Dog Days End, 73rd Day of Summer, 525 M.E. (Castor): Have they ever! Maybe not gone entirely - no one in Georgia thinks we won't see a return to 90-degree weather in August - but the past several days have been refreshingly cool. Rainy, but cool. The high temperature yesterday was but 73° and I managed to walk a Van Buren (8.9 miles) without breaking a sweat. The previous several days it was even cooler, in the low to mid 60s, albeit too rainy to get in my steps.

I'd say that old Angus MacLise knew what he was doing when he named the 73rd and final day of summer as "Dog Days End," but in fact he didn't. His Universal Solar Calendar actually has the 5th of Fall (August 11th by the Julian calendar) as "Dog Days End," but I took the liberty of moving the name to the last day of Summer in my New Revised Universal Solar Calendar. It seemed more fitting, if more that a tad optimistic, as hot temperatures here in Georgia can continue well into October.

In any event, whatever you call it, today is the last day of Summer in both MacLise's USC and my NRUSC. Fall starts tomorrow with Day of the Mantle. New season, new icon - no more Sun Girl but an AI version of my own autumnal face.

Summer's over - we're 3/5ths of the way through the year, summer vacation has ended for thousands of Atlanta children and their teachers, and the school year has started. Now we face Fall - the fall, the decline, the autumn of our year.