This season of the year, when summer has departed and fall is preparing to welcome winter, must be the saddest time of the year for many who don't at all welcome the onset of winter. It is also a very beautiful time of the time, autumn colour seasoning the landscape with the brilliance of changing leaves that will soon fall, littering the ground below.

Hummingbirds and songbirds have since left the landscape, and the sky is creased with arrows of geese flying south for the duration of what is left of the year. If that isn't sad, then what truly is? On the other hand, crops are being harvested and we are invited to make the most of fresh gatherings of food we place on our tables.

It's as good a time as any, with cooler temperatures settling in, windy days, plenty of rain coming down, to begin making fresh-vegetable soup for warming evening meals. And ratatouille, a simple meal of eggplant, leeks, tomato, bell peppers, zucchini, stirred together with herbs and then served over a bed of rice.

This week our kitchen was redolent with the fragrance of cinnamon-flavoured pears baked in a crisp for a dessert served warm, and apple pie baked later in the week, with the huge, red luscious apples harvested from our daughter's bounteous apple tree.

Our backyard tomato plants have begun flowering again but it's doubtful there will be enough time for new tomatoes to grow and ripen, and we've taken off all the ripe fruit it has already given us, sweet and flavourful. We're still able to cut parsley from the garden, because nothing tastes as good as fresh parsley, perking up a dish, including chicken soup.

In the forest, the small mammals are busily rushing about filling their winter pantries. We're immensely popular in our own urban forest for the daily peanuts we cache here and there.