A surprisingly warm day in November

 I might as well call this post exactly what it is, a surprisingly warm day in November.  After all, soon it will be the bleak mid-winter.  It was a day to send the kids outside and lock the doors so that they could be bored long enough to remember what they did outside in the summer.

 In this case, Dave got out the shovels and attacked a project that has needed 'dealing with' for a very long time.  The basement window under the kitchen window has had a mysterious leak since we moved into this house.  Mysterious because it only leaks on the deepest of coldest days in January and February.  Not during spring floods or warmer, milder, thawing-er sorts of days.  Mystery?  You agree, don't you?  Are any of you experts in masonry?  If so, such skills would come in very, very handy.  Afelskies are good at digging holes and, I guess, re-filling them, but masonry is outside of the Afelskie job-skill set.

 See Dave's body language?  It says, "I am confused.  I will continue to dig.  I will send my eldest into the trenches."  They are operating at an impressive rate and Australia soon might be reached; the foundation, however, will still be leaking.

 When I first came out, answering the cries of, "Mom!  Mom!  There's a hole and it's up to Jacob's shoulders!", I thought that Dave was digging a waste-treatment system for the dog (euphemism...).  However, I quickly discovered that he was on the wrong side of the house and nowhere near where such a treatment centre should be placed.

 My next thought was, "Where is Joe?"  and then I looked at the ever-growing pile of dirt and briefly wondered if anyone, in fact, knew of Joe's whereabouts.  Thankfully, his voice rang out from the other end of the yard and my fears were instantly laid to rest.  Note Ben's two front teeth are now missing.  Dave calls him Chris Neil; I call him Dougie Gilmour.  Dave is far more with it than I when it comes to hockey.

Proof that the bookworm can do far more than devour fiction.  Our town is filled with intellectuals able to dig graves.  (Terrible inside joke.)  So, we will enjoy the day, the last whiffs of fall and time together as a family.  It's all so precious, and so very, very fleeting.