It's a sunny day in Grey County. More like summer, with 20+ Celsius temperatures, than fall. The difference is that the calendar and all of nature is telling us it is, indeed autumn.
Most obviously, the maples that line Douglas Street in front of the house decided, suddenly, to start turning colour. It felt like one day, they were all green and the very next, red, gold and bronze burst out from every branch.
The geese have returned after a summer of living who-knows-where.
They've resume their flying exercises, circling the property every morning and evening in preparation for the long trip south.
And the Harris-Wilsons are sorting, packing and divesting a bunch of pictures, books and albums from the second floor, getting ready for the week after Thanksgiving, when we've contracted with Brian's Home Renovations and Flooring (he lives on the north side of Durham) to give it a facelift.
It's an amazing time, looking through 30+ years of memories. While we are going to give away a bunch of STUFF to the library, Kidney Foundation and the ReStore (Habitat for Humanity) in Hanover, we will be keeping some of the cherished bits.
Here's Rob, in the orange shirt he wore yesterday to commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, picking through dozens of volumes - some of which have been around since the early part of the last century.
Among the finds were a Christmas card from 1918, some Gaelic poems carefully recorded by an early Wilson on parchment with a fountain pen and my dad's elementary school primer from 1935.
Treasures all that will remain for safe keeping.
It's going to take a while to get through everything. Which is why we started yesterday. Our second floor was a storage area, and nearly the whole space is being torn up to make it more usable. More on that in posts to come. Until next week.
Today's gratuitous cat photo is courtesy of Calvin, who thinks that he's gone to cat heaven with all the cardboard boxes.
