August 4th
The 216th Day of the Year
And so zeitgebers such as lilies or parsnips followed north across the landscape become wells from which time emerges and retreats. Like metaphors, the flowers take the place of what they signify, become fountainheads of stability, offer immanence that persists within renewal and history.
Paul Quel
Sunrise/set: 5:36/7:46
Day’s Length: 14 hours 10 minutes
Average High/Low: 85/64
Average Temperature: 74
Record High: 99 – 1887
Record Low: 48 – 1912
Weather
Continued hot and very humid most years. Highs reach the 90s forty-percent of the time; there is a 45 percent chance of 80s, only 15 percent for 70s. Thanks to the arrival of the August 4th cool front, the likelihood of rain increases to 60 percent, the highest since July 3, and the second highest of the summer. Clouds block the sun all day three years in a decade. There is just a ten percent chance of a cool low below 60.
Natural Calendar
In the mornings, cardinals and doves still sing, starting half an hour before dawn, often continuing through the day, often greeting the night with vespers. Blue jays still care for their young, whining and flitting through the bushes, but starlings and warblers become more restless. In some years, the robins give long singsong performances. Crows and hawks spar in the high trees. Cicadas compete with the crickets at dusk.
Across the Midwest, almost all of the corn is silking by now, and a third of the crop could be in dough. Two-thirds of the soybeans are flowering or setting pods. Oats and the second cut of alfalfa, running neck and neck, are ordinarily three-fourths harvested. Farmers are making corrective lime and fertilizer applications for August and September seeding.
Daybook
1983: To Grinnell Swamp: Great and common ragweed in bloom, avens with green burs, wood mint still in bloom, a few white snakeroot plants open, agrimony, leafcup, tall bell flower, daisy fleabane, germander, tall coneflower, wood nettle, moth mullein, sundrops in flower. First jumpseed blossoms found. May apples still hold their fruit.
1984: At South Glen, the sound of bees, a steady drone throughout my walk. First clearweed flower found, my first. Goldenrod budding. Most ironweed still not open. A few wingstem blooming. All milkweed is done, only couple milkweed beetles noticed. Blackberries ripe, and wild grapes are purple. A few box elder trees are yellowing at the tips. Wood nettle and oxeye are still in full flower. Some St. John’s wort left, one loosestrife. Geese flew over 6:30 p.m.
1986: Cardinals still sing in the early morning. Fireflies gone. No geese flying over yet.
1988: A cardinal woke me up at 4:55 a.m.
1989: Northern Minnesota, John’s farm outside of New York Mills: Wheat being harvested. Ragweed in bloom, and amaranth, black medic, bristly thistle, thimble plant, clot bur (Xanthium strumarium), yarrow, goosefoot, catmint, wild sage, white campion, burdock, goldenrod, sow thistle, meadow goat’s beard, birdsfoot trefoil, purple vetch, Canadian thistle. Milkweed pods half formed. John says frost comes quickly at the end of August. Foliage is gone from the trees by the end of September. Spring comes suddenly toward the end of April, engulfs May.
1992: At Caesar Creek on a small stump protruding from the lake: monkey flower, cinquefoil, water horehound in full bloom. Plants on another stump included ragweed and small-flowered asters. Along the shore, tall coneflowers, oxeyes and Queen Anne’s lace. At my fishing hole, the dodder was orange like it was last year, but the tree line was deep green, no sign of fall. This evening at home, geese flew over honking at 5:30.
1993: A little after sunrise: light rain, gray, hardly any birds at the feeders, no cardinals singing, no sparrows, no dove calls, no blue jays. Grackles gone from the back trees. When the sun came out a few hours later, the birds were back and noisy. Three tiger swallowtails in the yard today. Scent of Late Summer deepening, late haying, moist decay, pollen, apples.
1996: A cardinal sang off and on this morning, beginning near 5:30.
1999: Robin singsong, long and loud this morning like yesterday. At 8:00 a.m., the dogs across Dayton Street were barking and barking, and then the bullfrog joined in from the pond.
2001: First cardinal at 4:55 this morning, then more cardinals gradually joining in throughout the neighborhood for an hour or so. The full moon was golden, setting over Dayton, Venus and Jupiter close together in the east over Glen Helen. Blue jay bell call at 5:13, doves at 5:17, cardinals starting to feed in the old apple tree at 5:21. Jupiter disappeared into the sunlight by 5:30. Venus was finally gone at 5:45.
2002: Doves still calling in the mornings.
2004: Tree crickets calling this morning at 5:00.
2005: Short walk along the Orton Trail with Jeanie this morning, almost nothing in bloom except one small-flowered St. John’s wort, the first white snakeroot, and a few late avens and leafcups. Ripe blackberries found, small and tart.
2006: Three tiger swallowtails in the Joe Pye weed this morning. Euonymus vines in the alley have green buds (they seem like fruit/berries, but they’re buds) and a few of the first green flowers. The lilies are down to six blooming plants, and just around a dozen total blossoms.
2007: Sparrow seen feeding a fledging. The younger bird was much larger than the adult, maybe a cowbird dropped into the nest by its parent. A few purple berries on the panicled dogwood in the alley. Honeysuckle berries getting fatter in the yard.
2008: West from Yellowstone to Missoula, Montana: Butter and eggs (Lunaria vulgaris) along the roadside out of the park, very common. Reappearance of yellow sweet clover, a few milkweed, fields of knapweed. Haying between Butte and Missoula. Wide, wide vistas of mountains and big sky.
2010: Cardinals at 5:00 and singing for about half an hour, baby sparrows still being fed. One monarch and two tiger swallowtails, one spicebush swallowtail at the butterfly bush today. A few yellow black walnut leaves drifted down to High Street when I passed by with Bella. A giant green caterpillar of the polyphemus moth has eaten almost an entire potted tomato plant.
2011: Cardinal song for an hour, starting at 4:45 a.m. Three monarchs, three yellow tiger swallowtails, one spicebush swallowtail, one crescent seen today. In an early evening walk, steady call of like-tree crickets, chirps from field crickets when I passed by, cicadas strong.
2012: Robin chorus when I got up at 4:15. Cardinals and crows heard from inside at 4:30. Romuald the frog croaking before the rain. Robins continuing to call through midmorning. The August 4th cool front is sweeping across the Midwest, clouds throughout most of the day.
2013: Again, cardinals around 5:00 woke me up. Four daylilies struggle to put out a blossom or two. Five yellow swallowtails counted at the butterfly bushes this afternoon. Resurrection lilies are open along Dayton Street, most likely their first or second day. At John Bryan Park, heal-all was the only fresh flower that I found in bloom, and only fragments of agrimony and white vervain were left. White snakeroot was budded. Driving by the Covered Bridge, I saw the first wingstem flowering, flanked by purple ironweed.
2014: Eight lily plants in bloom today. At Ellis Pond, I saw a male tiger swallowtail and a small black swallowtail.
2015: A sunny morning of seven lilies, one monarch, numerous gold skippers in randori, and one butterfly – maybe a brown or a Viceroy (it was loopy like a Viceroy) – driving a sparrow away from its perch – or following it in a case of mistaken identity. Cardinals singing and singing, maybe teaching their young (as do the robins with their guiding calls in Deep Summer). Looking back at the pattern of 2012, I find it curious how different the robinsong pattern was that year, how much later it went in the summer – a full month later, disappearing only on August 21. So the very early spring must have provided enough room for an extra brood or at least an extra month of frolicking. This evening along the bike path: touch-me-nots gathering momentum, one Virginia creeper with veins and shades of rust and red, cardinal vespers.
2016: First jumpseed flowers opened at Moya’s.
2017: The August 4 cool front arrived on schedule with a thunderstorm and a low in the lower 50s. In Portland, Oregon, heat in the 90s and 100s continues. A cardinal woke me up at 5:00 a.m. Jill’s vervain has headed up.
2018: One lily: Jeanie’s stargazer lilies holds. Tat reports her Joe Pye weed very much to seed now, even ahead of mine. One monarch quiet in a red zinnia this cool morning. A spicebush butterfly in front of the post office, flying back and forth as though waiting for someone. A male tiger swallowtail and a zebra swallowtail seen when I went outside at noon. A second day of clearing out in the north gardens: trying to manicure a little and to open up space for the zinnias to show, tying back the fallen tithonias. The large south hackberry tree has been shedding for several days, small slivers of leaves. This evening, 7:15, sweet, long cardinal vespers, and again at 7:35 and again at 7:45. A new cricket call tonight, loud, intermittent, maybe three or four seconds long. Katydids at 8:05, three minutes earlier than three days ago.
2019: Crows harassing a red-shouldered hawk this morning when I walked Ranger at 5:30. Field cricket heard on Phillips Street. A tulip tree and an English elm are shedding from drought near the Catholic Church. Patches of browning grass throughout the neighborhood. No day lily or ditch lily flowers at all this morning, but two resurrection lilies have opened. Tiger swallowtails continue at the zinnias, and one Eastern black seen, too. The wren continues to scold. Katydids at 8:10 this evening.
2020: Continued cloudy and cool. Two ditch lilies and six resurrection lilies (naked ladies). Whistling cricket heard last night. At the grocery story yesterday, Rick said he had seen almost no butterflies this summer. Today I saw one tiger swallowtail in the tithonias and another, along with a monarch, at the Glass Farm preserve.
I will love you in the thyme-leafed speedwell,
I will love you by the Ragweed Moon.
Hepatica Sun