We experienced the usual pleasant drive along the Ottawa River Western Parkway. The river was calm, blue and wide, picturesque on this early fall day of exceedingly warm temperature and clear sky, sun beaming down on the landscape illuminating all the bright colours reflecting autumnal change. The staghorn sumacs at this time of year are a miracle of nature's bright palette, a pleasure to the eye, a sentimental reminder of previous perfect fall days.

We passed fields of pumpkins, their bright orange orbs picture-perfect reflection-opposites of the blazing sun above. They are ready to be harvested so that supermarket shelves and farmer's markets will be festooned with their array of sizes and temptation-enhancing arrays of offerings celebrating fall harvest.

Passing the aeronautical museum, an array of small, light private planes, including the occasional bi-plane is seen parked off in the distance, a series of picturesque circus-like tents backgrounding them in preparation for festivities that make their way into the area at this time of year.

Horse-empty fields at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police paddocks for their estimable stables of show horses are full of geese, taking advantage of the opportunity to eat to their fill before their long migratory flight south for the winter.

And over, well over, a number of fields-distant, the horses themselves out in a paddock, seeking shelter under a grove of mature, still-green trees, whose canopy shelters their gleaming black hides from the heat of the early afternoon sun.