Yesterday we experienced the lull after the storm.  Despite continual warning of the possibility of dire weather resulting in our area from Hurricane Sandy, we were spared.  Unlike Toronto, which itself suffered extreme weather consequences, but nothing like the U.S. And we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have been spared the extreme weather conditions that became a fact of life for so many people on the U.S. eastern seaboard.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Toronto hydro workers overlook the damage in Toronto on Tuesday after power lines were down from the remnants of Hurricane Sandy.

 

For us, yesterday was not full of the anguish of viewing the devastation, loss of life, wholesale property damage, ineffectual infrastructure and ongoing inclement weather conditions, but a day of Indian Summer quality.  We hardly needed light jackets going through our daily ravine walk.  The brisk wind moved the warm atmosphere around, without being the least bit unaccommodating to our enjoyment of the day.  The temperature rose to a balmy 19-degrees Celsius, quite unusual for this time of year, but heartily welcome.

We drove along the Eastern Parkway later, to Byward Market and walked along there a bit, enjoying the lively ambiance, noting that another through street leading to the market had been closed off by the medium of installing a wide, bright piazza where people could stroll uninterrupted by the passage of vehicles.  There we dropped in to our favourite magazine shop for the latest issues of art and antiques publications.

Driving along the parkway we saw, just as reflected in the ravine, that almost all deciduous trees had released their foliage to the overnight insistence of the prevailing winds.  Those trees now stand starkly naked of green, but for the towering old weeping willows still proudly bearing their crown of leaves, many of them barely turned yellow, still bright green.

On the way home we dropped by the Beacon Hill Salvation Army thrift shop and browsed about there.  Selecting from among their always-reliable offerings of books, a number of notables.  A recently-published unabridged tome of a copy of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, an abridged copy of Bulfinch's Mythology by Edmund Fuller, Tears of the Desert; A Memoir of Survival in Darfur by Halima Bashir, Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees; Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and finally the new Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten.

We are impressed that there are so many discriminating readers of excellent books.  Willing to part with them.  As our home library grows and grows.  And we aspire to read each and every one of our books, in due time.

The suspense over local effects of Hurricane Sandy, downgraded to cyclone status, but still immensely powerful, brought a surge of catastrophic effect to areas on the eastern seaboard of the United States, with massive flooding events, deaths, large power outages, wind-caused structural damage, and temporary population relocation.  And no little amount of panic.

In Canada, where the weakened storm front was to have given southern and eastern Ontario a taste of what our American neighbours were experiencing, the results were infinitely less damaging.  Provincial and municipal warnings and recommendations, abetted by those atmospheric conditions prevailing, led people to believe that they too might be in line to experience the dire effects of the 'storm of the century'. 

People were advised to stock up on at least three days' worth of water, food, batteries so they could be self-sufficient for a short period of time post-storm.  When we went to bed last night after an overcast day and much expectation, the wind hadn't yet come up abnormally, nor had the rain begun, while we know that Toronto was experiencing both hugely.

This morning we woke to sunshine glinting off the remnants of an overnight rain which hadn't amounted to much out of the ordinary, nor were there signs that wind had extracted an environmental price, bringing down trees and power lines.  So we have been fortune to escape anything remotely akin to what Americans have been faced with, these past few days.

Neither the fear and panic nor the damaging effects of both the emotional toll and the hurricane's landfall effects.  For which we are thankful.

For years we looked out for him, a very small black squirrels without a tail.  He behaved as no other squirrels did in our presence.  He knew us and he trusted us.  To a degree.  He was a charmer.  Above all, he trusted us to reliably have peanuts in our possession.  We always saved the three-chambered peanuts, the really big ones, for him.  And often he would scamper toward us; we could see him doing that starting from a distance until he swiftly closed that distance then he stood right beside us.  Expectantly, dancing about in his eagerness to achieve his goal.  Peanuts.

We never made any attempt to persuade him to take peanuts directly from our hands.  He was a wild, urban-woodland squirrel and we feared he might became too trusting, too 'tame', and fall victim to the pursuit of a dog determined to view him as prey.  Most dogs run after squirrels, challenged by their presence, and most dogs cannot catch them as they scamper quickly up trees, and even if a dog confronted a squirrel at close quarters, most would likely not kill a squirrel, but some might.

We don't know what happened to little Stumpy.  We certainly miss him.  We miss his bold approaches to us.  That he would take the proffered peanut, remove himself a short distance, withdraw the nuts from the shell, consume them and come back for another.  He might do this up to three times until satiation, and he would move on and we would too to re-commence our daily ravine walk. 

Several years after we first became acquainted with Stumpy there was another squirrel, in yet another part of the ravine forest, without a full tail and we named it Stumpette.  We still encounter Stumpette, but it's been months since we last saw Stumpy.

We mourn his absence, despite its inevitability.

Sometimes you sleepwalk into situations better avoided. Sometimes there is no avoidance; things happen spontaneously and you happen simply to be there, occasionally involved, and occasionally as a witness to human relations at their most raw, which you would far prefer to avoid.  Sometimes you feel it is much better to continue to 'know' people on the superficial level of casual friendship.  And, sometimes you regret what occurs that exposes you to people at their most vulnerable, when their emotions and their tempers get the better of them.

As occurred a day ago, when the twenty-something son of one of our good neighbours asked my husband for help.  He and his father were busy cutting porcelain tiles, intent on changing the decor of one of their household bathrooms.  They were experiencing difficulties cutting the tiles accurately with the electric tile cutter.  He had brought over an example of the tiles; lovely choices they were, excellent colour and design, but the guide line they drew and the results were abysmal.

My husband recommended that they change the saw blade.  Use a different medium for the guide line; magic markers didn't work too well.  Above all, ensure that the water level remained usefully high; not to let it dry; because that was critical.  He accompanied the young man back to their garage where they had set up the saw and were performing the cutting, and spoke to our neighbour.  Who was not happy at the advice, insisting the blade was fine and didn't need replacing.  Then proceeded to demonstrate just how poorly a job it was doing.  And the water level was almost non-existent.

Fearing his father, fiddling with the blade, might harm himself, the young man shut off the power source.  His father exploded in rage, excoriating his son who was always a tremendous help to his father, for interference.  That wasn't enough; as my husband stood there, startled and embarrassed for the young man, his father continued to ferociously, viciously berate him using the most scurrilous language.  The young man stood there, head hung low, while his father continued his tsunami of accusations of uselessness and base purpose.

We had no idea that this man was capable of behaving in such a manner, to anyone, let alone a son who always went out of his way to be useful, taking for himself all the household tasks that he could manage while attending university and holding down a part-time job, to make life easier for his father.  And our opinion of this man has been changed, and this, to us, represents a misfortune, quite aside from our empathy for the young man.

The work of cleaning up and preparing the exterior of our home for winter is not yet completed.  There are a myriad of little details that have to be looked to.  Yesterday my husband was busy using the unprecedently-warmth that opened the day and brought us to a record-breaking 22-degrees Celsius by securely covering and wrapping the aggregated garden pots secured under the deck.

And he did the same with the air conditioner and the barbecue, wrapping them in their final covering of a tarp and well-knotted ropes to ensure that winter wind, sleet, snow and ice do not penetrate.  Best of all, he concluded the emptying of the well-composted container that resulted from weekly offerings of kitchen and garden waste.  The composter was emptied of all its contents, well-aged and rich with minerals as bountiful organic waste, to be sprinkled liberally on all of the garden beds, back and front of the house.

And a strange thing happened.  At the very bottom of that composter he discovered the presence of a knife and a fork.  We had been puzzled at the absence of those two pieces of cutlery out of a set that we normally use at dinnertime.  They have twisted handles, are an excellent grade of stainless steel, and we couldn't imagine what had happened to them.  Of course we did speculate, that they had inadvertently ended up in the household waste that is picked up weekly.

Whereas, in reality they had somehow ended up in the kitchen compost pail that gets emptied twice weekly into one of the two outdoor composters located behind our large garden shed.  One of which is kept in active use while the other is set aside to work its magic transforming waste into valuable compost.  We were glad to be reunited with these two pieces of serviceable and valued table implements.

A good scrub was all they required.  Even before that happened they presented as bright and shiny; one might never have imagined they had been missing for a year or more, placidly lying below a weight of decomposing organic waste, waiting until that time when they would be rescued and put back to practical use.

We started out the work of the day by turning over our bed mattress, the semi-annual preparation for the seasonal change that one person alone cannot accomplish with a queen-size mattress, wide, thick and cumbersome to handle.  And from there we initiated further seasonal chores.

First, though, because it was a lovely, albeit cool and breezy day, we made haste to undertake our quotidian ravine walk, which took up an hour and a half of the early afternoon.  Most of the forest trees in the ravine have now shed their leaves, and the coverlet of foliage on the forest floor is ankle-deep in some places, so that we slosh crisply through them, confetti-like, and brilliantly coloured, a feast for the eyes.

When we returned, my husband set about changing the oil in his silver Honda coupe, yet another regular chore that he sets for himself and one I would far prefer he have performed at a commercial garage with the hoist equipment required, rather than lower himself under the front of the car which he has driven on to small metal hoists.

I worked outside as well, using my neat little contraption to dig holes in the garden where I drop the hopes for next spring's colour display.  I planted dozens of bright tulips, delicate alliums, and colourful hyacinths, hoping that the local squirrels would give them a pass.  I had deposited a mixture of bloodmeal and bonemeal, in the faint hope the bloodmeal would dissuade the little rascals, but they'd already been at some of the bulbs I had planted a week previously.  This time I sprinkled hot pepper flakes liberally over those areas where I planted the bulbs.  In previous years I have placed wire net over the ground, but there are too many areas to be treated this way.

When my husband finished with the car, he turned his attention to the snow thrower, taking it out of the larger of our two backyard garden sheds where it is stored over the clement months, to fire it up, change the oil, and do whatever else is required to put it to a ready state for use, which may be sooner than we think.

He also covered the air conditioner and wrapped a tarp over it, doing the same with our gas barbecue which saw its last seasonal use on Monday.  Little Riley, who adores the sun, even when the ambient temperature is too cool for him, was happy to hang around outside with us, wearing a little wool coat for warmth, and vetting whoever came up or down the street while we were out there.

It was an almost-full-outdoors day, one comprised of work, but satisfyingly and of necessity so.

The benefit of changing to a new doctor was immediately apparent on my initial interview with him.  His ability to communicate, one individual to another, albeit one having medical expertise, the other requiring it, was without peer.  And there were so many benefits to be had by removing myself from the care of someone who seemed to fail my needs in cardinal ways, they're too numerous to list.  I consider myself most fortunate to be able to have the care of a doctor I can trust when so many others are finding it almost impossible to obtain the services of a family practitioner.

I won't miss the office set-up, nor the building in which it is located, nor yet the staff at the multiple-practise that I had previously attended.  The staff was unfriendly, unhelpful, aloof.  The building shopworn although not that old; obviously not well looked after, although it housed health and medical facilities on its three-plus-basement-floors.  The inconvenience of the distance travelled, and the newly-instituted parking fees represented no bonus.

All that has changed.  I can now, should I wish to, walk the relatively brief distance to the joint medical practise where my new doctor has his office, with his own receptionist and a bevy of nurses, all of whom are personable, helpful and cheerful.  The reception area is clean, bright and spacious, the individual examination rooms clean and functionally attractive.  And once again, both my husband I share the medical services of the same general practitioner.

And we went together, my husband and I, to meet our appointment for inoculation against the latest flu virus strain for the coming winter, yesterday afternoon.  The drive was very short, the wait at the reception area, so short we hardly had settled into our seats, and the administration of the vaccine expeditious and skillful.

Riley, on the other hand, was disconsolate.  Expectant as always that he would accompany us as we prepared to leave the house, he was inordinately downcast at being left behind.  We cannot have been absent from the house for longer than twenty minutes, but on our return he expressed his indignation at being left on his own by howling and yowling the anguish he had suffered, poor little dear.

Her voice was feathery-light, echoing her physical appearance.  Despite her wispy exterior it was clear enough from listening to her breathless, non-stop narration of her life story that she was made of stern stuff to have endured all the set-backs that had beset her journey.

There was nothing morose about her, she simply sparkled with the joy of life.  And she recounted all the good things that had happened as she journeyed through life, along with the bad.

She was old but certainly not elderly.  Her exquisite face with its perfectly aligned features that of a pert, lovely young woman with preternaturally deep lines running through those curves of forehead, cheeks, chin.  She fairly bubbled with enthusiasm for her topic of discussion: life as she knew it.  Her hair curled in silver-grey ringlets around her small heart-shaped face.  She was, in fact, beautiful and this I told her.  She dimpled happily.

We stood there, listening as she explained her childhood hospitalized with one leg a mere stick of an appendage.  It was her brother, her older brother, who undertook to teach her how to walk again.  Explaining the presence of her physical tilt, her fractured gait. Her brother, who died at age 48 of a sudden-onset heart attack. 

Her brother who was so beloved as a city councillor, among other public activities, that the very community centre where I had years ago taken our grandchild for swimming lessons with its large, celebrated wave pool, had been named after him.

Her family name, in fact, was echoed in other places around the city; street names, other building names as well.  She was part of the historical aristocracy of our city.

She spoke briefly of having been married, once.  Of having worked for many municipal and federal government departments at elite levels.  She spoke also of her experience with private industry.  Which took her to other international locales, where she lived until moving on elsewhere.  But always returning to this city which was her home, where she was raised and where her memories were so plangently present.

Why she now lived alone, with a small cat for company, in a third-floor garret over a storefront, was puzzling.  For she spoke also of a sister, other family members, even a daughter of her own.  But briefly, not lingering excessively on her relations with them. 

It was cool and windy, standing there, outside the antique mall located on Bank Street, where she had a stall of her own.  She sold old lace and embroideries, she told us.  To the discerning.  But this city had a deserved reputation for failing to appreciate treasures of the past.

It had been years since we had gone through the place.  But we had been curious about how it might have changed, if any of the dealers there might have some intriguing 19th Century paintings we might be interested in.  As it happened, when we walked into the front entrance we were met by an apologetic woman who informed us we couldn't enter with a dog.

Evidently new restrictions applied; she explained that it was a new policy.  So I stood outside, carrying little Riley in his over-the-shoulder bag while my husband quickly perused the interior.  When he emerged he insisted that I too have a look; particularly at a few paintings he described.

He took Riley and I went inside and viewed the paintings but nothing inspired me to admiration.  As I exited I noticed my husband in conversation with a woman.

She had noticed him standing there, holding a small dog and had left her booth to engage him in conversation, initially revolving around her love for animals and her pique at the new policy which, she said seemed very unfair to her.  As she saw my husband's attention swerve to me, she too pivoted her attention, viewing my approach.  Her first words as I approached were complimentary to my outfit.

After which a three-way conversation ensued.  Two people mesmerized by the recounting of a life, feeling constrained to remain there in sympathy with someone who felt inclined to speak with passion and fondness of her memories and experiences to complete strangers.  And so we remained, a captured audience, occasionally sprinkling her monologue with an observation of our own. 

We were adequately dressed for the weather, she was not, but she kept to her mission to unburden herself of memories.

Veering off from one sentence and one experience to a tangential other, spinning her tales, laughing and regaling us with stories of her connection to people of note, famous authors, artists of other stripes, diplomats, and her position from one year to the next of her life. 

With each tentative move on our part to carefully bid adieu, she murmured that she simply had to go, but then began another thread and so we remained, listening.

Until we no longer could, for my husband's enlarged prostate dictated otherwise, and we finally made good our delayed leaving, expressing our deep appreciation at having made her acquaintance and the pleasure we had taken in our conversation with her.

As we drove away, we felt sadness for this sprite of a woman living her memories in a strange isolation of space and time.

We set aside other things that had to be done yesterday in view of the weather that presented itself; obviously we're in an Indian Summer spate of days, and we felt it best to take full advantage of the opportunity to complete our garden clean-up for the season rather than delay it and tend to the job when the weather turns cold and mean.  Freezing hands, working in the gardens on inclement days is something we did often enough in the past.

While weather is warm and balmy, the sun out, it hardly seems fit to tear up the last of the annuals, cut back still-blooming perennials, set about emptying all the garden pots of their soil, into the gardens themselves, and empty the composters of their finished product to enrich the garden soil.  But that is exactly what we set about doing yesterday, working for hours, enjoying being out, and steadily prepared the garden for its long winter sleep.

Cutting back peonies, hostas, roses, ligularia, hydrangeas, lilies, irises and geraniums to name a few of the perennials that were readied for bitterly cold weather when the soil goes into its deep-down freezeup and everything will be covered with thick layers of snow and ice.  All the detritus was gathered into large compost bags, including rakings of pine needles from the lawn.

The final step was to rake and sweep the patios of their acquired accumulation of leaves from the ornamental trees stricken by freezing nights.  And everything has been transformed, the colour drained from the micro landscape with the absence of flowers, the removal of the garden pots for storage under the deck, the cut-back of all our favourite perennials.

Neat, tidy, and now held in winter-inspired abeyance.  I managed to plant several dozen tulip bulbs before my energy level gave out, and we prepared ourselves for the relaxation of a long ravine walk  to take full advantage of the weather in mid-afternoon.  And it was a glorious walk, full of the pleasure of seeing the transformation of deciduous trees not yet devoid of their bright fall leaves.

He was quite clearly distraught.  Totally focused on trying to find his human companion.  There seemed an almost panic reaction in his behaviour.  Completely ignoring our presence, bypassing us on the trail by a wide margin, he ran forward and beyond us, clearly anxious and clearly intent on finding the place where he had diverged from contact with his owner, and moving off from there.  He passed us first in one direction, ears flapping, tail succeeding his sniffing nose.  And then, a short while later, in the opposite direction.

Earlier, we had come across a pleasant young woman walking a fairly small Golden Retriever.  At first we couldn't place her to recall that we'd seen her on a previous occasion months ago.  We passed some pleasantries on the utter beauty of the mid-afternoon trails, liberally littered with the brilliant foliage that had piled in plush height on the forest floor and the trails.

A short time later we noticed the fleeting form of a dog racing along behind backyards that backed onto the ravine, visible now as a result of the defoliation of the trees, in that particular stretch of trails.  Before long, the dog had looped around onto the trail itself, heading in our direction, its intent anxiety obvious to us.  It was a large dog, a Labrador Retriever mix; light brown, with a better conformation than a pedigreed Retriever. 

After the dog had passed us back and forth several times we began to worry about its welfare, touched by its evident distress.  Then it was gone, for the last time.  Soon afterward we came across a middle-aged man we'd seen on a few previous occasions walking his standard Poodle, and we explained to him what we'd witnessed.  He knew the dog and its owner, said he'd look out for the dog which would follow him and his own dog, then we parted.

Accessing another linked trail, we saw the woman we'd earlier come across, and alongside her the Golden Retriever seen earlier, and the mixed-breed dog that had been so desperately attempting to rejoin his owner.  As we approached we could see serenity in the dog, a contentment as he walked quietly alongside the woman, then leaped forward to race with the other dog after a squirrel.

We recounted to the woman what we had witnessed, her dog's distress in trying to find her, and she laughed ruefully, explaining to us that her dog had a habit of wandering off behind those houses where we'd first seen it, because someone, she theorized, must put meat bones on a compost pile there.  Her dog retrieves them from time to time, and she has a devil of a time persuading it that the bone should be surrendered to her, fearing it would splinter and cause internal harm.

She would never, she assured us, leave the ravine without her dog.  But did find it disquieting that he kept returning to the source of those delectable meat bones.  She has the option of leashing her dogs, or allowing them free reign to wander and run about to discover all the natural marvels available to them in the forest of the ravine.  That freedom is weighted by concern over her dog's penchant to wander where he shouldn't, then panic over losing contact with her.

The weather predictions of late seem to have gone awry.  Days that we are informed by the experts will be cold, wet and miserable have somehow morphed into extraordinarily pleasant, warm and sunny days, and the reverse is also true.  Yesterday we discovered ourselves to be the recipient of a warm and sunny day with light breezes, quite unlike what we were informed we would have.

 

So off we went, after breakfast, for a lovely walk in the ravine.  We found, after the all-night rain of the night before, that despite the ankle-deep level of fallen leaves, the trail underneath was sloshy with wet clay making negotiating some of the trails, particularly in the ascent and descents, fairly tricky.  But the overall blush of colour yet remaining on the deciduous trees was overwhelmingly lovely.

Later, on our way over to the Carleton University campus where the semi-annual antique show of note in the Capital Region was being mounted at their capacious Fieldhouse, the landscape of urban trees was similarly breath-taking in its palette of reds, oranges, golds and burnished browns.

Somewhat less breathtaking was the antique show itself.  It has become, over the course of many years, fairly degraded from what it had once been.  The quality objects of art and antiques have descended toward the 'collectibles' and 'heritage' categories, not to be compared with antique objects of unique quality in design and workmanship and materials.

While there were many early Canadian pine pieces available, we are more inclined now toward the Continental.  Porcelains, clocks, statuary and paintings were at a minimum.  We would have been glad to see even those many pieces of quality that are well beyond our price range, but were disappointed.  The dealers with whom we have been long familiar and from whom we have purchased items in the past, were absent.

Jewellery took up a wide swathe of the offerings, and it seems that with each passing year there are increasing numbers of booths taken up with jewellery, and just plain junk.  Pity, that.

She looked careworn.  She looked older than I assumed she might actually be in order of years.  She looked worn down by life, by the problems that must confront her.  She moved slowly but with purpose.  She was at the supermarket, hauling behind her one of those personal little shopping buggies that people use when they have to walk long distances and cannot carry too much in the conventional way with shopping bags.

She was pulling that buggy behind her as she pushed one of the large supermarket carts before her.  There wasn't much in the cart, she was obviously selecting those items that were advertised on sale, and there were quite a few sale items yesterday.  I took advantage of those that were of interest to me. 

I'm not sure what brought her to my attention.  Her face was set in grim lines. 

She wore clothing obviously chosen for their sturdiness, certainly nothing that looked remotely stylish.  Although we walked down the same aisles full of various foodstuffs, I had piled my shopping cart high with fresh fruits and vegetables, juices, milk, eggs, butter, household cleaning supplies, cheese, fish and chicken. 

There wasn't much, piled low in her cart, having travelled the same distance that I had.  And we came to the check-out desk at roughly the same time; I was in front, and she behind.  She waited patiently while I placed my purchases on the counter to be rung up and paid for, then packed them, until the cashier turned to her and rang her relatively few items through.

I noticed she had bought a bouquet of roses.  And they were a brilliant, bright pink, a lovely fresh colour.  Turning to her I said how beautiful they were.  She smiled and her face was transported.  They were lovely, she said, they reminded her of her daughter, and in fact she bought them for her daughter.  I smiled back, and she added that it was her daughter's birthday that very day.

When I asked how old her daughter was, the woman said 17, and beamed happily.  You're a great mother, I said to her, then trundled my shopping cart out to the parking lot.

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.

Sad news.  I shudder to think that this is our future, but it is, no one is exempt, we all must depart the company of those we love.  My long-time friend sent out an email this morning that her husband has died.  This very morning.

It was expected.  He was in dreadfully bad shape physically.  My friend wrote in the last month, of their experiences, going off on one of their many jaunts, this time with their daughter and son-in-law, on an Alaska voyage.  And her husband was ill continually.  Staying abed for the most part.  Rarely venturing out on board their passenger ship.  His physical frailty and ill-health more pronounced as days went on. As a well-seasoned traveller he had always enjoyed these outings with his adventure- and experience-seeking wife.

But he has long been under doctors' care, in frail health, even though he was once a robust man.  A police officer, one who attained the rank of police captain, in his day.  In the last week he has collapsed several times.  Each time declaring that he was not prepared to continue as he was, that he was prepared to die, and wanted to die.

And now, this is precisely what he did.  Releasing himself from the surly bonds of a life lived well and for him a trifle too long, with the quality inherent in all life having evaporated precipitously, leaving it entirely bereft of continued value for him. 

 Another old nature haunting spot of ours returned to after an unbelievably-lengthy hiatus, even though accessing it is far swifter than driving to Gatineau, short even as that drive is.  With the propinquity of the ravine we simply surrendered all those nature hikes that necessitated getting in the car and driving over to access them, reasoning why bother when a leisurely hop-and-a-skip up the road takes us into a lovely natural setting?

Just as the day before when my breath was taken away by the beauty and the vast variations in the geology, forests, streams and lakes that we'd been missing out on for years, so too did my breath escape me in wonder at what we have relinquished so casually closer to home.  Which is not at all to diminish the value of our nearby ravine, merely an acknowledgement and deep appreciation for the variety available to us nature lovers.

 

We returned with our son yesterday to the Mer Bleue trails which we haven't visited in the past decade; a casual overlooking of the riches of nature so readily available to us.  The area is comprised of major and minor hiking trails through a mixed hardwood and softwood forest.  The colours there were somewhat less spectacular than at Gatineau, to our great surprise, for many of the deciduous trees had already been depleted of their foliage, though again, enough had not yet been.

We saw a small garter snake out nestling in the fallen leaves, and that was another surprise because it was a quite cold and windy, overcast day; one might imagine them to be secure in their winter lairs by now.  We saw a raven lifting its wide black wings into the wind and soaring high above, croaking back down at us.  And a small flight of chickadees was flitting about the trees, nibbling at whatever took their fancy.

Elsewhere, further along on the trail just where we recalled them to be, there was a small group of chickadees busy at a feeding station that we recall from the days when we came often to that spot.  And, just as then, though many generations have since taken the place of those who had first been tamed by the presence of curious humans, these birds too were relaxed about landing on an outstretched hand.

While we were out, we were treated to the sun coming through the trees, illuminating the great beauty that lay before us; the confetti-coloured foliage littering the forest floor, the bright yellows and reds still left on trees, the deep dark green of the conifers.  And we were also treated to short bursts of light rain, falling from dark scudding clouds above. We were well invigorated after those lengthy trails, and captivated by the beauty that surrounded us.

We've made a mental note not to forget to return occasionally to a setting that is well worth our deviating from what we now take to be the norm for our daily nature jaunts.

Hard to believe how long it's been since we were on a hike in the Gatineau Hills.  Because our youngest son is with us for a week we heeded his urgings and despite the lowering weather threatening more rain, the prospect for a day's adventure was alluring.  So off we went for the pleasant short drive to access the Lauriault Trail, a relatively short, but beautiful hike.

It has been too inexcusably long a time since we were in the Park, enjoying the glories of its many and varied trails.  When our children were young it had become our premier place of outdoor recreation.  There we picnicked, explored vast trail systems, became truly familiar with our natural surroundings, canoed and picked wild strawberries, blueberries, (occasionally bypassing bear scat) raspberries and blackberries in season, bringing back the fruits to make jam to last us through the winter months.

In the winter we snowshoed over transformed terrain, loving the floating sensation as we lifted ourselves downhill through great drifts of fresh-fallen snow - on occasion coming almost head-to-head with deer, startled at our presence.

Our biologist son delights in seeking out the presence of life so minuscule we would never notice without his alerting us, to the activities of insects leaving the symptoms of their passage - leaf minors - on fallen foliage, to tiny, darting book trout in the fresh clear-running streams we passed.

When we completed our circuit, arriving at the lake, we were surprised to discover its height so increased from normal that it was not possible to access the viewing dock, since it was submerged to a depth sufficient to discourage anyone suited out with other than knee-high water-proof boots.

The gorgeous colour displays that so arrested our gaze is now no more.  All the glorious blooms that maintained their spectacular shapes and blazing colours succumbed to an early hard frost.  From one day where we drank in their beauty to the following one where we looked with helpless dismay on their collapse, the garden was completely transformed.

It was a cool, blustery day and I dressed accordingly, with a warm jacket to break the wind, and an array of baskets to receive the frost's trophies which I meant to shelter and hold over until such time that they could be revived to display their lovely freshness once again.

Those ever-blooming begonias whose blooming exuberance we so treasure are never tossed completely onto the growing heap of garden compost.  We carefully retrieve their bulb portions, shake off as much soil as we can, and place them in baskets to be taken down into the basement where they will rest until some time in late winter or early spring when they begin to awaken, prodded back to life by sun rays shining through the basement windows reminding them that it's time to get back to work.

Occasionally a few of the begonia bulbs will stir themselves far too early and they will produce minuscule flowers in mid-winter, reminding us that they too are eager for winter to depart and spring to make its tardy appearance.  Harvesting the bulbs is sad work but also hopeful in nature.  Along with the begonias the roots of potato vines too are plopped into the baskets for their turn to rest and be resurrected at spring planting time.

In short order, as October comes to a close we will take advantage of all opportunities to cut back all the perennials, which we've already begun the process of achieving, and storing all the garden furniture in our garden sheds to await spring's invitation.

I was not prepared.  I am never quite prepared for the realization that late fall is setting in, that the songbirds flying at night and the flocks of geese throughout the day heading for southern climes is a solid manifestation of nature's design from mild to malign, though some may not quite it that way.  Malign, in my estimation, because of the death of so many beautiful plants.  Not those flora that are accustomed as plants and trees native to the geology and elements of our climate, but those which we introduce and are too tender to withstand frosts.

We view our gardens daily, and appreciate their display, their architecture, colour, variations, textures and fragrance, beckoning the eye to feast on all of that beauty.  And then, suddenly, all it takes is one night's deep frost and wind, and the following morning they are gone, all of them, colours disappeared, shape and form dissolved as their molecules turn from life-giving moisture to death-delivering crystallization.

And so, with sorrow I must acknowledge the inevitable; emotionally unprepared but logical to the reality of what a lifetime of observation has exposed me to, of which I have been a witness.  True, we do celebrate all of our seasons, for each brings a beauty of its own.  But the nostalgia that autumn specializes in as we watched leaves that have turned crimson, gold, russet, spiral off trees and sprinkle themselves liberally on the ground, remind us of universal entropy and the evolution of revolution from season to season, death and rebirth.

As I moved to the refrigerated fresh juices shelves there was an older couple in conversation; he, looking more worn that his wife was closely examining the sale ticket beside the "not from concentrate" orange juice, a product I too was interested in.  From our common interest we were propelled into a three-way conversation revolving around products and their relative qualities and from there to the inescapable fact of getting on with life as one ages.

He had plenty to say from his vantage point of 85 years of living and our conversation explored the philosophy behind the very practical results of keeping fit, of physically exercising one's body and maintaining a keen interest in the world around us.  He did not appear particularly fit but having attained 85 years of age is no inconsiderable feat in and of itself. 

However, in light of this country's growing aging population and medical science learning and advancing in various techniques in how to prolong life and the quality of life, a fairly good indication of what society in general will be looking like in the future.

When, at the check-out counter, I packed all that I had bought into the three black plastic containers we have used for that purpose for well over a decade, I transferred them with some physical effort to the shopping buggy to be wheeled outside to the car where my husband was waiting in the parking lot with our lone little dog who takes exception to being left alone. 

Juts as I was lifting the third and heaviest of the crates, someone appeared at my elbow, and gently took the authority of possession from my arms, swiftly depositing the heavy crate into the waiting cart.  I looked up to see a tall, fit man of roughly 50, who had taken the initiative to give a moment's assistance to a woman of gentle age, and thanked him for his thoughtful kindness.

When our daughter was born, over 51 years ago, Branson General Hospital in Toronto where our then-doctor had hospital rights, was not a teaching hospital, and at the time of my admission there were no doctors on staff or being taught the practise of their profession.  In the Labour room I was examined by a nurse whose opinion it was that I was a long, long way from delivering, though this was a second birth.

It didn't take long before I sent my husband, who was with me, giving me ample emotional support and encouragement, to desperately seek out the nurse, to inform her that delivery was imminent.  She felt otherwise, and though she had contacted my doctor, he had simply rolled over in bed. 

The next thing I knew in my delirium, I was looking up at the green-mask-covered face of a doctor in scrubs who was assisting the nurse in moving me onto a delivery-room bed and then speedily whisked me there, where our daughter was born.  That 'doctor' happened to be my husband whom the nurse had delegated to assist, as she was the only nurse on duty that night.

Mine was an otherwise normal birth, despite my trepidation and pain.  Unlike the breech birth of an underweight baby born in an Ottawa jail cell late last month. 

Julie Bilotta, 26-years old, in custody at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, whose hours-long agony in childbirth appeals were ignored by guards and by nurses on duty there, gave birth with the help of paramedics who were called when the baby's feet emerged, delivering her baby in a jail cell.

When we were young, very young, in our mid-teens, music played an important part in our social life, as it does now with young people although the kind of music and its quality to our elderly ears has been much degraded from the romantic, sometimes wistful and always lyrical music we heard back in the mid-1950s.  We danced to graceful music that captured the zeitgeist of our times.

That remains a constant; young people listening to the kinds of music that has some meaning to them.  Popular music of today seems bereft of the gentle romantic and focuses on casual sex and on the violence of the streets unencumbered in the minds of musical thugs by any vestige of social grace, of law and of order in society.  But of course, mine is a very age-opinionated view.

In our teen years the Broadway musical Kismet became a celebrated hit.  And the music mesmerized me, particularly the song "Stranger in Paradise".  It became 'our' song, the music that exemplified for us our growing relationship of emotional intimacy.

We learned eventually that the music was taken from a far more elderly classical source, the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, by the incomparable (of exotic seeming music from the Russian steppes and the near East) Russian composer Alexander Borodin, and completed after his death by Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, which enjoyed its first public performance in 1890.





The music that so enthralled us was first introduced to a Broadway stage in 1953, and later again in 1955, the year we were married, at age 18.  Lately, we have been hearing on the public airways recordings of that time and that music and it recalls memories nestled deep in our consciousness, never to be mislaid.

Yesterday one of our friends and neighbours unburdened his feelings to us about the manner in which some of our mutual neighbours react to one another.  Uncivilly, to say the very least.  Although, generally speaking, this is a street where many people know one another and acknowledge one another as neighbours and valued personal contacts to whom they express sympathy when it is required, congratulations when that is appropriate there are some among us who shun their neighbours.

One mightn't think that living directly beside others for over two decades would result in such cold indifference, but with some people this is exactly the prevailing attitude.  Our good neighbour bemoaned the fact that despite their properties touching and their long propinquity, the family living directly beside us, sandwiched between his house and ours, is comprised of insular and moody people who go out of their way to avoid acknowledging the presence of others.

When emerging from his house and he encounters the man of the house, or sees him while walking on the street, this neighbour will go to extremes to avoid coming face to face with someone he has lived beside for over twenty years.  Sometimes averting his face is not enough; overtly crossing the street to ensure their paths do not cross directly is also employed.  And when he sees the son, now 18, jogging on the street and he pleasantly greets him the son too turns his face away, expressionless, without a sound, obviously emulating his father.

That he is speaking of a man who will go to great lengths not to encounter another human being in his hermetic mindset that embraces social insularity, someone who would never come to the aid of another person, someone who would not offer a $1 tool to a neighbour, is well enough known to the entire street.  That dour, miserable countenance is one his own wife has become familiar with in the most intimate of ways, and the paradox is that she is a bright, outgoing personality, swift to smile and greet and befriend others.  That she has been able to live with this controlling, civil-averse man for so many years is the true mystery.

We commiserated with our neighbour, emphasized that it was nothing personal directed toward him, that this attitude that he deplores that one he comes up against constantly is experienced by others as well; reminding him that he has other neighbours upon he can rely for friendly support.  But this is a man who affably greets strangers because he has an open and friendly character, and it is difficult for him to separate another person's mean social temperament from a personal affront against himself.

In the same token, on a personal scale, I think often how needed it is for us to affirm to those among whom we live our appreciation of their presence.  For women in particular, I feel that other women should make an effort to express their admiration of them and support of them.  Little compliments go a long way to helping other people feel better about themselves and how they are perceived by others. 

And it requires little effort on our part to extend those modest enough expressions of appreciation.

Yesterday was bright and beautiful, albeit cool; it is, after all, fall, and we had overnight frost the night before.  A perfect time to begin the long, incremental shutting down of the gardens, preparing everything for the arrival of winter.  I had, at my disposal, large compostable bags and shears and seqateurs to begin cutting back perennials and bagging the results.  Our composters are used mostly for kitchen waste, not so much garden detritus, which is carted away weekly by the municipality for a gigantic compost heap, which residents are able to avail themselves of, during the growing season.

After three bagsful of garden cuttings I was beginning to warm up nicely inside my fleece-lined jacket, but it was time to get back into the house and begin dinner preparations.  The first of which was the baking of the traditional pumpkin pie.  My husband thought he might like a crumb crust for the pie for a change and I agreed; crumb crust it was.  I had some misgivings when I poured the pumpkin pie filling into the crust which I'd pre-baked, but in the end it came out very well; the crust seemed to integrate itself into the spicy pudding-like quality of the pie.  I'd used two eggs and a cup of 10% cream and the pie did seem different this year.

I suppose baking a squash was a bit of overkill in that department, but it was delicious, alongside the tender turkey and tiny whole potatoes.  I've enough turkey left over from that small turkey, to bake at least four to five turkey pot pies that I will freeze for use later on.  We seem to be the few in our family who are not vegetarians.  My brother and his daughter, my sister and her son, our daughter and granddaughter, our youngest son are all vegetarians.

On our ravine walk while the turkey was roasting in the oven, we came across a ravine-walking acquaintance accompanied by his wife, their daughter and son-in-law, and four pre-teen grandchildren, a picture of family togetherness.

People - many people, that is - have a tendency to get on with their lives.  I've an old girlfriend whom I haven't seen in sixty years, someone with whom I went to high school, and with whom our relationship extended until that time when we were still young, but dating and close to marriage; events that took place at a much earlier time in the chronology of our lives than now occurs.

We rejoined our relationship remotely, though we have lived in different cities for quite a long time.  By happenstance my sister was befriended by this very old friend of mine, who enquired whether we were related.  When my sister informed me of that coincidence she also gave me the email address of my old friend (though my sister, legally blind, is not computer-literate) and from then on, over the past five years or so we have kept in touch through that medium.

A few days ago my old friend forwarded to me (although I had received on previous occasions similar photographs from her) the latest photos of herself posed alongside her boyfriend, with whom she has been enjoying a deep relationship for the past nine years.  They are preparing, once again, to embark on their usual winter-long trek to Florida.  They live separately, not together, but see one another several times weekly, and attend social events together.

In the photographs they look extremely happy and satisfied with life.  My friend is 74 years of age, and her beau is 88, looking quite as fit and prepared to enjoy life as she does, both obviously prepared for as prolonged a period as possible. 

We've a gathering carpet of fallen leaves underfoot now, walking through our wooded ravine, with the canopy overhead shrinking by the day.  At close range the trees don't present a variety of colours as the leaves turn, but underfoot there is red, orange, yellow and lime green aplenty.  This is one of those rare times of year that brings out the curiosity and latent nature-attraction in many people who would not ordinarily traverse through the trails in the ravine.

So we see people whom we have never before seen; couples and those with young families.  And among them another part of the community that chooses to segregate itself from the greater community of which we are all an integral portion.  French-Canadians tend to be insular, blinkered to the others in their midst, and resentfully blind to the presence of anglophones, English-speaking Canadians.

Say a cheery "hello", or a blithe "hi!" in expectations that a simple acknowledgement of one's common humanity will ensue, and you will be, in 80% of instances, disappointed at the reaction of francophones.  Eyes straight ahead or averted they hurry past, behaving as though another human being who greets them in English and not French, is no more notable than a falling leaf; studiously ignored.

They are, of course, completely bilingual.  They are drawn to the nation's capital, leaving their home province of Quebec because of the allure of well-compensated government jobs.  Working for government they are secure and well employed and they gravitate to enclaves of others like themselves, inuring themselves to the presence of 'les autres', sending their children to French schools, having as little contact with non-francophones as possible.

Those whom we recognize as acquaintances, and others whom we have known for years as devoted ravine walkers are all abuzz about the Thanksgiving holiday, pausing to ask whether you are prepared, plan to set your table with the traditional Thanksgiving meal.

My husband's choice for general practitioner was not my initial choice.  However, given my disappointment with the ability of my first-choice physician over the two years I had given my health and medical condition over to her care (on the retirement of our old doctor who had seen to our family's health needs over forty years), I decided to seek professional support elsewhere.  Although my husband's doctor had long since closed his practise to new patients, on enquiry he agreed to an interview with me.

During the interview, in response to his query, I first spoke of the lack of diagnostic acuity evidenced by my doctor's failure to identify symptoms I presented with as harbingers of chronic heart-related problems that had become so acute I admitted myself the day following her examination to the emergency department of our major general hospital.  Where my condition was considered to be so alarming I was immediately surrounded by doctors, tests taken and I was installed for a five-day stay at the Heart Institute.

That, with my more recent disappointment at her lack of commitment to providing what appeared to me to be basic medical care, referring me on to an Urgent Care Centre for treatment she should have provided, led me to the conclusion I could no longer rely on her for the professional medical attention anyone should expect of a general practitioner.

The interview was such that I supplied the doctor with all the relevant details I could muster with respect to my state of health as a 75-year-old woman who is physically fit, energetic and committed to prolonging quality of life as long as possible.  Smoking was a concern to him, an exercise regimen as well, and in both areas I fit the bill, having never smoked, and physical activity representing an important part of our daily routine.

We spoke casually of much aside from my medical history which in fact has been extremely sparse over the years, other than the revelations of the last two years that I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, a very worrisome combination.  With a low degree of arteriosclerosis, all conditions which are being monitored annually by a cardiologist, and for which a prescription drug protocol has been established.

And now, I have a new personal physician.  A young man, who received his training in the United States and decided to settle in Canada, from his origins in Eastern Europe.  A frank, practical individual who assured me that he was eminently accessible; I need only to call and he would make himself available either that same day or the day following.

Unlike my previous doctor, there will be no need for him to see me personally just for prescription renewals; they can be done through other arrangements with the pharmacy that has had my family's prescription records over the years.  And it is my intention to call upon the professional services of my new doctor as infrequently as possible, confident that infrequent calls will be all that will be required.

Doesn't seem like too much to expect from a general practitioner in the capacity of a family practise.  A simple enough medical procedure.  A patient presents with an infected cyst located just below the epidermis, with the infection hugely visible in the appearance of a large, raised blister, on the cusp of bursting and obviously infected. 

It requires that the physician proceed with a simple enough protocol:  lance, drain, dress, prescribe. 

In my previous experiences with this cyst that is located on my abdomen wall - two times when this occurred before in the space of a decade - I had not even bothered to go to my family doctor of 30 years' duration, choosing instead to drop in to a more local walk-in clinic.  Where, on each occasion, the physician who attended to me, once a male, the other time a female doctor, proceeded without any fuss to tend to the matter.

My old doctor had retired after a long practise during which time he was our family doctor for forty years.  I had chosen to have a female doctor this time, a young woman whom I thought would be more than adequate to my needs, given that I rarely had occasion to seek medical-health advice in the past.  In the first several months of our relationship I suddenly experienced peculiar symptoms of deep-seated exhaustion.  Her examination turned up nothing amiss.

A day later I admitted myself to the emergency department of our general hospital and was speedily admitted to the Heart Institute for a five-day stay, during which I had two blood transfusions to amend very low haemoglobin and treatment for a bleeding ulcer caused by long-term baby aspirin dosage, then an angiogram done to ascertain whether my heart had been affected.

My new doctor had obviously failed to detect incipient heart problems in a 75-year-old woman.

On this second, less serious occasion two years later, she informed me that I would have to seek the services of an Urgent Care Centre to lance, drain, and dress the abscess she deigned was not in her sphere of operation, although she did prescribe an antiobiotic for me.  Her scribbled note to the Urgent Care Centre as a referral was not accepted by them as proper authorization and caused me hours of time wasted pointlessly and a return to the Centre the following day for the procedure to be undertaken.

Her office staff had not responded to two urgent calls from the receptionist of the Urgent Care Centre that proper referral be sent to them by fax to enable them to proceed.

I sought the services of another doctor, and have had myself de-listed on OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) with this doctor who has failed to win my confidence as a patient.

Our granddaughter attends a high school in a town with a population of roughly seven thousand people.  The town's high schools are rated quite highly for level of academic performance.  At that high school there is one history teacher in particular who has been responsible over the years for inviting Holocaust survivors to speak to the school's students to ensure they are aware of the realities surrounding that dread episode of fairly modern history.

Other subjects of more current social studies are broached among the students in various of their classes.  Our granddaughter is taking a World Religions course this year.  In some of those classes, not necessarily that one, students have been exposed to various scenarios, and their opinions elicited with respect to their perceptions surrounding those social conventions.

There was the debate over whether or not they felt it was right for people bearing signs identifying a foetus as a living child and abortion representing infanticide.  There was another on protests against same-sex marriage and the rights of alter-gendered people within society.  There was one recently on what the Grade 11 students felt personally about a video showing a woman handing out Holocaust-denial literature on the street.

Opinion coming from the students is always mixed.  But it tends to reflect the values of a rural community.  Invariably, our granddaughter comes away from these exchanges upset at what she calls the utter stupidity of people, their unwillingness to let others live in peace.  Enough so that she scorns Canada's pride in its homogeneous equality provisions, and its vaunted multiculturalism.  Bigotry, as far as she is concerned is rampant.

She feels that someone handing out such literature as Holocaust denial should simply be allowed to do whatever they're doing, feeling personally assured that reason will always prevail.  That reasonably intelligent people will simply ignore the message and go about their business, deflating the purpose of the Holocaust denier. 

On the other hand, she is livid with fury over one of her classmates who blithely stated his smugly opinionated position that there is no need to be concerned over the Holocaust, over denials of its having existed as a reality "because it doesn't have anything to do with us, anyway".

We enjoyed a brief period of unusual company on our initial few minutes into the ravine yesterday when we came across our friend and neighbour, Mohinder, walking alongside a tiny figure in front of our house.  Mohinder, with his first grandchild, visiting from Toronto, now three years old, about the age that Mohinder's son was when we first met them.

Wary of strange faces he had never before seen, he was not completely at ease in our company, but in the presence of our little dog felt his confidence returning, more it seemed, that Riley was around and appeared an interesting new companion, than that his grandfather held his hand.

As we entered into the ravine trail before descending the first long hill into the ravine proper, the child was concerned that Riley not be left behind, and spoke to him encouragingly to come along, reaching over to pat him reassuringly from time to time.  They went no further than the crest of the hill, before taking their leave of us, the child by now assured that as friends of his grandfather we were reliably invested in his best interest.

He attends a Montessori preschool, and already, his proud grandfather told us, can count to ten in French, to eight in Spanish and ten in English.  And he knows the alphabet.  He speaks volubly when the spirit moves him, and behaves with complete confidence among his peers. 

A very pleasant start to a warmer-than-usual walk in the woods.

We absolutely love trees, and in our gardens, have many ornamental types as well as some that are quite ordinary, native species that we value.  Twenty years ago, when our gardens were first being established our green-thumb-knowledgeable daughter planted a standard caragena in our front gardens, along with another caragena placed elsewhere in the front, a pendulous type .  Both of these trees, also known more popular as flowering peas, have lovely bright yellow flowers in the spring.

Later, in the summer, the flowers develop into pea pods, and there is quite a surprising amount of detritus that results from the process.  The weeping caragena is attractive, its size controlled by the grafting which turned it into a weeping specimen, whereas the standard decreased in attractive presentation as the years went on.

Over the years the standard caragena has been cut back numerous times to control its reach toward the sky, becoming rangy and unattractive in the process and overgrowing the space allotted to it.  It presented as being out of place in the garden, unlike many other types of trees we have there that have grown large and larger yet, but still maintain their attractive presentation.

Finally, yesterday, we decided this was one tree that had outlived its usefulness in the garden.  Its foliage had become sparse, the branches unattractive and it took away rather than added to the look of the garden.  My husband brought upstairs a small reciprocating saw and set about cutting the tree into sections, preparing them for removal in the weekly garden compost collection our municipality provides for that purpose.