You Wouldn't Think....

Egad, you wouldn't think this is October. Mind, the trees think so, and are shedding their leaves and needles as they are wont to do in October. Particularly after yesterday's rip-roaring winds. The trails in the ravine are entirely covered deep in honey-coloured pine needles and varicoloured leaves, from maples, beeches, ash, oak and birch. Fact is, in some places there's more colour on the ground than bristling from the overhead canopy.

Reason why it doesn't yet seem like October? The weather is most un-fall-like. It's warm, unseasonably, inordinately warm. So much sun, almost constant, and when clouds make their presence in that blue-blue sky, they're puffy-white and quite adorable to gaze upon. There was some threat/promise of rain yesterday afternoon when the sky was causally sullied with exciting dark clouds, but the promise fizzled into a brief shower, then dispersed.

You wouldn't think at this time of year that our gardens would remain so resplendent with colour and even promise of more, as the turtleheads, roses, black-eyed Susans, toad lilies, ligularia, tickseed, mallow, asters, hollyhocks and daisies are still hanging in there, still producing, turning our heads with glad appreciation of their beauty. And today I plucked the last ripe tomato off the vine that has produced so generously this summer.

You wouldn't think that one of the bridges built to strict Ontario code standards in the ravine last fall would already have shifted, over the creekbed. But it has, slowly and inexorably, as slowly and inexorably as the clay banks of the creek slice off, cave in under the brutal thrusts of heavier-than-normal summer storms, shifting the supports of the bridge which had been cemented into place to ensure longevity.

And already remedial work has had to be ordered to ensure that the bridge doesn't, like its less well-built but longer-lasting predecessors begin to pose a potential threat to the safety of its daily users, like ourselves. So the crews are down there, doing their level best to level the bridge. To remove the wood supports that have disappointed, to replace them with steel girders this time around.

To fill up those huge galvanized steel "nets" with stone dumped for that purpose, and set them into place under the bridge.

And since we're unable to use that bridge for the near future, at least until work has been completed, we've had to lengthen our daily walk to well over an hour to use alternate routes to complete our circuit. Yesterday we decided to exit the ravine at a different place, necessitating that we walk our little dogs on the leash, back up the street, rather than take our usual route.

In so doing, we came across one of our long-time neighbours, scheduled to undergo heart bypass surgery week after next. He's also got Parkinson's, which has become a little more severe as he ages, so his head bobbles constantly. But he's his usual perky, inquisitive self, and a spirited conversation ensues during which time we learn more than we need to about others of our neighbours.

You wouldn't think that with anticipation of his surgery hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles that he would compliment me on the look of the sunglasses I was wearing. Usually I chirp 'got them at the Dollar store', but I didn't indulge in that particular pleasure this time around. It's a pleasure because our old friend tends to shop for just about all his accoutrements at places like Buktasha or Mountain Equipment.

You wouldn't think I care.