Today is the beginning of the Dog Days of summer, 40 days of especially hot and humid weather with little rainfall, according to the Farmers’ Almanac. The name came from the ancient Greeks. They believed that Sirius, the “dog star,” which rose with the sun at that time, was adding to the sun’s heat. They also believed that the weather made dogs go mad. The Romans tried to appease Sirius by sacrificing a brown dog at the start of the Dog Days. For the Egyptians, the arrival of Dog Days marked the beginning of the Nile’s flooding season, as well as their New Year celebrations.

Dog Days has been adopted by the stock market, because the markets tend to be slow and sluggish; it’s also come to mean any period of stagnation or inactivity.

Huh. I’d always thought “the dog days of summer” was a loose term, rather than a specific set of days, especially one with so much historical context.

That’s the kind of thing I learn regularly via the excellent Writer’s Almanac, a free daily newsletter from Garrison Keillor, which combines a hand-picked daily poem with brief “on this day” historical sketches about writers and thinkers, world events, and interesting odds and ends.

Especially if you’ll be mourning the loss of Keillor’s unique writing voice as part of your life now that Prairie Home Companion has come to an end, go sign up and wake to the Writer’s Almanac in your inbox every morning.

As he would say: be well, do good work, and keep in touch.