Twenty years ago when Irving rebuilt our deck after the original began to rot -- even though the house builder that had included the deck had used British Columbia cedar and we expected it to last for a long time -- we didn't imagine that the time would come that some of the boards of the later rebuilt deck would begin to show signs of wear, given that every spring Irving treats the wood with preservative stain. He tried various methods of removing the special hardened spiral screws he used when putting the second deck together, but they're stubborn.

There are two boards that need to be replaced. It isn't anything like an emergency; just that on two boards there are signs of the wood beginning to rot. Irving doesn't like to leave things. He bought a special tool that was advertised as perfect for removing really tough screws, but it was useless. Irving is nothing if not resourceful; he thought of various methods he could use, but none worked. Finally he did the simplest but most energy/work-intensive thing and removed all the screws finally for one of the boards. It took him hours.

 

He plans tomorrow to tackle the second board. He already has the replacement boards and the task of replacing them will be far simpler than that of removing the two originals. In the meantime, though it's a brisker, cooler day than the last several we've had, it's also been sunny today. We had really hard winds, though, enough to bring down whatever was left of the colourful foliage in the forest.

We went out with Jackie and Jillie earlier in the afternoon, and now it truly is a forest bereft of its foliage, all sprinkled liberally on the forest floor. Thank heavens there's such a mix of hardwood and softwood in the forest; the conifers' green needles offer relief from approaching November's sere landscape of shades of black-and-grey until the snow begins flying. The wind and the sun made a start on drying out the forest from its inundations of previous days, making negotiating some of the clay-slick terrain somewhat easier.

 

When we finally returned from our forest idyll, I went back out after giving the puppies their obligatory salad, to make use of the kind weather in continuing the garden clean-up. Apart from sweeping up the fallen foliage and other detritus from the walkways, removing many of the annuals from the flowerbeds made for some pretty heavy compost bags, even when knocking loose dirt off the plant roots.

From the front gardens I made my way to the backyard. I had left most of the flowering annuals that still appeared fresh and contented to bloom, so the garden isn't completely without colour, in the knowledge that nights to come will be giving us some hard frosts that will challenge those annuals still left. In the backyard there was ample to do, moving from the various flower beds to the rock garden, cutting back hostas, rose canes and other perennials. Sad to see them all go.