This happens every August

Welp, there it goes. The sun just set after 8 pm here in Chicago for the last time until next May. It's at this point every summer that we start to realize how close we are to autumn. In just 20 days, the sun will set before 7:30; and just 18 days later, before 7.

I only wish that the end of corn sweat season were as predictable.

For me, the harbinger of autumn -- well, of winter, really -- is seeing Orion in the pre-dawn sky in late August. When I can see the star of Orion's belt in the eastern sky, I know that winter is coming.