Twelve Moons of the Year. August 02.

Significant Sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons.

"Green acorns hang heavy in the oaks, ripening toward October when their tam-o'-shantered nuts will be a harvest for every squirrel in the woods." p. 219.

"A meteor is a particle of matter moving rapidly from outer space and heated to incandescence by friction of the earth's atmosphere." p. 221.

"Dawn and the lake is gauzed with mist; sunrise begins to lift the mist and the water dances and glitters as the morning breeze begins to clear the air. Noon and it is lazy as the damselflies along its shore.... Sunset fades, but dusk lingers, shimmery with reflected light; then darkness, starlight again, moonlight and the slow lap of water at the moored boats." p. 224.

"Late August nights are always insect-loud." p. 226.

"Now all these fiddlers [insects] are out and making the darkness echo as though driven by a special frenzy." p. 226.

"What we really hear in the late-August nights' insects' sounds is the summer passing." p. 226.

"Now, in the insect-loud night, we know that October will come, and November, when only the scuffle of sere leaves will scratch the night." p. 227.

"One reason August has no holidays as such is that sweet corn and garden-ripe tomatoes make every day a festival." p. 228.

"Crab apples are ripe; they hang like scarlet jewels in the late August sun on a thousand hills and in the dooryards and along the green border. On thousands of shelves are glasses of fresh honey-amber crab apple jelly. The flavor has something of late frost and stony hillsides. The crab apple has enough flavor for an apple three times its size." p. 229.