These autumn days

 Winter is an etching, 

spring a watercolor, 

summer an oil painting, 

and autumn a mosaic of them all.

~ Stanley Horowitz

These Autumn Days present us with enormously, breathtaking beauty. 

With colors so splendid, even the ground we walk upon lights up our way with its fresh hues of polka dotted autumn palette presence. 

Slowly the earth prepares itself for the colder, much more wintry days ahead, and so too must we take a lesson from this seasonal lead. 

Tomorrow (very early) in the morning, a crew of men will show up to clean our furnace and perform a duct cleaning. I expect them to arrive by 8am, and leave somewhere over two hours later. 

For those who have loved ones with respiratory issues, like we have here, I swear that this is a very necessary and wonderful way to clean house and air before windows and doors remain sealed tightly for several months in winter. 

Our back garden doors look quite funny about now, everyone leaning to the right to see outdoors because the temporary window enclosure doesn't allow for glimpses. I'm sure I'll hear this week from the glass company to plan a time for our new door window to arrive, with its seal all refreshed and airtight again. 

There's just something about having the seal go on a doorway, when a white fog is the usual dismal sight. And, the timing of having this done is so much better than the last time this happened, when the glass on the other door seal ceased functioning, and an entire enclosure was necessary for the workers to remove, and then replace on sight with a fresh snowfall on the ground. 

 

I'm loving a daily walk, weather permitting, around our forest trails. The colors continue to wow me! 

Two days ago, my hubby and I donned our jackets and headed back there for a "forest walk date", small basket in hand, to walk and admire the beauty of the scenery, and to collect a few colorful leaves for pressing. 

We pointed to almost a dozen very HUGE maple trees which we have decided to go ahead and tap this year, hoping for our very own supply of fresh syrup as a result in spring. 

In winter, we will come back here often, decorating two small pine trees out there, and perhaps create a few fairy houses for winter's warmth for a fun imaginative delight. 

Meanwhile, the rains have come, perfect timing for us with all we have done around our home lately. The roofers were able to arrive one day last week, in the perfect window timing of rain both before and after. 

With a 12x12 pitch roofing, the men required a dry or close to dry climb. I'm so thankful for that little reprieve from the weather showers that day. We are all sealed, re-caulked, and ready for winter now. What a surprise to learn once again, two little holes were found anew next to the metal areas up there, perfect for creepy crawler thingies like mice to enter our home for nesting time. Evidence of one in here already makes me wonder how many more may have entered over the coming weeks and months if these hadn't been found, noticed at all, and taken care of. So pleased for these little things in life! 

All outdoor metal items were wiped and removed from our decks last week, just in time for cool frosty mornings to wake up and witness. Our storage room was tidied, revamped and replenished with these items. I've only left our wooden chairs on the larger deck for a bit longer, but I imagine these will even come inside the next week or two. 

Autumn. One cannot help but admire the way it quickly sneaks in after a summertime season, and how quickly it does indeed pass us by! 

In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening—no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air. 

~Alexander Smith