The morning I wrote this column, I went for a bike ride before work, and startled not one, but two separate black tailed deer near Allard Crescent.

One of them, obviously used to the ways of early-morning cyclists, just waited for me to pass before crossing the road. The other was startled and headed back into the brush of a ravine, disappearing entirely before I could pass that spot.

I鈥檝e been riding that route a couple mornings a week all summer, and this is the first time I鈥檝e seen any deer.

But then it occurred to me that deer are most likely active closer to dawn, and my rides, though you could set your watch by them, are getting closer and closer to dawn every day.

The day I wrote this column, the sun rose at 5:50 a.m. and set at 8:48 p.m.

By the time it appears in the paper, it will rise at 5:56 a.m. and set at 8:37 p.m.

Summer is slipping away.

It鈥檚 apparent in the speed with which the shadows creep across the lawns faster and faster every afternoon, the way the nights are cooler, the way fog now gathers in low fields beyond the dikes in North 91原创.

Pretty soon, I鈥檒l have to curtail my morning rides entirely. I鈥檓 not that afraid of cold, but no amount of reflective material and flashing LED bike lights make me feel safe sharing a road with large trucks in the pitch dark.

Not to mention I like to be able to see the potholes before my front wheel drops into one.

We鈥檙e already more than a month and a half away from the longest day of the year, and pretty soon we鈥檒l see the tables turn 鈥� more darkness than daylight, and then less and less sun all the way through until December.

When I was a kid, summers seemed endless. I loved them, but even when I was eight or nine, two months and a bit of summer vacation was long enough for the luxury of boredom to set in.

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Of course, back then, a single summer was a decent percentage of my entire life.

Now it鈥檚 a much, much smaller span, relative to how long I鈥檝e been around. And boy, does it feel like it.

Every month when the calendar flips to a new page, we all look at each other and say 鈥淲ow, how is it August already!鈥� and then we repeat that 12 times a year, every year.

It would be funny if it wasn鈥檛 true. Summers go by too fast when you鈥檙e an adult, and you realize too late that it鈥檚 September, and you never did that day trip, you never read that big thick book, you never made iced tea with just the right amount of sugar, so much it鈥檚 visible as a cloudy swirl in the liquid.

I know that this summer, there鈥檒l be things I鈥檒l miss out on doing. Too busy with work and keeping a household from falling into total disarray.

But I am trying to grab as much of these long days as I can.

Today it was two deer emerging from the woods. The ride before that, a hawk swooped at my helmet, screaming defiance. The last weekend in July, I rode to Crescent Beach, leaned back on my bike鈥檚 top tube, watched the breakers roll in, took in a lungful of salt air, storing up a summer memory for the long winter to come.