The sun rose this morning at 6:18 and will set this evening at 9:25 for 15 hours 7 minutes of daylight. Nautical twilight now starts before midnight, though astronomical twilight lasts all night—the sun never gets more than 18° below the horizon. And it’s not even getting to 35° above the horizon at noon.
The Dry Creek Fire, as visible about 5 miles from where I live.
Actually, astronomical night hasn’t meant much the last few days. August is finally acting like a Fairbanks August should. I really shouldn’t have been blogging about how dry it’s been—we were up to .53” rain for the month by Saturday night, and over half of that fell Friday and Saturday. Saturday was alternating sunshine and showers. Sunday was solid, steady rain, for a daily total of .82″, the most we’ve had in a single day for over two years. No flood worries; it was too dry to start with. The forecast for today is more of the same, but it’s still smoky, too.
Leaves are beginning to litter the lawn. I don’t need to worry about frost as long as it stays cloudy, but I’d better get the plastic out for the raised beds at the first sign the clouds will clear. We have cold air aloft, and while official low forecasts are still in the 40’s or possibly high 30’s, a radiation frost is certainly possible.
One branch on this tricolor geranium has reverted to normal zonal color, and needs to be pruned out. Otherwise, being more vigorous, it will take over.
The garden is still producing more zucchini than I can eat, though the beans have slowed down. Beets and chard are still producing, though beets will store. Looks like I’ll have quite a few to store this year.
I need to prune the potted plants (above) that I plan to bring indoors for the winter, and decide if I want to dig up one or two of the prettiest begonias. They will winter in the plant room, and even continue blooming for a while. I did cut out a branch of one of the colored-leaf geraniums that reverted to green—need to check the other two for reversions.
My blogging schedule will be a little erratic the next few weeks. I’ve joined GUTGAA (gearing up to get an agent) which will take some blog spots in September, and I’m going to the Alaska Writers Guild conference in Anchorage the second weekend in September. I’ll try to write a blog post about that, but I’m not sure I’ll have internet access during the meeting. I forgot to ask if the hotel has Wi-Fi.
P.S. at 5 pm. We have gusty wind, 55° F and the clouds are breaking up. I’ve put the plastic on the raised beds.
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