The snow warning came early.

More than a week ago, my furnace quit. Nothing could be more calculated to foretell an early snow than a defunct furnace.

Actually, it may be a lucky thing it did quit. I'd been replacing the filter and touched the exhaust duct to steady myself on the ladder.

The duct went "crunch."

That's odd, I thought. Ducts aren't supposed to go "crunch."

That's when I discovered the only thing keeping the duct together was habit. The entire thing crumbled like a thin gingersnap when I exerted a little pressure, and if the furnace had been working, all the carbon monoxide would have gone right into the basement.

Roughly five and a half hours and a dozen or more components later, bright new ductwork led from the water heater (which was working) and the furnace (which wasn't) to the stack.

I recently mentioned the importance of having someone else's wisdom and experience when one is in over one's head on a do-it-yourself project.

I called on Alan at the hardware store and my neighbor for backup. It was evident what needed to be done, but it's amazingly reassuring to have knowledgeable help.

As an aside, if I ever take up inventing, I'm going to invent tin snips which continue to cut in a straight line when one is more than halfway around a pipe.

Before the new duct was slipped into the stack, we could hear the wind roaring across the top of the open pipe. When we emerged from the basement, we found a fast-moving storm had practically ripped the leaves off the ash trees.

I had mixed feelings about that. Last year, the trees clung to their leaves well into the winter and I was raking leaves off snow in January.

This year, a glorious flat carpet of multicolored leaves covered the lawn, walks and half the street. Then the snow came and I found myself shoveling snow off leaves.

One season at a time is really enough.

There's an old stove in the basement. With it stoked up, I didn't need to worry about frozen pipes, but the message from weather and furnace was clear: Turn off the outside water, roll up the hose, put away the sprinklers and say goodbye to the flowers.

A plague of broken furnaces hit town and the repairman has been swamped. Though the furnace is temporarily repaired, there's an iffy quality to it which will keep me slightly on edge until a new part arrives. On the down side, this means I've had to cut, split and haul a load of firewood into the basement. On the up side, this means I now have a load of firewood in the basement.

If the new part arrives before anything else can break down, I'll have a jumpstart on my winter preparations.

I feel like a character in the old fable about the diligent ant and the indolent grasshopper. I'm just not sure which character I'm playing.

Lyndel Meikle works on a Deer Lodge-area ranch.