Giant August Moon, Meteor Showers Coming

Illustration of August's Sturgeon Moon, from Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year".

According to Hal Borland’s “Twelve Moons of the Year”, the Native Americans called the August moon the “Sturgeon Moon”, possibly because these fish were “fat and prime about now, and right to catch and dry for winter.”  Borland also says that, “Indians called it the Moon of the Green Corn…”,  a time to feast on field corn.  I prefer that name especially as I walk or drive by green fields of today’s tall sweet corn.

It’s also the month in which the moon comes closest to earth each year, on August 10 this year—and, it will be a full moon that night.    I guess that means it’ll be the big orange August moon I have fond memories of seeing once while canoeing on a lake in northern Canada.

Unfortunately, I’ve read that this full moon will block out much of the annual Perseids meteor shower on the nights of August 11 to 13.  Last year, I watched the shower in my yard and saw a shooting star about every two minutes,

Meteor Shower Watch

This year I might participate in a local group viewing at Honey Run Highlands Park (across from Honey Run Falls) from 11 p.m.  Tuesday, August 12, to 1 a.m. Wednesday, August 13.  An e-mail I got from the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College says that’s when the meteor shower peaks.  It goes on to say, “We meet at the State Route 62 parking lot.  The program begins with a night hike on the Prairie Trail to reach our viewing destination for the meteor shower watch.  Bring a blanket and bag chairs!  This event is weather and conditions dependent, with cancellation only in case of inclement weather.  If overcast, we’ll enjoy a walk on the trails in the late hours of August 12th /wee morning hours of August 13th !”   The event is sponsored by the Knox County Park District.

Borland has a short entry for each day of the year, so this is a book you can read daily forever.   Although he wrote these entries in Connecticut from the 1940s to the 1970s, it still applies to much of what  I see in rural Ohio today.  For example, his entry for August 1 mentions “the first flower heads of joe-pye weed” and I’m seeing big clusters of the dark purple flowers along roads in Danville and in Apple Valley in Howard.  He mentions “clouds of Queen Anne’s lace” and I see vacant lots in Apple Valley filled with those plants too.   He says, “The night still twinkles with fireflies…”, but I have to admit I saw very few tonight in my yard, either because they’re winding down, or it was too cool tonight.

I did see a fantastic firefly show on a farm field in Danville recently, though, and I’ve had fair shows up to tonight in my yard.

He mentions grasshoppers in his August 3 entry and I’ve been seeing them hop and fly in the past few days. I don’t think I’ve seen the goldenrod he mentions on August 4.   But many of his rural roadside flower shows match what I see on my daily walks with my dog Friendly.  I see the shift in the wildflowers as the seasons progress—right now I see a mix of purple/red clover, white Queen Anne’s lace, blue chicory, orange jewelweed, and some other flowers I can’t identify.

And Borland reminds me that the New England asters that sprinkle these vacant lots along roadsides will be here soon, as summer turns to fall.

He mentions the katydids on July 24 and I saw my first baby katydid of the season on July 12, on a fleabane plant.  Later I started seeing them on the walls of our garage at night and recently I began hearing their loud calls of "Katy did!  She did!" against the softer background sound of what I think are crickets.  Staying up until 4 a.m. recently I noticed the katydids stopped calling by then, leaving only the crickets.  I saw my first cricket indoors as I updated this blog early in the morning of August 6.

He hasn't mentioned wooly bear worms though, but I've been seeing them cross the roads, with varying widths of brown and black, proving to me that their bands show only their age, not what next winter will be like.  I demolished that myth in an early blog ("Wooly Bears Only Predict Their Ages", November 6, 2013).
This remains the most popular of my blogs, either because of the topic or because it was my very first one!

(I'm used to calling them worms, even though they are caterpillars that become tiger moths.)

Check out my website, too.

Wishing for Milkweed-Clover Honey

I felt bad—or at least nostalgic for better environmental conditions in years past—reading Hal Borland’s Nature note for July 2 in his book “Twelve Moons of the Year”.   (See my blog for July 1.) Borland describes patches of milkweed so large in the countryside that you could smell it.  He says it and clover smelled like the honey that bees would make from it.  I believe he wrote that note in the 1940s.

This reminded me that bees are another creature that benefits from milkweed.

Sadly, born in 1948, I haven’t smelled a big patch of milkweed in my lifetime—and the chances have greatly diminished in recent decades.  I remember raising a Monarch butterfly caterpillar, around the late 1990s, and how hard it was to find enough milkweed to give the caterpillar its daily needs for milkweed leaves.

At least we’re still “in the clover”.   Borland confirms my observations recently that clover types grow at different heights:  The white clover on some lawns grows very low, thankfully; red clover grows fairly tall.

I read an article in a recent Columbus Dispatch newspaper article saying that white clover on lawns has gotten a bad rap over the years.  The writer likes it because it attracts bees, makes nitrogen fertilizer for lawns, and reminds her of her youthful days enjoying a rest on a clover-laden lawn.

We have white clover on our lawn—the only “weed” there I’m proud of—and I see red clover in the vacant lots along Ridgeland Drive and in the “wildflower oasis” at the far edge of the Clubhouse area meadow that fronts Apple Valley Drive.  But I don't know why it's called red clover when it looks very purple to me.

And I do relive my childhood when our toy poodle, Friendly, "forces" me to rest on our lawn with him!

"Buck Moon" July Opens With a Bang

Welcome to July's "Buck Moon"

Illustration from "Twelve Moons of the Year"

"BUCK MOON
A baffler, but perhaps because
buck deer were fat and their meat
could be quickly dried in the
hot July sun."--from Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year"

Reading John Switzer every Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch got me to borrow a copy of Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year" from the library and eventually to buy it.  Switzer refers each month to the name for that month's moon, given by Native Americans or early settlers.

The "Twelve Moons of the Year" is a compilation of Borland's nature editorials in The New York Times newspaper.  What I like about the book is that he breaks it down by days of the month, so you can keep it alongside another book you're reading and just read--and re-read--a page or two a day--and re-read it all over again the next year, and the next...

I've been keeping that book and Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" and the Farmer's Almanac in a stack on our coffee table.  To be honest, I tend only to read Borland's book lately because I can take it in smaller segments than Leopold's book and I don't fully trust the Almanac, especially after this past winter!

I do like the Almanac's astronomy section, though.  It tells you about a year in advance about celestial events that are on schedule, while TV news tells you abou a week in advance.  The main one I look for is the Perseid meteor shower in August, although the almanac says the shower on August 11 will be ruined by moon's light since it comes closest to earth this year on August 10.  Last August I saw a shooting star every two minutes or so.

Tonight is a wild Nature night, showing that Nature is more powerful and entertaining than any July 4th fireworks show.  While I was watching fireflies tonight, the sky kept lighting up like fireworks, but everywhere--due to heat lightning.  We had a very hot and humid day.  And as I type this thunder is making threatening sounds and vibrations, more thrilling than the sound of fireworks--and a lot scarier!

And the seeming failure of the Perseid meteor shower this August, the most reliable of the shooting stars show, proves to me once again that fireflies beat meteor showers as well as fireworks!

 

Illustration from "Twelve Moons of the Year".

Eat Berries Under a Firefly Galaxy

Firefly stunned into modeling by my flashlight and camera flash.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I saw my first Japanese beetles a day or two ago, on my red oak tree saplings.  I read that the adults emerge in summer after blackberries ripen.

Well, I don't know about blackberries, but our wild black raspberries were ready today and we got a fair harvest from them and our cultivated blueberry bushes.

My wife says that blackberries ripen after raspberries, so these three Japanese beetles weren't too far ahead of schedule.

I also read that Japanese beetles came to this country in 1916, accidentally, in the roots of iris shipped from Japan.  That was a harbinger of things to come as increased travel of people and goods, especially horticultural plants, has caused more exotic insects to be coming here than ever before.


I ended tonight with my now usual firefly watch, along with some Moscato wine and fruit.   In his  book, "Twelve Moons of the Year," Hal Borland gets it right when he says--in his entry for June 30:  "Linger as the first stars appear and you will be in the midst of a firefly galazy."

I find the firefly show to be better than fireworks and better than shooting stars.  They're a quiet show and they're more reliable than shooting star predictions.  When I see them light up the sky I realize why they're often called lightning bugs.  These little creatures seem to give off as much light as airplanes in the distance.



[Photo shows a firefly stunned by my flashlight and camera flash.  After seeing it flash, I know this was a lightning bug.  But I was soon the only one flashing.  It let me take a lot of photos until it slinked into the bushes by the deck.  I'm going to compare this photo with the many I've taken at night of a similar looking creature that hung out with the moths on the walls of my house and garage--but no flashing back in April and May.]  (Photo by Don Comis)