Unexpectedly, it's summer.

The leaves were changing when the Labour Day weekend arrived. Traditionally this is the last weekend of Summer and the melancholy time at which one files one's white shoes and prepares for leaf raking.



It's suddenly hot though with lots of sunshine. Now, at last, we should be wearing sun screen.

This is the lane to the barn in the morning.



This would be good weather for pressing on with the deck but it didn't happen. Instead we had a weekend of dog walking,



this is a old mill at a place called Noisy River,



and enjoying the barrel racing at a local fall fair










Not just barrel racing, of course, all manner of miracles of nature were on display.

Grey Kitty

Is now called Dude and is a great deal larger and more regal.

Mountaineering in Ontario.

Well, next best thing. This bump on the landscape is, I think, Murphy's Pinnacle. It's on the Bruce Trail, the one major footpath in Ontario. Charlie and I marched up it on the weekend.



It was 90 degrees and the path is quite steep.



From the top there are long views over typical southern Ontario countryside.




At the bottom is a small river, again typical of the area.



Along the way we met a crowd of people having a break during a four wheeling trip. One of them approached us cautiously, suspiciously, I thought he was about to rant about the unleashed dog but, no, he was sent to make sure I wasn't about to grass them for, gasp, consuming light beer in a public place. One thing we're not short of here is regulations.

After Charlie had cooled off in the river I spread a leopard print blanket in the powder blue Bettle, had the demi-poodle hop in and drove off wondering if this all wasn't a little much for Melancthon.

Oh-oh, here we go again.

The leaves are starting to change. There are adverts at the roadside for Fall Fairs.


We're not ready.

Wettest Summer evah.

Really. Now we have frogs in the house.

There's not enough cleaning to do at home.

So I took the afternoon to work on cleaning up a Model T that has been donated to the museum. They have two, both of them have been stored in a barn forever.

This one was made in Canada so they'll keep it:




it looks markedly better with all the bird shit removed



This is a US model so they'll sell it on. It's interesting because the body didn't come from Ford but it is too good to be home made. It may have been a kit sold by Sears or similar. The battery and a tool box are under the mother-in-law seat.



These people disrupted the effort by slinging balloons filled with water. That's what they do, them historians.



What they need is bending over and treating in an historically accurate manner!

Climate not conducive to painting, nor motoring.

We get lots of red sky at night, Anna took this from the driveway:



but still there's thick fog in the mornings





and by the afternoon dark skies and rain, often very heavy.




the snag with a convertible being that, despite some "whooshing over your head" it mostly rains inside the car

Mismatched chicks venture out.

Last year's chicks lived in a box and were fed chick starter rations. This year's are already outside the barn eating bugs. I dunno if their "mother" notices that they're quite different from each other but she's very protective of them.





I hope they survive as I'd like to see what sort of birds they grow up to be.

Blam!

Chunk of gravel came off a gravel truck, now I have a sight in the windshield for aiming at pedestrians.

Note the date, people.

This is our chimney,



and this is our stove.



The fire's not decorative but for warmth. Generally the opening of the CNE heralds the coming of Winter but that's a fortnight away and yet it's cold and damp already. (The Canadian National Exhibition is like a town fair but huge. It features giant fridges in which people carve life size objects such as coaches and horses from butter and a fairground in which street gangs traditionally run amock on the last day).

This was also the date of the charity auction at the museum. Last time around we acquired an attractive hutch. This time we filled a gap on the wall left by one of those tacky saw blades painted with a rural scene by buying this:



not just this of course, never let it be said that we left a case of unsaleable books unsold.

It just keeps raining

These were a couple of the less soggy commuting moments this week. I thought there was a chance of a twister. It didn't happen but the local news had spectacular pictures of a waterspout.




Not much is getting done outside due to the rain. The bird feeder got a new roof to match the house but whether it'll get sanded and stained before snow falls is anyone's guess.



Charlie, of course, goes out and comes in. A lot.

Vulgar to say so, of course

but I'm well pleased with the way the house and deck are coming to look.

the walls are not quite black, the deck not quite white. It's no longer your average cabin in the woods.

We went to pick up the rest of out hay today. This is the year from hell for hay, our supplier had dropped off a couple of bales of what he had for us to try as they're just not up to the standard he usually has. Luckily our horses define "easy keeper", they tore into the substandard hay like it was candy. Hay's going to worth something come the winter, Glen, the hay guy, said that someone had come by on a Harley with Florida plates looking to buy 160,000 bales. That'd cost slightly upwards of half a million dollars now, but in winter and in Florida, millions. As a city boy in a virtual business I'm kinda startled that real things, plants already, can make people fortunes.

When we went for the hay Glen was changing a tyre, country style.

The hay was on a wagon that would be awkward to get to our door so he proposed that we take it by truckloads when he was done. In the meantime we took ten bales in the Land Cruiser.

then it was back and forth with the truck, just short of 40 bales can be stacked in a F250 if you're not going too far.

It's hard work loading and unloading bales

but we were adequately supervised

and, having got it done, went off to the rodeo.