shrinking daylight

The change in daylight has really hit me this week. It's still a month to the autumn equinox but the edges of the day are already shrinking.

I thought maybe I was imagining how big the change is so I went looking for a sunrise / sunset calendar. I found the US Naval Observatory's Sun or Moon Rise/Set Table for One Year calculator and requested the chart for my location (in Massachusetts). I found that on August 1st sunrise was at 5:36 AM and sunset was at 8:05 PM. Today, sunrise is at 6:02 AM and sunset will be at 7:31 PM. I guess I wasn't imagining the shrinking daylight - we've lost close to a half hour of morning light and half hour of evening light.

I prefer the cooler temperatures of the spring and fall but I think I prefer summer's longer days. It's still dark in the morning when I wake up, and the sky grows dark soon after my early evening walk. It seems it's time to start adjusting to shorter days again.