We bought our groceries on Saturday mornings, back in the sixties, at Woodwards Oakridge Mall. Once paid for, they would be placed in bins on a conveyor belt and sent through the basement to the parking lot at the other end of the mall. Mom would pull up to the depot in the parking lot, hand over her claim ticket and an energetic teen would load the bags from the bins into the trunk of our Pontiac Strato Chief.

On $1.49 day in September, Mom would buy twenty odd boxes of presto logs. I can picture the teen’s smile fade as he saw the row of presto log boxes come toward him on the conveyor belt.

We had a gorgeous fireplace in the our living room and Mom loved to light a presto log or two, while she watched Front Page Challenge or the Avengers.

Raising our kids, we often had a fire going in the evening. We would get a cord of wood in every summer and the kids would stack it in the garage for easy access. In the fall, I would have a competition (with myself) as to how long I could go without turning on the furnace. With the occasional use of the family room fireplace in the morning, I could often make it into October.

After the unusually hot days of the last few weeks here the temperatures have dropped markedly. There has been talk on the island from neighbours who have already lit their fires in the morning.

Although parts of B.C. have had rain this weekend, we have had nothing measurable. We are confident however that we have survived the worst of the summer drought and are ever hopeful baths are in our near future.

I continue my heating competition (with myself) here on the island. There is no end game with a furnace to turn on but instead I will see if I can make it to October before I light the wood stove.

I am curious to see how long we can go with no fire. We have lots of wood. I won’t be cold to prove a point. I will light the fire if need be. I am

not that competitive