Sitting in my office, looking out over the grey water and the grey sky, waiting for the first cold rain of the autumn to move in from the outer coast today, I caught a glimpse of a pine siskin bouncing around on the deck eating the husks of seed where I had fed them last winter in the snow. There is an eerie stillness to the air right now, a chill at night and the ominous sense of anticipation brought on by the cloud deck building down rather than in.



Last night the barred owls were at it again (yes, I'm still sleeping on the porch!), this time down in fromt of our place probably on the edge of the clearing of houses on David Road. One was calling for about 20 minutes until another joined it, and possibly a third one too. They hooted and growled for a while and then went off somewhere at midnight, probably looking for something to eat.



I noticed last night too that the crickets are getting fewer and are chriping less vigourously. There is a well known relationship between colder temperatures and slower cricket chirp rates. Counting the number of chrips in 8 seconds will give a fairly good approximation of the temperature. Last night it was about 7 degrees out.



And so with the cooler weather, we have got the wood stove humming again. I took a delivery of 5 cords of mill ends last weekend, which should last us about a year and a half. Not bad for $300. If anyone wants to know, I got them from Eric at 604-533-9663. He's out in Langley and is a great guy. He delivers in loads of 10 cords or 6 cords and the wood is almost all hemlock, untreated and kiln dried. It burns like anything. Tell him I sent you.