What do you do with an unexpected, amazingly lovely fall day, sandwiched between cold and wind and rain?  Well you celebrate as best you can, making the most of that day, stretching it out, doing things commensurate with the opportunity to both revel in the warmth and brilliance, and commit yourself finally to ending procrastination.

In our case, after breakfast we busied ourselves putting our outdoor living and enjoyment spaces to bed, awaiting the long winter months when outdoor relaxation and pleasure would be just a remote memory, beckoning us as the days begin their inexorable approach to being lengthened, lighter and warmer.

While I set about with hand spade and secateurs, storage receptacle and compost bag both at the ready to collect whatever was left of the begonia bulbs and sweet potato vine roots, cutting back perennials, ditching annuals, my husband began the far more arduous task of disassembling outdoor furniture and storing it in the larger of our two garden sheds.  The smaller one is mine, used for storing gardening tools and supplies.

As I was emptying the last of the clay garden pots on the railing of our porch, I saw something I couldn't quite identify at first, thinking it, oddly enough, a piece of unglazed clay.  Until my eyes lit directly on it, and then I called our biologist son over for a look.  I had obviously disrupted the winter hibernation plans of a tree frog, and there the little creature was, perched on the edge of the pot. 

We were all of us impressed by the presence of the tiny creature. Which happens to have been gifted by nature with the ability to change colour to match where it is perched; this one obviously had not. Our son lifted it gently into the garden where it swiftly hopped off, having had enough of close visual examination by those huge awkward creatures that don't live in trees and in the soil.

And that was the signal for us to break off our clean-up and hie ourselves off to the ravine for an extra-long hike through the meandering trails.  On this most glorious of days we ventured much further than usual, for a prolonged hike, re-visiting old haunts we haven't been through in at least a half-dozen years.