“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”

Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Yep. That about covers it.

The fires in Canada have made our sunsets look like Martian postcards and the thermometers have been working overtime lately. These are the dog days, and although we may not think about it too much at the moment, we will miss them when they are gone. The cold winds will blow (they always do), and the wood stove will glow again while the snows of winter fall, and we will think back on these days and wonder if they really ever happened at all, or if we just imagined them.