Summer’s Dog Days

“Dog days bright and clear
Indicate a good year”

from Weather Proverbs by H.H. Chase Dunwoody

It’s that time in the Northern Hemisphere when summer’s hot and sultry self makes an appearance. We sometimes call it “the dog days of summer,” a phrase dating back to the Greeks who watched for the rise of Sirius, the Dog Star. In Greece, the days after Sirius’s appearance were often filled with heat and sudden thunderstorms.

Here in the Carolinas, temperatures rise into the 90s and we often go for many days without rain. Even in the evenings, humidity hangs in the air, breezes are rare, and the cicadas begin their resonant dirge–a sound so loud my husband and I have to shout to each other to be heard.

On this dog day, we motor out in the evening on a still lake to watch the sun sink. I dip my toes into the water seeking coolness. What I find instead feels like a warm bath. My husband glances toward the eastern sky and points out a full, fat moon rising above the tree line, glowing in this day’s last rays of light.