August August is the month for fun, for holidays by the sea, barbecues with friends and family, festivals, carnivals and day trips to all kinds of interesting places. Across gardens and countryside everything is ripening all at once and there is a sense that summer is beginning to slip quietly from our grasp. The colours are turning from green to gold and in hot weather the grass looks parched and tired. Plants are no longer growing vigorously, rather their energies are put into ripening seeds and fruits. All of this is a sign that summer is on the wane, and won’t last forever, no matter how much we wish it could - so enjoy these golden days while they last - and they are now growing noticeably shorter - in London day length decreases over the month by 1 ¾ hours to 13 hours
Here in Britain we have the General Education Acts of Victorian times to thank for selecting August as the most popular month for annual holidays. It was traditionally the time for gathering in the grain
all children under the age of ten, it was only sensible for the annual break to be established over the month of August so everyone could help with the harvest.
“Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest home; All is safely gathered in, ‘Ere the winter storms begin.”
Today less than one percent of the population work on the land and even fewer have anything to do with harvesting as the commercial harvest takes place in July - and sometimes even earlier - and huge machines piloted by a handful of specialists are all that it takes to crop and process the fields of wheat and barley.
harvest and back then almost everyone in rural communities would have been required to lend a hand. Even children were useful in turning sheaves or scaring crows from the gleanings. So when education became compulsory for
In the hedgerows the first elderberries and blackberries are ripening and trees such as rowan and yew carry red fruits. The tall graceful stems of cow parsley (or Queen Anne’s lace), that frothed along the lanes in May are now a withered tangle topped by long black fruits. You may also spot the
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