Decades ago, yet years after we moved into this house, we discovered an interesting local enterprise. Someone who owned property located in a semi-rural area was pouring concrete into moulds to produce classical statuary, garden urns, pedestals, stone benches, you name it. We went to visit the property. It was a country house, not very old, a ranch-style bungalow set on a large lot and behind the house was a vast yard where the product was displayed.

We were overwhelmed. We wandered about looking at the displays and knew we wanted to own some of those things. We were always interested in art and antiquities and what this man produced was a facsimile of both. Some were copies of ancient Greek and Roman statuary, some replicated objects, architectural details and statuary produced over the last thousand years in classical artworks. And we loved them all.

This was a family business we were fascinated by. The man who produced all these wonderful replicas was a garrulous fellow, friendly and knowledgeable about his product. His wife was the business-side of their entrepreneurial partnership; she priced what her husband produced. She would walk around the property with a file of products and prices, citing what it would cost you for any particular item, with full authority.

They were both robust, muscular people. If you bought something really heavy that required moving with a trailer, he would hoist the object single-handedly into the trailer, laughing off efforts to give him a hand. He made it a practice to regularly go back to Italy, the country of his birth, to acquire new moulds so he could produce new product. All of them left us amazed with admiration.

He produced for us a classical surround for our porch, the style and dimensions to order. It took him several weeks, and we returned to pick up all the pieces which my husband then installed. We bought some classical statuary from him, the Three Graces, the Discus Thrower, and a few others to stand in our garden. Along with as many classical urns as we could afford and find place for, on our limited property, over the years.

About twelve years ago his wife died. Their son, who was a great help to his parents in pouring the cement with the moulds -- they produced some hugely impressive pieces; classical fountains, great huge horses, statuary of mythical Greek gods -- eventually became interested in other things. The family business wound up. The property was sold to a builder as part of a new subdivision.

The family business that this family worked so hard to build, and provided people like us with such huge pleasure in owning garden pieces we would never otherwise be able to access is long gone. But we still treasure all those pieces we bought so many years ago. They have served us well.

The dynamics of nature don't change; heat rises, cold sinks. So much for modern architectural efficiency in dealing with indoor temperatures. In the summer when it's hot outside and we cool the interior of the house with air conditioning, heat still rises so that the second story of the house is much warmer than the ground and the sub-ground floor. Our basement level is beyond cool and comfortable, and the ground floor is tolerable.

In the winter, everything is reversed; the comfort of warmth can be found in the basement, while the ground floor is tolerably warm and the second story is chilling to the extent that it seems a window must be open, inviting the cold winter air to invade. Before we turn in for bedtime on summer evenings we open our bedroom window and the windows at the front of the house hoping that a nice cross-current of breezy air will cool down the day's accumulated heat.

Our bedroom felt  hot and stuffy last night, but not intolerable. A well-aimed floor fan helps. Jackie and Jillie, however, decided to wake us up an hour earlier than usual, at an unseemly 7:00 a.m. to which we didn't take too kindly, but resignedly. Another warm and muggy day heading for 32C. It was heavily overcast and looked as though a downpour might appear, given the humidity.

We collected ourselves and went out for an earlier-than-usual ravine walk through the forest trails. Not a bad idea, given the likelihood of sun appearing in the afternoon along with an overheated atmosphere when there might be considerably less pleasure in the enterprise. Certainly Jackie and Jillie don't mind the earlier approaches to the forest. So we wended our way through the trails, marvelling as usual at the luxuriance of the green matter surrounding us, hoping for a stray breeze to relieve the heat.

As it happens, at various junctures whether up on the high portions of the trails or down in the ravined areas we do come across pockets of cooler and alternately warmer air, irrespective of being in a hollow or up above on a lofty bank. We came across the first of the cinquefoil wildflowers to bloom this season, with their distinctively-shaped-and-hued petals as well as milkweed which have been making their presence on the forest floor the last few years. The milkweed beginning to mature, initiating the presence of their berries beloved of Monarch butterflies.

On our return after breakfast we prepared to go out again, this time to a little Ontario town about an hour's drive away. Perth holds an annual antique show and we've been going along there for the past number of years. Each time we do we admire the old stone buildings in the town, both commercial and domestic.

The drive itself is fairly speedy and we saw plenty of lupins, daisies, buttercups and hawkweed on our way. We used to pass a farm that raised bison, those great shaggy beasts that once roamed the Canadian prairies, but if it's still in operation, the farm now pastures the bison elsewhere than the field we used to see them in beside the highway.

The antique show used to take place in and around the grounds of the Perth branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, sitting beside the pretty Tay River, but the past few years the show has taken place not in the centre of town but further afield, in a more rural setting, the Civitan Club.

Jackie and Jillie are very patient with us. This wasn't a trip for them, though they accompanied us. It wasn't to a place where they would be free to run happily about leaping from place to place. Instead, they're each confined to a carry bag we loop over our shoulders.

The grounds weren't extensive and there weren't all that many dealers present -- though dealers tend to come from various other areas -- since it is, after all, a rural-based town of no more than perhaps six thousand residents. And though the day was hot, there was a good stiff breeze to cool things off.

Each of the vendors had the interior of a tent to themselves, one side completely open to the people strolling through. But for puppies carried about in canvas bags it can't have been too cool. They slurped cool water in abundance once we returned to the truck, to begin our drive back home, then settled down drowsily on the front seat of the trunk with us (which has been converted to a 'bench' seat from two bucket seats) for the drive back home.

It was simply gorgeous out on the forest trails yesterday. And plenty of others in the community -- near and far -- seemed to think so, too. On our leisurely perambulation through the forest trails, but for the deepest, furthest of the trails, we came across quite a few hikers, many with their doggy companions, mostly inveterate trail hikers, along with a few new ones indulging in an annual autumn trek through the woods.

Jackie and Jillie had lots of company, a surfeit of run-abouts, both together and with dogs of their long acquaintance, and we stopped to chat often enough to prolong our exposure to the warm weather, and the brilliant sun. What a change from then to now. We woke this morning to the sight of snow, not frost, lightly dappling rooftops. The temperature had dropped from 16C overnight to -0C, with an emphatic wind gusting through the night.

But yesterday was a beautiful, beautiful day. We left Jackie and Jillie at home for a few hours and took ourselves the distance from our home to the Carleton University Fieldhouse, site of bi-annual antique shows. We'd missed the last two simply because we were fairly disinterested in the stuff being brought out in the final two we'd attended.

Truth is, we didn't expect the wares to be much improved this time around, but long-time searchers after art and antiques fall victim to a kind of virus that makes them restless and curious and propels them to venture out and see what they can see. And so we did. And weren't we surprised. Dealers from Montreal and Toronto showed up, though not admittedly the art dealers that we'd long been accustomed to seeing; too much trouble, too few sales, and health and age impedes their return.

But we saw so many intriguing things, we felt compelled for a change to take our times going through the aisles of assembled dealers selling everything from memorabilia, to glassware, jewellery to paintings, sculptures to clocks, vintage comics to porcelains. For us it was a fascinating few hours moseying about and occasionally speaking with people, invariably mellow and nice individuals whom even brief contact with makes you feel good.

My husband, the art connoisseur, chose a painting whose modest price betrayed its damaged condition. But he is nothing if not enterprising and capable, knowing just how to rehabilitate canvas and damaged oil paint, as well as the frames that hold the paintings. The subject matter is appealing to us and we only marginally regret bypassing a much smaller architectural watercolour that we left behind, a colourful late 19th century cityscape.