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Poor Will's Almanack: August 4 - 10, 2015

luschei
/
Flickr Creative Commons

Although late summer occurs at different times and at different increments in different places, the first week of that season is almost always ragweed season. In the Deep South ragweed time may occur in July, and in along the Canadian border later in August.

Whenever it blooms ragweed goes with ripe blackberries in the brambles and grapes on arbors. Spicebush Berry Season, Privet Berry Season, Greenbrier Berry Season, and Poison Ivy Berry Season complement the ragweed, too.

The leaves of the black walnut trees weather and often start to drop in the wake of ragweed. In the woods, white flowers open on white snakeroot. Clearweed, a wildflower that looks like stinging nettle but doesn’t sting, comes into bloom. The jumpseed flowers –and when its seeds jump away at the stroke of your fingers, autumn has arrived. Burdock, Purple Ironweed. Jerusalem Artichoke Seasons color the waysides. Water Hemlock, Joe Pye Weed, Boneset and Arrowhead Seasons unfold throughout the wetlands.

Ragweed sometimes goes with the first flocking of hummingbirds. In ragweed time, the season of morning robin and cardinal song gives way to the Season of Late Summer Cricket Song.

And all of these seasons coincide and overlap, brought into existence as much by place as by the date. These seasons, fluid and floating throughout North America, tell the local time of year independent of calendars and stars, surrounding, enfolding with their signs the creatures that live among them.

Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the second week of late summer. In the meantime, listen for crickets at night, cicadas in the day. They tell the time of year.

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Bill Felker has been writing nature columns and almanacs for regional and national publications since 1984. His Poor Will’s Almanack has appeared as an annual publication since 2003. His organization of weather patterns and phenology (what happens when in nature) offers a unique structure for understanding the repeating rhythms of the year.