhead in the afternoon, encouraging fish and game to be more active, especially as the Septembe 20 and 24 cold fronts approach.
The sun continues to move toward fall at a little more than one degree every three days until it reaches equinox at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 22. The sun enters Libra at the same moment. Within several days of equinox, the night is 12 hours long throughout the United States. Sunrise takes place between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. almost everywhere, sunset between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Throughout the evening, the setting of the Corona Borealis and Hercules mark the closing of tomato season along the Canadian border. The Summer Triangle, almost overhead, complements the harvest, and it also turns leaves throughout the northern half of the United States. Far on the eastern horizon, the Pleiades are rising, promising full leaf-turn, then leaf-fall, then winter.
Weather Trends
The third week of Sept. brings one of the most radical swings so far in the season. Not only do the chances of highs only in the 60s move from ten percent to 30 percent, but cold afternoons in the 50s become possible for the first time since June 4. The likelihood of warm 90s or 80s falls sharply throughout the period, with Sept. 18 bringing only a 20 percent chance of highs above the 70s, the first time that has happened since May 6.
Each day this week brings at least a 30 percent chance of showers, with the 18th having the highest chance: almost 50 percent. The mornings are chilly, and the possibility of a light freeze grows steadily. Two weeks ago, the odds were high against frost. Now the chance of a light freeze to occur in a sevenday period is up to 40 percent. Next week it will be 50 percent. In two more weeks, it will be 80 percent, and in three weeks almost 95 percent.
Notes on the Progress of the Year
When murmurations of starlings swirl above the cut-over fields and land to feed and then swoop up again, then bull elks are mustering their harems and snow is falling in the Rocky Mountains. In the Miami Valley, the smoky tint of Late Summer’s canopy quickly becomes clear and bright with oranges and reds.
Now the soybean fields are yellow. Touch-me-nots are popping. Wood nettle seeds are black. Wingstem, clearweed and ironweed complete their cycle. Buckeyes are starting to burst from their hulls. More black walnuts, more hickory nuts, more acorns come down. The huge pink mallows of the wetlands have died, heads dark, leaves disintegrating. Scattered in the pastures, the milkweed pods are full, straining, ready to open. Mullein stalks stand bare and black like withered cacti. In the perennial garden, varieties of late hostas, like the August Moon and the Royal Standard, discard their petals.
Robin migration calls complement the chatter of the crows and jays and squirrels in the Early Fall mornings. Grackles cross the countryside in great flocks. Cicada holidays become more frequent in the chillier afternoons. Sometimes katydids keep silence after dark, leaving the whole night to the great chorus of crickets.
In the Field and Garden
Soybean fields are yellow and shedding, and some fields have lost all their leaves. Grapes and fall apples are about a third picked. Tomatoes and potatoes are just about harvested. Sunflower fields have started to blacken.
If you ran out of forage in the middle of the summer, try putting in more Bermuda grass this fall or next spring.
When cobwebs are all over the woods and butterflies multiply in the garden, that’s the time to plant your last lettuce and radishes of the year, and complete the harvest of summer apples.
When the day’s length falls below twelve hours, then the sugar beet, pear, cabbage and cauliflower harvests commence in the Great Lakes region.
In the final two weeks of September, a rapid deterioration of all the wildflowers except the goldenrod and asters occurs. And after these last flowers go to seed in early October, there is no new generation of blooming plants to replace them. That means it’s time to check to see if your bees have enough honey for the winter.
If you are building or renovating a hen house, plan on three square feet per Leghorn, four square feet for breeds of medium weight like Plymouth.
Journal
In his essay, “The Temporality of the Landscape,” archeologist Tim Ingold states that “Ecosystems contain as many ‘times’ as they do objects, processes, or creatures, probably more.”
Here in the middle of Early Fall, the volume and variety of summer birdsong cedes to the symphony of amphibian and insect song. These time keepers literally transform the rhythm and tone of the audible world.
Beginning with the lullaby of spring peepers in March and April, progressing through the shrill pleasure-seeking mating cries of of the American toad, to the bass of the bullfrogs and the bark of the green frogs in May, the soft, the sweet chirping of the spring field crickets, and the high rattle of the tree crickets and the purr of the tree frogs in Early Summer, now to the whining buzz of cicadas and the katy-diddids of the katydids, to the steady beat of the chirps of the autumn field crickets, to the strong and piercing whistles of the whistling crickets, the year pronounces a clear and insistent narrative that not only creates natural time, but weaves stories, which are thousands of years old, told through tempo and phrasing and pitch.
“Every story is a clock,” states philosopher of time, Paul Huebbener, “and we must tell the time every day.” And “What is the story and the setting and the plot?” one might ask, and “What is the time?”