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| Ulysses Township, Saturday Morning. |
It’s August again. Too soon, too soon. This is a month full of mixed memories for me – both happy and sad. When I was a child, this was always the month when we moved. In 1968, 1971, 1972, and 1978, my family packed up and moved to a new home – first from New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, to Tallmadge, Ohio, then from Tallmadge to Ravenna, Ohio, then from Ravenna to Naperville, Illinois, and then from Naperville to Sylmar, California. Moving was always traumatic for me and my memories of those upheavals taint the month.
My happier memories are of the Augusts when Grandma Rathfon and my cousin Rick would come to visit. After we moved away from Pennsylvania, they would come and spend the month with us. Some years Grandma brought other cousins along, Ron, Lori, and one year even Grandad came. Those were good times.
Last week July left us in a blaze of glory. The sunset on the last day of July was beautiful. Dawn on the first of August was cool and foggy. It felt a bit like autumn – not what I want at the start of the last full month of summer. The weather has warmed again since then.
My happier memories are of the Augusts when Grandma Rathfon and my cousin Rick would come to visit. After we moved away from Pennsylvania, they would come and spend the month with us. Some years Grandma brought other cousins along, Ron, Lori, and one year even Grandad came. Those were good times.
Last week July left us in a blaze of glory. The sunset on the last day of July was beautiful. Dawn on the first of August was cool and foggy. It felt a bit like autumn – not what I want at the start of the last full month of summer. The weather has warmed again since then.
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| Sunset on July 31st, looking east. |
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| Sunset on July 31st, looking west. |
August is the month when the insects and arachnids seem to rule the earth. Each morning the dew reveals hundreds of sparkling webs – funnel webs like gossamer hankies strewn on the lawn, picture perfect webs hanging between branches and tall weeds. There are smaller spiders that like to build their webs near the porch light and in the windows to catch bugs drawn to the lights at night. And there’s the usual web across the opening of the back porch door that I invariably walk into every morning. The orb spiders in the garden and out in the meadow are big enough now to be noticed. Of all the spiders I encounter, they are the ones I like most. I find them beautiful in their own creepy way. Their webs are impressive, as is the size of the insects they can snare. I’ve seen them catch and devour full sized grasshoppers.
August is the month when the insects join their voices with the birds and amphibians. The birds sing at dawn and dusk. The bullfrogs down in the beaver pond join the noise in the evenings. And now cicadas have added their melodious buzzing in the heat of the afternoons and the crickets and katydids chirp and click all night. I love the insect sounds of August.
I always think at first that August should be a lazy month. The last warm days, before everything returns to a rigid schedule at the end of month, seem like they should be languid. They were when I was young. I used to revel in those last free days of the summer as a child, spending hours sitting in the shade, reading books.
In my mind, I want my August world to be idyllic – like it is in Matthew Arnold’s poem The Scholar Gypsy (one of my favorite poems)–
Here, where the reaper was at work of late—
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use—
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
With distant cries of reapers in the corn—
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,
And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be.
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
And bower me from the August sun with shade;
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.
Beautiful words but, regrettably, my world isn’t like that. My scarlet poppies aren’t peeping anymore, they’ve been pulled up and thrown into the compost. There are no pale pink convolvulus here. I did plant blue morning glories and that’s almost the same thing, only they are not blooming yet and at this rate, they probably won’t before the frost comes. I wish my linden tree was rustling down perfumed showers, but instead, it’s full of Japanese beetles. And the towers of Oxford are on the other side of the world. Oh well, I’ll have to be satisfied with reading and imagining Matthew Arnold’s August.
This is a busy month. The garden demands daily attention. The harvest is starting to pick up its pace. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, summer squash, raspberries, and the first apples all are ripening and require canning, saucing, relishing, and jellying. We are heeding the old adage and making hay while the sun shines, knowing it won’t be shining this warmly before too long. And always in the back of my mind hangs the nagging thought that school starts on the 21st. After that, my time is not my own anymore. Everything changes then.
On Thursday evening we went to the County Fair. We always do and we always do it the same way, wandering through the displays and barns and ending at the taffy booth. This time Miriam and Josiah got to purchase the taffy and opted to get one of each flavor. There were fifteen flavors. We have a good supply of taffy on hand for a little while. I don’t eat it but the rest do and it won’t last long.
August is the month when the insects join their voices with the birds and amphibians. The birds sing at dawn and dusk. The bullfrogs down in the beaver pond join the noise in the evenings. And now cicadas have added their melodious buzzing in the heat of the afternoons and the crickets and katydids chirp and click all night. I love the insect sounds of August.
I always think at first that August should be a lazy month. The last warm days, before everything returns to a rigid schedule at the end of month, seem like they should be languid. They were when I was young. I used to revel in those last free days of the summer as a child, spending hours sitting in the shade, reading books.
In my mind, I want my August world to be idyllic – like it is in Matthew Arnold’s poem The Scholar Gypsy (one of my favorite poems)–
Here, where the reaper was at work of late—
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use—
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
With distant cries of reapers in the corn—
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,
And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be.
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
And bower me from the August sun with shade;
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.
Beautiful words but, regrettably, my world isn’t like that. My scarlet poppies aren’t peeping anymore, they’ve been pulled up and thrown into the compost. There are no pale pink convolvulus here. I did plant blue morning glories and that’s almost the same thing, only they are not blooming yet and at this rate, they probably won’t before the frost comes. I wish my linden tree was rustling down perfumed showers, but instead, it’s full of Japanese beetles. And the towers of Oxford are on the other side of the world. Oh well, I’ll have to be satisfied with reading and imagining Matthew Arnold’s August.
This is a busy month. The garden demands daily attention. The harvest is starting to pick up its pace. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, summer squash, raspberries, and the first apples all are ripening and require canning, saucing, relishing, and jellying. We are heeding the old adage and making hay while the sun shines, knowing it won’t be shining this warmly before too long. And always in the back of my mind hangs the nagging thought that school starts on the 21st. After that, my time is not my own anymore. Everything changes then.
On Thursday evening we went to the County Fair. We always do and we always do it the same way, wandering through the displays and barns and ending at the taffy booth. This time Miriam and Josiah got to purchase the taffy and opted to get one of each flavor. There were fifteen flavors. We have a good supply of taffy on hand for a little while. I don’t eat it but the rest do and it won’t last long.
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| At the Potter County Fair. |
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| Fifteen flavors of taffy. |
Our friends Bob and Nancy Jones gave us some cucumbers and peppers last week. We took some onions from our garden and made our first batch of pickle relish. Josiah ground all the ingredients on Thursday evening. I salted it all and let it sit overnight. Then on Friday morning I boiled it all up with vinegar, sugar, and spices and canned twelve pints. The house smelled of relish all day, a smell I love for a little while, then find overpowering. There will be more batches as the month progresses.
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| The first batch of relish. |
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| Twelve pints of relish. |
Late on Friday night the Thayns arrived to spend a short weekend with us. Hannah was down visiting them all week and they brought her home. Saturday was a lively day with a houseful. Tabor and Josiah went fishing in the morning. Stacey was at the Frosty Hollow Herb Fair all day manning our barn quilt booth. Hannah went to a baby shower for one of her friends. Julie joined the rest of us and we drove over to the Herb Fair to visit Stacey and walk around and have lunch. They always have a pizza oven going and they make delicious thin crust pizzas. We left Stacey at the Herb Fair and went into town to see a matinee showing of The Lion King. The movie was okay. I’m not a big fan of these live action remakes of their older animated movies.
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| At the Frosty Hollow Herb Fair. |
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| Pizza for lunch: waiting to order, waiting for the oven, in the over, time to eat. |
When we got home from the movies, we did chores. Everyone went down to the barn with me. The Thayns brought one of the roosters from their flock to join our flock. They had two roosters and the two were in a constant all day crowing contest. Being in a more residential neighborhood, they thought it best to bring one of the rooster to live here. He is a big rooster named Drover. We have him isolated from the rest of the flock for now. I’m hoping our chickens will get used to him and let him integrate. I don’t want my rooster to fight him. Fighting roosters are brutal. So we visited Drover while we did the chores. Stacey arrived home after that. We had a nice dinner and Tabor, Josiah, and Hazel went fishing again while the rest of us stayed home and played games into the evening.
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| Evening fishing on the Allegany. |
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| Hazel and a trout. |
It’s been fun to have the Thayns here again this weekend. And it’s nice to have Hannah home again. The Thayns will be leaving later this afternoon to go home. This coming weekend we are going down to their house. Sarah and Tosh will be joining us there and we are all going river rafting. I’ll report on that adventure next week after we get home. Good Sabbath.
