Dry fields gone dormant from too little rain, dotted with black-eyed Susans and wild carrot. Schools of black sea bass running thick in the deep water of Vineyard Sound. Inky night skies splashed with a million stars. Sunsets, glorious sunsets. Ferries running at capacity for cars, dogs, bikes and people. A once-sleepy airport redefined as a traffic jam. No place to park down Island: repeat this mantra three times.

These are the benchmarks of early August as the Island hits the halfway point in the season.

It used to be called changeover weekend when the July people left and the August people came. But the first of August fell in the middle of the week this year and anyway the lines of tradition are no longer so clear when it comes to vacation patterns. One summer month melts into another.

Still, August has its own distinctly different rhythms.

This is the month of the fair, fireworks and Illumination Night.

It’s the month when summer events are at their peak, when sweet corn, tomatoes and peppers ripen in farm fields, when the ocean water is at its very best for swimming and the beaches stay warm beneath bare feet long after the sun sinks below the horizon.

It’s the month for shooting stars and migrating monarch butterflies. The monarchs appear to be plentiful this year, especially where milkweed has sprung up and is beginning to bloom. The delicate butterflies make one of the longest migrations on earth, traveling more than two thousand five hundred miles north from their wintering grounds in Mexico every year, following the coast. Conservation measures to protect them remain ongoing, although recent moves at the federal level to practically gut the Endangered Species Act portend a serious setback for these and other environmental protection efforts.

Watching the graceful monarchs flutter around Island fields, it’s a reminder that what happens in Washington matters. And that civic engagement is more important than ever these days and at every level — from small-town government to the powerful corridors of Capitol Hill.

At the Gazette office in Edgartown this week the hardworking staff has been busy preparing the biggest print edition of the year — the one that goes to every mailbox on the Island, traditionally on the first Friday in August. Presses were running late into the evening on Thursday and every available staffer plus friends and family members pitched in to help insert, bundle and get the newspapers ready for delivery early Friday morning.

It’s a fulsome edition that covers the waterfront of community news. At the high school ball field the Sharks, the Island’s own boys of summer, are in first place and headed to the playoffs. In Oak Bluffs, the African American Film Festival is ready to open. In Menemsha, Everett Poole is in the chandlery helping fishermen who need a new cleat or some line and advising summer people on how to rig a mooring and rake a basket of clams. At 87 Everett is arguably the Island’s elder statesman — salty, smart, seen it all.

All around the Island summer business is up or down, depending on who you talk to.

But that’s August — when that fleeting thing called summer finishes its work, suddenly turns the corner and heads for September like a feisty fish on the line.

Let’s reel it in, one more time, and stay safe on overcrowded roads. Please remember not to drink and drive.