Autumn begins at 2:19 p.m. EDT today.
Joyfully, it’s also the first day of Fall.
Many people in the northern hemisphere are disturbed by the changes they see around them at about this time each year. It gets darker earlier, temperatures drop, leaves change color and die and the Red Sox tend to drop out of playoff contention.
There have been myths about the changing of the seasons as long as there have been children to lie to. Some primitive peoples believed that leaves changed color because Nature was pining for her abducted daughter; others blamed it on the seasonal absence of sunlight-fed chlorophyll, allowing xanthophyll, carotene, and antocyanin to determine leaf color. We may never know the truth.
The first day of Autumn is sometimes also referred to as the Autumnal Equinox (the autumnal equinox is when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator from north to south.) The autumnal equinox brings the fall season to the Northern Hemisphere. Don’t be alarmed by the title. It’s just Fall.
There are 100 days remaining in 2024.
There are 39 days until Halloween,
43 days until the General Election,
66 days until Thanksgiving,
and 94 days until Christmas.
With intestinal fortitude and some heavy drinking, we can get through this thing.
The Haus of Dcaligari 