I’ve always loved August.

            I was born in August, married in August, and had my first child in August,* so for my family, it’s a month of celebration. Besides, by August the worst of summer heat begins to mellow, but it’s still quite hot enough for days of swimming at the ocean or the lake: a perfect time for leisurely vacations. What’s not to like?

            The first summer after we moved into this house, I was gung-ho about gardening, thrilled with the look of the shrubs and flowers leading up the slate walk to the front door, attuned to the melodic sound of the chimes that I hung near the azaleas underneath my bedroom window.

            And then August hit, and with it the arrival of the cicada-killing wasps.  

            Let me tell you about cicada killers. They  grow up to two inches long. The female digs a burrow in light sandy soil, leaving a little pile of sand beside a hole between a nickel and a quarter-sized in diameter. Then she goes hunting, paralyzes a cicada, flies it back to her burrow, and stuffs it down the hole, where it will become food for the egg she lays on top of the unfortunate cicada. Meanwhile, male cicada killers buzz around the nesting area, fighting with each other and waiting for available females.

            Interesting natural science lesson, but why do I care?

            Because the cicada-killer wasps, not just one or two, but dozens, settled in my front flower beds. These are solitary wasps, but ours seemed content each to tend its own little burrow in an area densely saturated with other burrows. No one could get to our  front door without being buzzed by some absolutely huge wasps. No matter that these wasps don’t generally sting humans; try telling that to the shrieking three-year-old child of a friend. Try believing it yourself when you try to do some weeding.

            Under the circumstances, I did what any reasonable person would do: I turned to a search engine for something that might help. The idea of trying poison was unappealing and impractical, given the dozens of burrows we’d have to treat individually, and the fact that we drink well water. The best advice I found was to either: (1) ignore them and wait for their season to end, or (2) swat them, eliminating them one by one. Disheartened, I shared the information with my kids, then 14 and 12. They didn’t want to hang around and commiserate with Mom; both went out to roller blade.

            A short time later, I glanced out the window and saw both kids, gliding from slate to slate on our front walk, wearing the knee pads, elbow pads and helmets I required them to use, wielding badminton racquets, and dispatching the offending cicada wasps. I don’t know what the neighbors thought was going on, but it made a dent in our wasp population. The wasps came back the next year, and the next, but in declining numbers. With our kids’ persistent demonstrations of family eccentricity, the wasps were pretty much gone within three years.

            Augusts are more peaceful now, filled with the reassuring rhythmic sound of hundreds of cicadas.

            Another cause for August celebrations: this month, we bring you the twelfth issue of Creek Road Gang, completing our first year.

            In the spring of 2009, when I talked with friends about my idea of starting this magazine, more than one told me that I was underestimating the effort  it would take and the difficulties it might entail, and that I was crazy. I have to tell those friends they were right. I did underestimate the effort and the difficulties. As with most things, there’s a learning curve, but it’s getting much more manageable now.  I am, of course, crazy, but that’s nothing new. In my own crazy way, it works for me.

            In our first year, we’ve brought forth 35 different writers with a mix of stories, poems and, more recently, reviews. We’ve had visits to the site from over 4,000 computers. Those readers have connected from computers in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Brazil, France,  the Philippines, Indonesia and more. (I’ve had the interesting experience of finding pieces from Creek Road Gang translated into Polish and Spanish.)

            I hope, like me, you enjoy your August, and our August issue.

            And keep coming back. I have a feeling that our second year is going to knock my socks off.  

*(Note to second child: I love September too.)