We live in the mountains of the Eastern Townships of Quebec, just north of Vermont, and the standard joke about our weather is that we get eight months of winter and four months of very poor snowmobiling.

Except for this year, because we are having one of those glorious warm, sunny falls that makes you think winter will never come. Heck, we haven't even had a frost yet, and usually we see a killing frost the first week of September. Everyone around here is just a little loopy with happiness over this, it's such an unexpected treat.

It's not nearly as quiet here as it is normally, there's constant racket overhead, which has both the kitties and I feeling slightly out of sorts.

See, after years of fight--

Oooops, what I meant to say was after years of discussions, my spousal unit has finally begun to get beyond the preliminaries of putting a new roof on the house. Although we are surrounded by several major ski hills, which means we get some formidable snowfalls, somehow we managed to design a house roof that isn't steep enough to shed the heavy snows we're known to get.

For those of you keeping track, this roof would be Stupid Major Life Decision #563.

It comes right after Stupid Major Life Decision #562 which was situating said house a quarter mile up a steep mountain road that has to be closed in the winter because it would be unsafe to drive, leaving said house only accessible by ski-doo in the winter.

Because of Stupid Major Life Decision #563, every winter since we moved here, my husband has to go up on the roof and shovel it off several times a season. I've always worried about him falling off the roof when he does it, but now he's also getting to an age when being croaked by a heart attack feels all too possible, so it's time for a change.

The new roof probably would have happened several years ago, but we couldn't agree on a design. This year I gave in and said it didn't matter to me HOW it looked, that he just had to make the roof steep enough to shed snow. I can't stand worrying about him for another winter.

So it's the way he wants. Today, the ridgepole went up along with the rafters, and I know I'm going to hate this roof as much as I feared I would when he made me the little cardboard model to show me how it would look.

But sometimes, when you're with someone, you have to sit down and think hard about what matters. I'll be gritting my teeth at first, but I know I can eventually learn to live with the roof. I don't want to find out what it would be to live without the man.

(You'll notice that it took me several years, though, to come to this decision about the roof. I am a stubborn woman and not the sharpest pencil in the box, but then you already knew THAT, eh.)

All this hot weather has slowed my fall perennials down, they're in something of a tizzy, as you can see. The asters are waiting for a smooch from Jack Frost to tell them it's really fall and that they can start flowering in earnest, but so far that hasn't happened.

The bumble bees are going mental in the asters that have opened, they simply adore this plant and hover around it in big clouds this time of year. Normally, it gets quite cold late afternoon and the bumble bees do the oddest thing when that happens--they just park themselves on the nearest flower and wait for the next day, hoping it will get warmer again and take them less energy to fly.

When I cut asters for the house bouquet I check the flowers carefully for dozing bumble bees, but almost always I end up bringing one or two stowaways into the house where the warmth wakes them up from their nap. I end up chasing them with a bowl and plate so I can trap them in the bowl and set them free outside.

The cats find my lack of hunting and trapping skill hilarious and Zoe especially likes to run around with me as I chase the somewhat groggy bumble bees. I'm never sure if the cats are making little sounds of encouragement while we do this, or if they're saying sarcastic things about me to each other because they know I don't speak kitty.

Somehow, I suspect it's the latter. Cats have just too much 'tude for their own good, you know what I'm saying?