Sunrise this morning was 5:59 am, and sunset tonight will be 9:46 pm for a mere 15 hours 46 min of daylight. We’re losing a little less than 7 minutes a day, there are touches of yellow in the trees, and the sun is never more that 37° above the southern horizon. It now dips 13 ° below the horizon at night, though, so it gets pretty dark. Certainly dark enough to see stars and aurora, if the clouds would just clear up. According to the forecast, it should clear up a little by Thursday, but I’m not counting on it.

At least the forecast has no frost warnings – it’s gotten late enough in the year that cloud cover is our best protection from frost, given the cold air overhead. I’ve put the plastic ready for use, and fastened if over the squash even though I’ve pulled it back to let the rain in.

The garden, as usual this time of year, is producing faster than I can eat it. The beets will keep, but I may take some zucchini and beans by the food bank tomorrow if it’s dry enough I can pick them. Still no trace of red on the tomatoes, though I have lots of green ones. Potatoes? I haven’t dug any yet, but they’re certainly producing leaves enough!

It’s foggy out this morning, the leaves are showing the first signs of turning, and the highbush cranberries are almost ripe. It may still be hot where you are, but here we have definitely started the slide into winter.