I had an old electric waffle iron stuck for ages in the back corner of a kitchen cupboard where I keep my pots and panes. It had rested there for decades until about a month ago I remembered it, and decided to begin making waffles for Sunday breakfasts for a change from French toast and pancakes. The batter is no problem, it just contains a few ingredients; flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla flavouring, egg and milk. The consistency is easy enough to produce. And we were pleased with the end results. I found the old waffle iron tricky to use some days, not so others. And then it gave up the ghost. So we put it to rest.

 

 

A week later Irving came home with a surprising replacement. It had been advertised at Canadian Tire, on sale at a mere $20. It's a really small contraption, and fairly basic, without the refinements of our old one. But its use is straightforward and it produces a good finished product, albeit smaller than what we were accustomed to. Mind, it's time-consuming to cook up enough waffles for  breakfast, a lot slower than doing a few batches of pancakes. But we think they're worth the wait, and have been enjoying them. So do the puppies.

 

Well, it's October. A good month. Two of our children were born in October, over 60 years ago. For the first week of this month the weather is guaranteed unusually warm. In fact we've had to delve into our packed-away summer clothing for these hot days in the mid-20s. I didn't think, when I was putting away our summer garments and bringing out cold-weather ones in their stead that it was premature. But there you are.

 

When we were out today, en route and then back from our afternoon ravine walk,  we came across some of our neighbours making the most of this superb weather. For the most part, for them, a walk is comprised of a turn around the block, but it's still getting out. Mohinder was walking much slower than is his usual gait, and he told us he's been having problems with his knees. Just under each kneecap, there's painful swelling. It even keeps him up at night. His doctor has suggested he take a break from walking, but that didn't appeal to Mohinder. The medication he's been prescribed doesn't seem to be helping.

 

As for us, our afternoon trip through the forest trails was as pleasant as usual. We don't necessarily depend on the weather to enjoy traipsing through the trails. It seems to us that every day more colour in the tree canopy is revealed. And certainly more foliage has come down. Yesterday, we watched as a bit of a wind gust created a storm of dry leaves drifting from the forest canopy to forest floor.

 

We watched a hairy woodpecker busy at work. After the initial glimpse woodpeckers all seem to share one characteristic, a mutual sighting seems to compel the birds to circle a tree trunk to ensure they're always at the opposite side to which they're fully revealed to us. We also saw a few small flocks of dark-feathered birds slipping into thickets of fully-leafed trees, their flight so swift we weren't able to make out what kind of birds they were.

 

At home, going through the garden, there's barely any indication that we had worked so diligently yesterday afternoon to tidy things up by pruning wayward and overgrown tree branches, sweeping up fallen detritus and generally doing some fall housekeeping. The relentless drive toward fall/winter absorbs the garden and its vegetation-denizens, themselves busy constantly culling unwanted twigs and foliage that then litter the ground and anything else they plop onto.