The time is now for the Blackberry Jam Moon

A look at the first week of late summer.

Tall ironweed blooms All around us, purpleblue clusters Blazing atop stalks six feet tall….

— Ann Filemyr The Moon: When flocks of ducks and geese have settled into their post-birthing routines and Middle Summer’s wildflowers start to pale, then blackberries redden and then turn sweet and black, perfect for cobblers and jam. And then the Black-Eyed Susan Moon, reaching perigee (its position closest to Earth) on August 10, becomes the Blackberry Jam Moon at 4:57 a.m. on August 11. Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the new Moon passes overhead at midday to early afternoon.

The Sun: By the end of this almanac period, the sun will be 40 percent of the way to autumn equinox. A partial eclipse of the Sun occurs on August 11, but it will not be visible in the United States.

The Planets: Continue watching the planet display this month: Mars in Capricorn following Saturn along the southern horizon after sundown, Venus due west after sunset, followed by Jupiter in the southwest.

The Stars: Find the Milky Way in the eastern night sky. Cygnus the swan is there, too, its formation a giant cross. Below it is Aquila, spreading from its main stair, Altair, like a great eagle. Almost directly above you, Vega is the brightest star in the heavens.

The Shooting Stars:

The Perseid meteors peak August 11 through 13 in the east an hour or so after midnight below the Milky Way in Perseus. This shower can produce up to 60 meteors in an hour and will not be obscured by the moon.

Weather Trends: Morning lows are typically in the 60s, although one fourth of the nights carry temperatures into the middle 50s. August 8 in 1989 and the same day in 1990 brought 40s into my weather history, and those two pieces of data are the first real signs of autumn’s approach. The advance of the cold is seen first in the nighttime statistics, and then, not long afterward, in the percentage of lower daytime temperatures. August 10 marks a second step toward fall: it is the average date for a major cool front 50 percent of the years on record, and on both August 9 and 11, there is a 10 percent chance for high temperatures only in the 60s. On August 13, lows fall into the 40s fifteen percent of the time — that’s the highest percentage since June 24, making yet another another small step toward winter.

The Natural Calendar: Morning fogs thicken and become more frequent as the night air cools more often into the 50s and below. Touch-me-nots are still full bloom, tall bellflowers strong and blue, burdock holding beside the oxeye, bouncing bets, and new six-petaled wild cucumbers, the yellow and the blue flowered wild lettuce, the bull thistle, virgin’s bower, tall nettle, prickly mallow, small woodland sunflower, soft velvetleaf, sundrops and heal all in full flower. Along the rivers, bur marigolds, zigzag goldenrod, and broad-leafed swamp goldenrod are budding. Water horehound, willow herb, wood mint and swamp milkweed are still open. Late summer’s jumpseeds aren’t ready to jump yet. Damselflies still hunt by the water. Cabbage butterflies still mate.

Fish, Insects, Livestock and Birds: Keep carrots, oats, bran, iodized salt and good greens on hand to invigorate bucks as the breeding season opens. But keep male goats away from the legumes later in the season; that form of feed may cut down on fertility. Fish (and all creatures) may be hungrier and more active with the Moon overhead near midday as the barometer declines in advance of the August 10 and 17 cold fronts. Starlings become more restless as the days grow shorter. Watch for their murmurations – swooping acrobatic flocks – diving and rising above the corn and soybean fields. Changes may soon be occurring at bird feeders, since migration of wood ducks, cedar waxwings, catbirds, Baltimore orioles and purple martins is likely to accelerate with each new weather system. At night, the cricket and katydid chorus intensifies.

In the Field and Garden: The Blackberry Jam Moon is new on August 11, and the perfect for August plantings. Ever bearing strawberries and watermelons are ripe, Midwestern peaches are typically at their best. Farmers bring in corn for silage, dig potatoes, pick commercial tomatoes and finish the second or third cut of alfalfa hay. Gardeners gather up the winter squash plants as their stems dry, leaving about two inches of stem on the fruit; store in a cool, dry location. Berry and grape pickers make juice and wine and jelly from elderberries and wild grapes.

Marketing Notes:

Mum and pansy time is here for the autumn mum and pansy market. Then it’s time for the fish harvest: make tilapia fingerlings available for sales to homesteaders, Preppers or hobbyists. If you don’t have tilapia in your pond, explore purchasing them and breeding them in a fish tank over the coming winter.

The Almanack Horoscope: Even though the summer may be hot and humid and seemingly endless, its stability is deceptive. Sometimes the August 10 cool front is especially chilly, breaking the stagnation of the Dog Days. Sometimes leaf miners lace the locust trees, creating patches of gray and brown in the tree line. Sometimes a few maples turn red and stand out like the hand of October from all the other trees of August. Bird calls have changed, and migrations are more apparent as flocking becomes more common. These and so many other events actually change the texture of your moods and attitudes, preparing you for the radical transformation of the months ahead.

Journal

August 6, 2005: Bud called this afternoon to report at least half a dozen hummingbirds were swarming at his feeder. Although he remembered that the previous instance of this kind of end-of-summer clustering had taken place in September, a quick check of sources on the Internet suggests that this year Bud observed male hummingbirds as they were clustering for migration a month or so ahead of the females. In northern states, the male swarming can take place as early as July. Since Bud also saw hummingbird flocks in September, it is likely that those birds were females with their young, gorging themselves with sugar before their flight south. September 30 is an average date for the last hummingbird to leave the Miami Valley.

Follow the days of August with Bill Felker’s book, “A Daybook for August in Yellow Springs, Ohio” that contains all of his daily almanack notes for that month and can be used throughout the Miami Valley. Order on Amazon.com.