August

Poems, Quotes, Folklore, Myths, Holidays
Sayings, Links, References, Lore
Ideas, Garden Chores

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Valley Spirit Center, Red Bluff, California

Quotes      Links      References      Garden Chores      Photos      Months

Quotes

The Month of July
Poetry, Quotations, Sayings, Facts, Information, Quips, Aphorisms, Lore

"Summertime
And the living is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Oh, your daddy's rich
And your mama's good lookin'
So hush little baby now
don't you cry

One of these mornin's
You're gonna rise up singin'
Then you'll spread your wings
And take to the sky

But til that mornin'
Ain't nothin' can harm you
With your daddy
And your mammy
standin' by."
-   George Gershwin and Dubose Heyward, Porgy and Bess  

"The collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is a new sonic event."
-   Iannis Xenakis

"What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass."
-  Andrew Marvell, Thoughts in a Garden  

"My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close
Is scattered on the ground - to die."
-   Richard Henry Wilde

"And hate the bright stillness of the noon
without wind, without motion.
the only other living thing
a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended
in the blinding, sunlit blue.

And yet how gentle it seems to someone
raised in a landscape short of rain—
the skyline of a hill broken by no more
trees than one can count, the grass,
the empty sky, the wish for water."
-  Dana Gioia, California Hills in August 

"In summer, the song sings itself."
-   William Carlos Williams

"August rushes by like desert rainfall,
A flood of frenzied upheaval,
Expected,
But still catching me unprepared.
Like a matchflame
Bursting on the scene,
Heat and haze of crimson sunsets.
Like a dream
Of moon and dark barely recalled,
A moment,
Shadows caught in a blink.
Like a quick kiss;
One wishes for more
But it suddenly turns to leave,
Dragging summer away."
-  Elizabeth Maua Taylor 

"Summer is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating;
there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
-   John Ruskin

"As in the bread and wine, so it is with me.
Within all forms is locked a record of the past
And a promise of the future.
I ask that you lay your blessings upon me, Ancient Ones,
That this season of waning light
And increasing darkness may not be heavy.
So Mote It Be!"
-  Faille, Lammas Ritual 

"There's a time each year
That we always hold dear,
Good old summer time;
With the birds and the trees'es
And sweet scented breezes,
Good old summer time,
When you day's work is over
Then you are in clover,
And life is one beautiful rhyme,
No trouble annoying,
Each one is enjoying,
The good old summer time."
-  Lyrics by Ron Shields, In the Good Old Summertime 

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
-   William Shakespeare  

"Once upon a Lammas Night
When corn rigs are bonny,
Beneath the Moon's unclouded light, 
I held awhile to Annie...
The time went by with careless heed
Between the late and early,
With small persuasion she agreed
To see me through the barley...
Corn rigs and barley rigs,
Corn rigs are bonny!
I'll not forget that happy night
Among the rigs with Annie!"
-   Robert Burns  

"I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume,  For every atom belonging to me as good
belongs to you.  I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease ... observing a spear of summer grass."
-   Walt Whitman

"'Lughnassad' means 'the funeral games of Lugh', referring to Lugh, the Irish sun god. However, the funeral is not his own, but the funeral games he hosts in honor of his foster-mother Tailte.  For that reason, the traditional Tailtean craft fairs and Tailtean marriages (which last for a year and a day) are celebrated at this time.  As autumn begins, the Sun God enters his old age, but is not yet dead.  It is also a celebration of the first harvest. The Christian religion adopted this theme and called it 'Lammas', meaning 'loaf-mass', a time when newly baked loaves of bread are placed on the altar.  An alternative date around August 5 (Old Lammas), when the sun reaches 15 degrees Leo, is sometimes employed by Covens."
-   Wiccan Holidays, Lughnassad (July 31 - August Eve)  

"Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God.  If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them."
-   Samuel Rutherford

 "O Spirit of the Summertime!
 Bring back the roses to the dells;
 The swallow from her distant clime,
 The honey-bee from drowsy cells.

 Bring back the friendship of the sun;
 The gilded evenings, calm and late,
 When merry children homeward run,
 And peeping stars bid lovers wait.

 Bring back the singing; and the scent
 Of meadowlands at dewy prime;—
 Oh, bring again my heart's content,
 Thou Spirit of the Summertime!"
-   William Allingham 

"When in still air and still in summertime 
A leaf has had enough of this, it seems 
To make up its mind to go; fine as a sage 
Its drifting in detachment down the road."
-  Howard Nemerov, Threshold 

"Blessed be the Harvest,
Blessed be the Corn Mother,
Blessed be the Grain God,
For together they nourish both body and soul.
Many blessings I have been given,
I count them now by this bread.
Guardian of the East, I pray for your indulgence.
Hear me now as I request your aid in the cycle of life.
As your winds blow through fields of ripened grain,
Carry loosened seeds upon your back 
That they may fall amidst the soil
That is our Mother Earth."
-  Lammas Ritual  

"As for me, I know nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under the trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
Or sleep in bed at night with any one I love,
Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon...
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown,
Or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring...
What stranger miracles are there?"
-   Walt Whitman 

"Whilst August yet wears her golden crown,
    Ripening fields lush- bright with promise;
Summer waxes long, then wanes, quietly passing
    Her fading green glory on to riotous Autumn."
-  Michelle L. Thieme, August's Crown 

"What dreadful hot weather we have! 
It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."
-   Jane Austen  

"Birds fly in formation;
Tree leaves sway from side to side;
Clouds gather in small huddles,
discussing the weather;
Grass shoots shoot up once more,
their roots replenished;
A Phoenix nearby hums his Ode;
Tranquility is in place,
after the long bitter wait;
Alive, now, is the world."
-  J. I. Stuart, August

"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet."
-   William Shakespeare

"Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat."
-  Ann Landers

"There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer
is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!"
-   Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date."
-   William Shakespeare 

"The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room."
-   Horace Walpole

Working in the Garden

"It is God in the house when the curtains lift gently at the windows, and a young child sucks his itching gums.
We do not understand the mysteries of God.
God the winter. Summer, Septembers.
Moody dark tones of fathers dying.
The splash and laughter.
Children playing."
-   Ellease Southerland

"From the great trees the locusts cry
In quavering ecstatic duo--a boy
Shouts a wild call--a mourning dove
In the blue distance sobs--the wind
Wanders by, heavy with odors
Of corn and wheat and melon vines;
The trees tremble with delirious joy as the breeze
Greets them, one by one--now the oak
Now the great sycamore, now the elm."
-  Hamlin Garland

"When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue."
-   Mary Oliver, August

"If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest;
if there were no winter, there would be no summer."
-   St. John Chrysostom 

"August, the eighth month of the current Gregorian calendar and the third month of Summer’s rule, derives its name from Augustus (Augustus Caesar).  The traditional birthstone amulets of August are the peridot and the sardonyx; and the gladiolus and the poppy are the month’s traditional flowers.  August is shared by the astrological signs of Leo the Lion and Virgo the Virgin, and is sacred to the following Pagan deities: Ceres, the Corn Mother, Demeter, John Barleycorn, Lugh, and all goddesses who preside over agriculture.  During the month of August, the Great Solar Wheel of the Year is turned to Lammas, one of the four Grand Sabbats celebrated each year by Wiccans and modern Witches throughout the world."
-   Secrets of a Witch

"I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year."
-   Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Good weather all the week, but come the weekend the weather stinks. 
When the weather is too hot they complain, too cold they complain, 
and when just right their watching TV. 
Dirty fingernails and a calloused palm precede a Green Thumb. 
-   Mike Garofalo, Pulling Onions

"The Chinese also have a day devoted to love. Qi Qiao Jie, or the seventh eve, is often referred to as Chinese Valentine's Day.  While the annual gift giving commonly associated with St. Valentine's Day doesn't take place, there are several charming customs associated with this romantic day for lovers.  There are two legends surrounding the origins of Chinese Valentine's Day. Both involve the position of the stars on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar (August 11th in the year 2005).  According to the first version (my favorite), the seven daughters of the Goddess of Heaven caught the eye of a Cowherd during one of their visits to earth.  The daughters were bathing in a river and the Cowherd, Niu Lang, decided to have a bit of fun by running off with their clothing. It fell upon the prettiest daughter (who happened to be the seventh born), to ask him to return their clothes.  Of course, since Niu Lang had seen the daughter, Zhi Nu, naked, they had to be married. The couple lived happily for several years. Eventually however, the Goddess of Heaven became fed up with her daughter's absence, and ordered her to return to heaven.  However, the mother took pity on the couple and allowed them to be reunited once a year.  Legend has it that on the seventh night of the seventh moon, magpies form a bridge with their wings for Zhi Nu to cross to meet her husband."
-  Rhonda Parkinson and  Night of Sevens (Qi Xi, Qi Qian Jie)

"The summer night is like a perfection of thought."
-   Wallace Stevens

"Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn,
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn,
Speak but one word to me over the corn,
Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn."
-   William Morris, Summer Dawn

"A life without love is like a year without summer."
-   Swedish Proverb

"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?" 
-   Steven Wright 

"When gardeners garden, it is not just plants that grow, 
but the gardeners themselves."
-   Ken Druse

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers."
-   Jonathan Swift

"This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight, like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders."
-   Sarah Orne Jewett, The Courting of Sister Wisby, 1887  

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."
-   Celia Thaxter

"Let me enjoy
this late-summer day of my heart
while the leaves are still green
and I won't look so close
as to see that first tint
of pale yellow slowly creep in.
I will cease endless running
and then look to the sky
ask the sun to embrace me
and then hope she won't tell
of tomorrows less long than today.
Let me spend just this time
in the slow-cooling glow
of warm afternoon light
and I'd think
I will still have the strength
for just one more
last fling of my heart."
-  John Bohrn, Late August   

August

Links and References

August Month - Customs and Traditions 

Celebrating Lammas - School of the Seasons

Cuttings - August   Short poems by Mike Garofalo.

The Green Wizard   

Lammas: Celebrating Fruits of the First Harvest.   Anna Franklin and Paul Mason.  St. Paul, Minnesota, Llewellyn Pub., 2001.  Bibliography, index, 276 pages.  ISBN: 0738700940.   VSCL.  

Lammas, Lughnasadh, Second Summer Feast: Links, Bibliography, Lore, Quotes, Notes

Lammas - Wikipedia  

Lughnasadh, Lammas, Second Summer Feast: Links, Bibliography, Lore, Quotes, Notes

Lughnassadh or Lammas: Annotated Bibliography by Kathleen Jenks

Mabon Bibliography and Quotes

The Man Who Loved Plants.   By Edgar Oliver.

Months - August - Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Lore, Monthly Chores  

Moon Lore   August's moon is the Corn Moon.  

Night of Sevens (Qi Xi, Qi Qian Jie)   A Chinese holiday.  

One Druid's Journey - The Green Wizard's Notebooks  

A Passage Through August

Preparing for the Autumnal Equinox Celebration, First Day of the Fall Season, Third Summer Festival

Wicca Holidays and Sabbaths

If the first week in August is unusually warm,
the coming Winter will be snowy and long.

For every fog in August,
There will be a snowfall in Winter.

If a cold August follows a hot July,
It foretells a Winter hard and dry.

 
Clichés for Gardeners

Weather Lore

August Garden Chores

Red Bluff, North Sacramento Valley, California, USA

USDA Zone 9

Water plants: take advantage of cool morning hours, use daytime shade, use mulch, water plants deeply and less frequently.  Water in the early morning. 
Use any ditch water carefully and wisely. 
Move potted plants to areas that get some shade in the afternoon, e.g, along the east side of a fence that runs north/south. 
Water potted plants carefully on very hot days.
Mow lawns.
Prune branches of trees. 
Mulch and compost: cuttings, leaves, twigs, chips, shredded paper, garbage.
Water compost pile areas.  
Manage cutworms, larva, grasshoppers and other garden pests.
Weed around vegetables.
Use mulch to help control weeds and cool soil.
Maintain the lawn mowing equipment and power tools.
Work on carpentry projects.  
Pick and save or eat fresh vegetables and fruits.
Thin out excess fruit on trees.
Mulch with straw, chips, compost.  
Train vines on support structures.  
Read, listen to music, practice your musical instrument, relax and sleep in the shade.
Tend to and enjoy annuals in bloom.  
Maintain lawn: water, fertilize, mow, clean, plant, spray, etc..
Mulch, mulch, mulch, mulch....
Water, water, water, water ....
Harvest and preserve fruits and vegetables.
Paint outdoor art objects. 
Cut and stack wood so it can dry thoroughly. 

California Gardening Books and Websites- Monthly Chores:

Fifty Two Weeks in the California Garden.  By Richard Smaus.  Los Angeles Times, 1996.  ISBN: 1883792118.    

Garden Chores for the California Central Valley, Foothills, and Bay Area

Gardening Month by Month in Northern California.  By Bob Tanem and Don Williamson.  Lone Pine Publishing, 2004.  160 pages.  ISBN: 1551053659.

Northern California Gardening: A Month by Month Guide.  By Kathernine Grace Endicott.  Chronicle Books, 1996.  384 pages.  ISBN: 0811809269.   

Northern California Gardening: Bibliography, Links, Resources, Notes

Sunset Western Garden Book. 

August Gardening Chores and Tips

August Gardening to Do List - All Zones

Oregon State University August Tips

Earth Wise Creations August Tips - Zone 9

Top Garden Projects for August in the Pacific Northwest by Ed Hume 

Gardening, Zone 8

California Gardening Books and Websites - Monthly Chores

The Gay Gardener - August

The Garden Helper Tips for August - Northern U.S.

Gardening Tips - August - Zone 6 - New York Botanical Garden

Master Gardeners Tips

Monthly Gardening Calendar for August, Zones 5 - 6