August Starts Tomorrow!

Where did the summer go? It feels like we just saw graduations and started summer vacations and now it’s almost over. Tomorrow is the first day of August. For many of the public schools on the Gulf Coast of Florida, only 10 days of freedom remain for students. 

August is the eighth month of the year, named for the esteemed Gaius Caesar. He’s better remembered as Augustus Caesar, the emperor who ordered the global census that sent Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus Christ. The Roman senate voted in 8 BCE to name a month in honor of the emperor. Since he was also known as Octavian, it made sense to replace the month of Sextilius with Augustus.

All About August

Since 2016, August has had three official birthstones. The original birthstone for August was sardonyx: alternating layers of sard and onyx create a reddish zebra-striped gemstone with white bands. Peridot was the second official birthstone, and for many years, the primary one recognized. Also referred to as chrysolite, the yellow-green transparent mineral was thought to have protective powers to drive away fears and nightmares. Spinel was added most recently. It resembles, and can even be mistaken for a ruby or pink sapphire. 

The birth flower for August is the gladiolus or poppy, meaning beauty, strength of character, love, marriage and family. 

August is also a fun time to watch the skies. The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most active and brightest meteor showers, visible between July 17 and August 24. They tend to be most prominent between August 11 and August 13. You might also catch the end of the Alpha Capricornids meteor shower or the Southern Delta Aquariids. The star cluster of Messier 30 is best observed during August. Mercury at its greatest elongation west can be spotted by the naked eye on August 19 shortly before sunrise. August’s full moon, the Sturgeon or Barley Moon, rises at 4:55 AM EDT on August 9 and on August 23rd we’ll also have a seasonal black moon – but that one’s hard to see in the night sky. 

August is Children's Eye Health and Safety Month and Get Ready for Kindergarten Month.

Back to School

It’s time to put away the camping and fishing gear and dig out the notebook paper, pencils, backpacks and lunch boxes. You might need to head to the store to pick up some new supplies and drop by the library to return any fun summer reading. 

Depending on where you stored some of those items, you’ll want to check for evidence of silverfish. Silverfish feed on polysaccharides, which is a fancy way of saying the stuff paper and glue in book bindings is made of. They’ll also gnaw on the coating on old photographs. If you’ve seen old books, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the weird, irregular holes and grooves cut into the pages or the yellowish stains they leave behind on paper. 

Silverfish get their name from their scaly, silvery look, and oftentimes those discarded scales or the flat egg sacs they leave behind will be a clear sign of infestation. Unfortunately, those items can also damage books and paper. 

Warm, humid areas are great breeding grounds for silverfish, which is why we see so many in our part of Florida. They’re especially prevalent in attics, garages, closets, sheds and storage facilities. The best defense is to store important documents in acid-free. airtight, containers that act as a barrier to the pests. Barring that, your best bet is storing them in a climate-controlled unit. But even those can be risky, and if you’ve got a lot of books, an infestation is hard to control. 

Once your home has been invaded by silverfish, it can be very difficult to get rid of them without professional help. That’s why they’re one of the main pests we target with our Go Green Perimeter Plus solution. It treats your home for silverfish, cockroaches, ants, spiders and more, all for an affordable monthly price. And we use the greenest, most organic solutions we can find, safe for your family and pets. For more details, or to schedule your first visit, please give us a call!