August 2022 - On & Off Earth
The excesses of August can be summed up on one day, the 8th being the day to, ‘sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor’s porch’. Even as we receive 2 minutes less daylight every day of the month, the heat continues to build, gardens overproduce, both vegetables and weeds, and after four months of direct solar heating, the northern oceans begin to share their excess heat with the atmosphere, spinning the evaporated water in monster storms we call hurricanes. Summer may be fading but it’s not going quietly.
That summer fade is becoming a little more noticeable at my house. Designed to welcome the sun’s warm rays in the winter but keep them out in the summer, I am just beginning to notice the ever so slight change in sun angle as the shadow line creeps a bit farther across my desk every day.
That August sun angle matches similar days from about April 10th to May 10th; but with far different temperature outcomes. It’s the slow build up, the lag, in the heating of water, land and air that makes the same amount of sunshine in Spring mostly pleasant but in the last full month of summer somewhere in a range between hot, oppressive, to even deadly. August requires hydration, sunscreen and breaks in forested shade, a pool, air conditioning or in front of a fan.
An August walk along a roadway presents the standard summer issues, too much sun and heat, bugs looking for a snack and distracted drivers while a walk in the woods adds an extra annoyance this month; Tent spiders and their trail spanning webs. I appreciate their work to trap and devour the gnats and flies but please, beside the trails not across them!
A saw a neighbor, back when I first moved to Louisa, walking with a small branch, waving it erratically in front of his face. It looked rather strange but it was to take out those spider webs. I got it then and now I am that strange looking walker waving a stick at “nothing” as I wander the woods. I don’t get all the webs but it helps.
The month’s Full Sturgeon Moon is the night of the 11th/12th and will travel across the sky that night with yellow tinted Saturn just to its right. The next night is the usually reliable Perseid meteor shower but the still bright moon will wash out all but the brightest “shooting stars”. The waning gibbous moon is just below bright Jupiter on the 15th. The sun moves from Cancer into Leo on the 12th.
The Virginia Department of Wildlife calendar, an excellent resource for a host of outdoor adventures, used to mention, somewhere in August, the likely arrival of the first Canadian cold front and a momentary relief from the summer swelter. That note has not been on the August calendar for several years; the times they are a’warming. Those first puffs of cooler, drier air more likely to arrive in September these days.
What I hope keeps coming this August is goodies from my garden. Erratic spring weather is my excuse but procrastination is more the reality of my slow to ripen tomatoes. Plant late, harvest late! I will be sneaking zucchini onto neighbor’s porches on the 8th; might even toss in a few cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes.
Until that cool arrives, be safe out there on the big wild planet… and do what gardeners do, share the veggies.
Yea..that'll do it..Today On Earth
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