It is hot as hell outside! Today, it is supposed to get up into the 90′s once again and the whole family is praying that the pool clears up for entry. We let the pool get a little dirty and now its just teasing us knowing that we want to get in there so bad.
I know that the heat won’t last long and I like to remember these days when it turns to negative 0 degrees in the winter time.
Found this interesting article today concerning why they say "Dog Days":
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Everyone knows that the ?dog days of summer? occur during the hottest and muggiest
part of the season. Webster defines ?dog days? as…
1 : the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of
summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere
2 : a period of stagnation or inactivity
But where does the term come from?
Why do we call the hot, sultry days of summer
?dog days??
In ancient times, when the night sky was unobscured by artificial lights and smog,
different groups of peoples in different parts of the world drew images in the sky by
?connecting the dots? of stars.
The images drawn were dependent upon the culture:
The
Chinese saw different images than the Native Americans, who saw different pictures than
the Europeans.
These star pictures are now called constellations, and the constellations
that are now mapped out in the sky come from our European ancestors.
They saw images of bears, (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor), twins, (Gemini), a bull,
(Taurus), and others, including dogs, (Canis Major and Canis Minor).
The brightest of the stars in Canis Major (the big dog) is Sirius, which also happens to be
the brightest star in the night sky.
In fact, it is so bright that the ancient Romans thought
that the earth received heat from it.
Look for it in the southern sky (viewed from northern latitudes) during January.
In the summer, however, Sirius, the ?dog star,?
rises and sets with the sun. During
late July Sirius is in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients
believed that its heat added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch
of hot and sultry weather. They named this period of time, from 20 days
before the
conjunction to 20 days after, ?dog days? after the dog star.
The conjunction of Sirius with the sun varies
somewhat with latitude. And the
?precession of the equinoxes? (a gradual drifting of the constellations
over time) means
that the constellations today are not in exactly the same place in the
sky as they were in ancient Rome. Today, dog days occur during the
period between July 3 and August 11. Although it is certainly the
warmest period of the summer, the heat is not due to the added
radiation from a far-away star, regardless of its brightness. No, the
heat of summer is a direct result of the earth’s tilt.
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Article Source: http://wilstar.com/dogdays.htm
Read more…
I thought that there was an usual amount of shooting stars last Saturday night. I counted a total of 6 within about 3 hours but I had no idea that we were supposed to be having a meteor shower…I just thought that it was my lucky night and was making wish after wish.
