A little more than a week ago, we set the clocks back an hour, and for the next five months or so, we'll be on what is commonly known as "Standard Time." Of course, setting the clocks back doesn't change the number of hours of daylight and nighttime, it just shifts an hour of daylight from the evening to the morning.

The return to Standard Time may not rob us of any daylight, but Mother Nature continues to do so. Right now, we're still losing about two minutes of daylight each day, but gradually that rate is slowing down. We'll reach the so-called "shortest day of the year" - of course, all days are 24 hours long, but you know what I mean - right around the first day of winter, December 21, with only nine hours and 20 minutes of daylight. After that, we'll reverse the trend, and actually begin to ever-so-slowly get some daylight back.

Remember, on average, there's a lag of a month or so between the time of least daylight and the coldest time of the winter. So we probably won't bottom out temperature-wise until late January and early February.