Passing from one season into another offers as good a time as any to assess what we have accumulated and determine whether or not any of it, or some of it, or much of it will any longer be required. In spring and in fall people often clear out their garages, to dispose of items they no longer have any use for.

A week or so ago my husband decided to have a good, hard look at the larger of our two garden sheds into which he just habitually tosses all manner of items. He is the kind of person who can always find use for things -- at some imagined time in the future when something saved might be cannibalized for parts to be used for things other than what they were originally intended for. Often enough, this is just what happens; that saved items come in handy to make or to patch up other things. There does come a time when the schoolboy impulse to save string, pebbles, bits of newspaper articles on how-to, small change and other things make pockets too full and they require emptying.

Apart from setting out the waste normally collected bi-weekly, and the cartons containing recyclable plastics, glass and metal, along with the compost bags full of garden detritus, my husband also put out a number of other items. As, for example, a clumsy-to-use all-plastic garden trolley, exploded plastic rose cones, and those bits and pieces saved over the years, and never yet seen a use for. It's amazing how much waste can be generated even while practising re-use principles.

Increasingly, but not often enough, when trash day arrives there are those who cruise the streets in pick-up trucks to see what can be picked up before the trash collection crew arrives. It's amazing that when people toss out items they no longer want to clutter their homes, other people will see value in them as 'collectibles' and 'memorabilia' they snap up at bargain prices at flea sales.

On the other hand, when people see items in others' curbside pickup, they feel free to select from the offerings what they think will be of use to them. That's what happened with the rose cones, and with the plastic garden cart. I figure most of my perennials, shrubs and ornamental trees were babied for enough years with winter-protective covering. If they're not capable at this point in their hardening-off process in the micro-climate of our backyard and front, they never will be, and I'm simply not prepared to keep on wrapping growing things that have grown to an outsize making it awkward to continue protecting them. I started off a few years back no longer winterizing some shrubs and trees, and goodness, they survived. The rest will, too.

In any event, although there seemed a substantial pile of trash for pick-up when my husband put it all out at the curb last night, much of it was carefully picked over, mostly by people picking up metals for recycling, and by the time the trash collectors came along, there wasn't much left that didn't resemble what we normally put out.

Although it began in the early evening with high winds and dark skies blooming like errant floral displays in the bowl of the night sky, the overnight rain was overwhelmingly relentless and voluminous, pounding against the windows of the house and anything else in its downpouring pathway. When we awoke on Sunday morning, it was still pelting down, and the atmosphere was beyond gloomy. From the weather forecast we assumed that this would be a rare non-ravine-walk day.

But then the rain seemed to taper off, and we thought otherwise, only to realize that this was merely a temporary lull as once again the rain increased in volume and intensity. This little drama of expectations raised then dashed was repeated time and again as the morning moved into early afternoon. And then, amazingly, the rain stopped, the clouds looked a lighter grey, and we decided to make a dash for the woods, wearing raincoats, all of us, including Riley. Just to see how far we could go before being forced by this fierce inclemency to turn back.

Instead, we ended up hiking the entire long circuit we generally embark upon through the course of a normal weather day. It was amazingly mild, around 18 degrees, and the humidity was so intense it increased the feeling of warmth. As we progressed through the sodden woods, with overwhelmed foliage forcing branches to slump toward the ground and occasional gusts of wind sprinkling the moisture generously over our heads, we suddenly caught a glimpse of a sunshaft blazing through the overhead canopy to the forest floor, and looking above, saw a dim outline of the sun, then brighter, until its full glory was revealed, momentarily, as it lapsed back into the clouds.

But these breaks in the cloud formation increased in number and soon there appeared patches of blue sky overhead. The environment was completely infiltrated by moisture. Mist hung mysteriously over the landscape, particularly where the creek ran through the wooded ravine. And when the sun managed to make its way through both the moisture-laden air and the full tree canopy, it shone fairy-like with a strange luminescence, light yet presenting as amazingly semi-opaque.

This was a fairly different kind of aesthetic adventure, luring our senses into admiration for the many faces of Nature which has, over the years inducted us into her vast club of admirers. And then, a short while after we returned from our day's amble in the woods, the sun was once again obscured by gathering clouds in preparation for an imminent return for the pounding rain.

So many things in life to be concerned about, to cause stress and worry; to try to deal with in the best way possible that occurs to the mind of the people involved. And then there are the seemingly little things, items that would be of no conceivable interest to anyone else, but which also impact on one's life. Minimally in the greater scheme of things but they are there, nonetheless.

Like the sense of loss we experienced when we finally realized that we would no longer be seeing a little woodland creature whose habit included approaching us directly and assertively for peanuts. He knew that we were leaving peanuts in various cache places that presented themselves along our daily ravine-hiking circuit. We always saved the really large ones, the three-chambered peanuts for his approach. Sometimes he would stand right beside us, eating them, and we would wait it out, then give him another. Sometimes he would simply hop away; from the back, with his tailless backside resembling nothing so much as a small black rabbit. We were completely fond of him with his engaging, forthright manner.

It was, in fact, that little black squirrel missing a tail, that confronted us years ago, appealing to us for peanuts, before we began the routine of sprinkling them in certain places along our hiking route. I'd had a few in my pocket at that time, because I'd seen a small red squirrel on a branch of the venerable old pine at the foot of the descent to the trails, and thought I'd bring along a few peanuts. Perhaps it was the smell that drew Stumpy's attention.

We were familiar with his advances for about six years when suddenly we became aware that in another part of our circuit there was another small black squirrel, also with a truncated tail; not completely absent like Stumpy's, but a tiny bit remaining. Our granddaughter suggested we call this one Stumpette, on the theory it was a female, and that name stuck.

Several years ago we saw the last of Stumpy, and Stumpette has since distinguished herself by roaming, just as Stumpy had done, all around the ravine, able to find us wherever we happened to be, demanding her due. It's been awhile now, since we last saw her, and we fear the worst.

Back when we still had television in our house and my husband had his favourite programs he would regularly watch, indeed he was transfixed watching the British cooking extravaganza show put on by Two Fat Ladies. If ever I took a glance at the program I felt repulsed, seeing the two homespun-gracious ladies plunk their hands with ringed fingers and red-tipped nail varnish into foods they were preparing with such gusto. Not for me, I thought.

But my husband thought they were the greatest. And he still thinks of them fondly. He was poring over their Two Fat Ladies Obsessions; over 150 recipes featuring their Favourite Foods and Heartfelt Passions cookbook yesterday. Clarissa Wright had written an introduction speaking of the emotional passion for food and its preparation that she and her dear departed partner Jennifer Paterson had shared with their program, with life and its experiences, offering up in the book the delights they had exuberated about in their hugely popular television series.

He read out bits of declarations the two ladies had made on their search for the finest, most robust and tastiest ingredients with which to embellish their recipes. Predictably, they took pride in Britain's dairy-food production and butter and cream ranked pretty high. Expressing a huge distaste for whole-food alternatives they extolled the virtues of those elements in our diets that tended to make those of us who appreciate them enormously to the exclusion of alternates put on weight at an astonishing rate. Even while acknowledging this with humour, they clung to their love of high-calorie gastronomy and food preparation.

That key lime pie that I baked yesterday morning from a recipe out of the Florida Governor's mansion did turn out very well. I had omitted the 1/2-cup tranche of sugar that was to have gone into the graham cracker crust, figuring there was already ample in the crushed product made of graham crackers to begin with. And though the recipe called for a sprinkling of grated lime rind only on top the sour cream baked topping, I had grated the rind of two limes and mixed them into the pie filling.

The finished product was luscious as my husband predicted, but then he had an especial interest in the result, since he had found the recipe and suggested I replicate it. It was far, far too rich for me. I liked the taste and the texture, but I'll never repeat the recipe. Any time I feel like baking another key lime pie it won't be with sweetened condensed milk, eggs and sour cream; the sweetened condensed milk raises in me an instinctive shudder.

After dinner last night, where the pie held centre stage, I experienced a restless night, one complete with nightmares. And when I awoke in the early hours of the morning, it was to experience an hugely upset stomach.

Good thing we've had so much rain lately. Last night there was a killing frost. Extraordinarily early; we shouldn't have night-time frost conditions for at least another three weeks, normally, and then it's only threats pending; usually it takes to mid-October before one comes along. Not this year. It's been a quite different type of summer altogether this year of 2014. No real heat waves, no prolonged hot and humid weather, but plenty of wind and rain and cool temperatures.

Not complaining. Just stating a fact. Personally, we enjoyed the cooler summertime weather, and appreciated the rain, it kept our garden looking lovely with minimum effort on our part.

And here are some facts to make anyone hereabout scratch their heads in disbelief. May, June and August all set global heat records this year. The important word here is "global". In the Pacific and Indian oceans and Africa, August was found to be the hottest on record, according to scientists at NASA. Cooler by a wide margin however, in much of North America, Europe and, good gracious, Australia. And the world's oceans tied June for the all-time heat record.

So, the reason it was a good thing we've received so much rain especially in the last week, is that moisture helps plants withstand the chilling effects of frost. Which translates to losing very few of our flowering annuals to last night's frost. When we woke this morning -- late, granted -- the temperature had managed to push itself back up to 5C. It was, however, 15C in the house, and that signals time to put on the furnace. Again, early this year.

And this morning is when I turned my attention to baking a key lime pie, courtesy of Flavor of The South cookbook, a recipe that my taste-conscious husband found rummaging through our cookbooks on the hunt for something good to eat for Friday night dessert. He found a simple enough recipe, straight from the Governor's mansion in Tallahassee, Florida.

The recipe called for a crust from 1-1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs, 1/2 c. sugar, 1/2 cup butter, baked for ten minutes at 350 degrees, filled with 2 eggs, 15 oz.sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 cup lime juice, beaten well, baked for another ten minutes, and finally topped with 1 cup of sour cream, 1/3 cup sugar, baked again until set for ten minutes, then sprinkled with grated lime rind.

We'll know tonight how successful my product is, but my husband, viewing the results, claims it'll be luscious.

It's when matters stand out in stark relief that we really value what we have, when we think of them as being under threat, removed from our ability to enjoy them that we appreciate them most and take desperate action to preserve them. Now that, after a year of procrastination the municipality's public works department has decided to finally proceed with replacing the bridges in Bilberry ravine, their dismantling began with a vengeance we hardly anticipated. In that, rather than removing each bridge and then reconstructing it in a reasonable one-by-one process, the bright minds heading the engineering project decided for some obscure reason to dismantle them all simultaneously.

Two were swiftly demolished, and the prospect of access to the trails we daily use in our recreational treks to the ravine being closed off for the three-month period the municipality estimated it would take to complete the job was painful to contemplate. And that prospect, of being shut out of our valued daily routine of exposure to the natural world around us at our virtual doorsteps brought dread to the minds of all of the trail regulars who think of the ravine as their escape from the technical world that has captured us all.

On the verge of taking apart the third bridge in the series of four destined to be rebuilt, we discussed the issue directly with the crew working on the bridges. Their foreman declared without any prompting from us how idiotic he felt it was to remove all of the bridges at one fell swoop. He had himself assumed they would be tackled sequentially, and had informed everyone who questioned the procedure that this would be the case. Only to be informed unequivocally by the chief engineer that this did not at all reflect his plan, which was simultaneous removal, and that was that, he shrugged.

I wrote to the mayor of the city, to our city hall councillor, and the reply from our councillor was almost immediate, dropping into my email box at midnight of the late afternoon I'd written. He was passing my message on to the public works department chief engineer, and from him the message I soon received was too bad, so sad. I've no particular illusions that it was my protest alone that may have turned the tide. Many other people have informed us over the past year that they've made enquiries and expressed their frustration over the 'no access' barriers placed over the bridges, which everyone simply ignored and clambered over, for bridge-and-trail access. An earlier email a year ago I'd sent to the municipality had gone unanswered.

The following day, however, as we ventured into the ravine anticipating that the main bridge we used in a sequence of three, allowing us access to the network of trails would have been dismantled, we discovered no one at work, and the bridge, although preparatory work had been done, still stood. The following day, the same. But then someone from the engineering department happened to be walking about, scrutinizing the work done to date, and he informed us that plans had changed. The two bridges that had been removed would be replaced before the next two were to be dismantled. And the reason we saw no one at work, he said, was that the new replacement structures were being worked on, off site.

And since then, in the hopes that this would be the final disposition, we've come across so many more of the frequent ravine trail users than we've seen in quite a long time, that it's evident how much the access through the bridges to the trails means to people in the community who take advantage of the priceless jewel in our midst. Some of the trails have been diverted somewhat by fallen trees resulting from the last powerful thunderstorm, and haven't yet been removed, necessitating brief bypasses. Some of the trails have had large, rough, sharp pieces of heavy gravel dumped over them to broaden access for the large tracked vehicles involved in the operation, making walking on them somewhat difficult. A new trail had to be hacked out of the woods to replace an older one that had slowly slumped into the creekbed.

So the circuit, of necessity, is more challenging, takes longer, and introduces us to new possibilities. But we've got access and this is what is of such tremendous value to all of us, and for which we're exceedingly grateful.

Now that fall appears to have strong-armed itself into the weather system that has so mysteriously eclipsed summer unexpectedly early, it's time to turn attention to other matters, more related to oncoming winter than departing summer.

Many of the residents of homes on our street, despite having double garages, tend to park their vehicles, or if the household has several, in the driveways rather than housing them in the structure meant to hold them. The reason simply is that garages tend to be stuffed with household items that find no permanent place within the house because of their purpose.

Surprisingly, though many of the homeowners on the street have installed swimming pools in their backyards, many have dispensed with that far more useful and so often necessary home accompaniment to a lot with lawns and gardens: garden sheds. Those functional little buildings are beyond useful, depending on size giving ample storage not only to gardening tools but to bicycles and other items that would leave the garage free to be used for the purpose it was meant for.

We don't have a swimming pool taking up all the space in our small backyard, but we did understand the usefulness of garden sheds, and we have long had one small shed for the storage of garden tools and accessories and a larger one meant to store the snow thrower, shovels, ladders and all manner of household items my husband deems more readily accessible there, and outdoor-required. Now, he is making the larger of the sheds that he built four years ago, even more functional. He has built a large, heavy-duty shelf to hold items like seasonal tires to free up even more space in the garage. Lifted well above the floor, the shelf represents another useful storage tier under which will be stored items of other usage.

His mind never seems to rest on the laurels of his past upgrades to the usefulness of the house exterior and its attractive presence, just as during the winter months he plans many other sequential projects to keep his mind and his body well limbered and alert to possibilities that would never occur to me.

"It was early on a warm summer's evening in the 1970s, as I stood in a palm plantation high on a green hillside in western Java, that I saw for the first time, silhouetted against the faint blue hills of faraway Sumatra, the small gathering of islands that is all that remains of what was once a mountain called Krakatoa"
Simon Winchester

Risk: The smoking time-bomb is located on the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra

In this way, Simon Winchester, academically trained as a geologist, who became a science popularizer, a noted journalist and television presenter, introduces the reader to his incredibly informative, fascinating and exemplary book, Krakatoa, The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883. Just coincidentally, it must have been in the 1970s that my husband told me about this fabulous volcanic eruption in the strait of Sunda though he was no vulcanologist, but an ordinary individual for whom the mysterious world we live in held an entrancing fascination.

It was he, just a few months ago, who brought my attention to the book written by Simon Winchester and since I too find the subject of immense fascination, I bought the book. We have such a huge number of books in our library, all arranged neatly enough by type and subject, though nothing like the precision of the Dewey Decimal library system, that we didn't even know we already had a copy of the book. In any event, I began reading it a week ago. Progress is slow, not because the book isn't enrapturing, and fantastically well written by a master story-teller, but because there is such a wealth of information contained in it, from geoscience, biology and historical scientific discoveries that it compels the reader to linger, savouring and taking it all in.

I've been so taken by the book and its masterly introduction to so many elements of the geohistory of our planet that I continually gush praise for it to my husband. For Simon Winchester has written with this book a masterpiece of historical scientific data collection for the uninitiated, from that archaic period when the world's continents had not yet divided from their single state, to the peculiar geological boundaries separating species' evolution and the discovery of the reality of tectonic plates and their movements.

All of these issues are hugely relevant to the topic at hand, the immense explosion of a volcano under pressure from the boiling magma of the Earth's interior. And to read the book is to try to understand what immense forces of nature come into play when such incredible natural phenomena occur. Beyond the pedestrian imagination of most people, but patiently placed into context by Mr. Winchester. My husband, intrigued by my descriptions of what I've been reading under the influence of this writer's masterly scientific prose, stimulated him to look for that other copy of the book. And he is now engaged in reading it himself, simultaneously to my own bedtime reading.

Ominous glow: In 1883, more than 36,0000 people died when Krakatoa erupted - today, thousands more farmers live near the volcano

"Krakatoa's final twenty hours and fifty-six minutes were marked by a number of phases. First, from early afternoon on Sunday until about 7 p.m. there was a series of explosions and eruptions of steadily increasing frequency and vigor. From early evening the ash fell and the deluge of pumice began. By 8 p.m. the water had become the next medium of transmission of the volcanic energy and as night fell the temper of the sea in the Sunda Strait became one of unbridled ferocity.
"Then, just before midnight, a series of air waves -- fast moving, low-frequency shocks sent out invisibly and inaudibly by the detonations -- began arriving in Batavia. The time-ball on the astronomical clock down at Batavia's harbor stopped dead at eighteen seconds after 11:32 p.m. because of the ceaseless vibrations. Audible evidence of the explosions began to radiate outward too, and there was a report from Singapore and Penang that thudding sounds could be heard at about the same time In Batavia a large number of people, kept awake by the explosions and for want of something better to do, were walking around the Koningsplein; they noticed that the gas lanterns suddenly dimmed at about 1:55 a.m. Along Rijswijk, the main shopping street, several shop windows suddenly and inexplicably shattered at about the same time.....
"In the aftermath of Krakatoa's eruption, 165 villages were devastated, 36, 417 people died, and uncountable thousands were injured -- and almost all of them, villages and inhabitants, were victims not of the eruption directly but of the immense sea-waves that were propelled outward from the volcano by that last night of detonations."

Firestorm: In an awesome display of flaming lava and molten ash, Anak Krakatoa - the child of Krakatoa - reveals its latent power. In recent years, eruptions have steadily grown in intensity

It's still unseasonably cold, but we're trending back to normal temperatures. Yesterday we took what will be the last of our usual ravine circuits until the advent of the winter Equinox. Most of the bridges that enable us to swing from one trail to another over the creek that runs through the ravine have now been taken out, with the exception of the main bridge. And that is scheduled to be removed along with others, likely this very day. Which will mean we'll be looking for alternative, often awkward replacements for our ravine circuit where our hikes will be anything but the usual; truncated and non-continuous.

On yesterday's circuit we noted that more trees than we had realized had come down during last Friday's severe weather. Most of the fallen trees necessitate being bypassed and a bit of special agility helps there until such time as they're removed and passage opens up once again. Managing a large woodland area like this is a constant, ongoing affair.

When we returned home, the garden seemed to glow with an intensified colouration left over from the all-day rain of Saturday. In another few weeks to a month we'll have to tend to clearing out all the annuals, cutting back the perennials and preparing the garden for its long winter sleep.

In the same token, preparing the garden for spring, all the bulbs and corms we've recently acquired will also have to be planted.

Last evening, one of our neighbours who lives on the street behind us paid his usual annual visit. He's with the military, working on contract now, not prepared to retire and loving his work there. He's athletic and in truly fine physical shape, an award winner year after year as the top runner in his class He competes in the annual Terry Fox runs to raise funds for cancer research. And in that vein, he was raising funds for the Canada Army Run, a 5K, 1/2 Marathon taking place on September 21 in the Capital.

He is a veteran but was also in Afghanistan. His two sons, 35 and 40 are also in the military. Both were in Afghanistan, one posted no fewer than four times. His is a hugely worthwhile endeavour to focus attention on a number of contentious issues. He is a stalwart, intelligent and enduring individual with a broad grasp of issues and a commitment to making his country, its missions and the world a more secure place.

Along with yesterday's all-day gush out of the sky, the temperature wasn't able to nudge above 7C, and we kept the fireplace on all day, for Riley's comfort and its usefulness in warming up the house; much too soon to put the furnace on.

The goddess of the garden looks far more comfortable today, overseeing matters in the garden; yesterday she was drenched, looking over the rain-soaked gardens, today she is in her glory, anticipating some sun, and slightly more tolerable temperatures.

Shut completely out of the ravine due to the incessant rain and the certainty that all the clay churned up by the tracked vehicles moving repeatedly through the trails, including the one they'd just completed, we anticipated what a mess it would be in there even if we geared up for rain. So we didn't bother.

We went along, instead, to the local JYSK store to pick up a few items. It's been cold at night, not far off freezing, and of course the house mimics to a degree the exterior temperature. This is a house geared, with its towering window space, to make the most of sunlight hours to warm up the interior. With no sun yesterday, incessant rain and plunging temperatures the house was a bit on the cool side. I had put floral coverlets on our bed, but my husband complains they aren't comfortable enough. For my part, since I snuggle up to him for his furnace-heat to warm my Arctic interior, I'm comfortable.

But I relented, and we went out to the shop to acquire a light-weight duvet suitable for the weather. We found one to our liking, and bought a blue-and-white "peacock pattern" duvet cover to go with it. And my husband was in comfort-bliss with those two on our bed, sleeping soundly throughout the night.

Less than a month ago when we were canoe camping in Algonquin Park we had frosty weather where the temperature of the daytime highs didn't rise above 9C, the sky was heavily overcast with intermittent rain events, and the wind blew incessantly. More like Arctic weather in early August than summer. On the Algonquin Park weather update site there was a questionnaire encouraging visitors to quantify their impression of this summer's weather; the most common response was "what summer?".

Several days ago it was hot enough for us to turn on the floor fans in the family room, too stifling to sit out on the deck, reading, enjoying the birdsong, reading the newspaper, smelling the fragrances of summer still lingering on late-flowering plants.

The floor fans are now stilled, with today's high matching that of our Algonquin Park expedition, including rain, though the wind is moderate. Riley is finding comfort sleeping in front of the warmth-giving fireplace. And, as usual when September arrives, the only way to stop him from shivering is to clad him in one of his little jerseys.

Yesterday, I baked a really, truly decadent pecan pie. My husband, who stops by the bulk food shop now and again had seen pecans on sale, so he bought a bagful. It was his idea to have a pecan pie for dessert on Friday evening. I would have gone for a fruit pie, since fruit is so abundant now, fresh and locally grown and we've been consuming tons of it. So pecan pie it was, with a moderate grating of orange zest, three eggs, half-cup of brown sugar, three-quarters cup of corn syrup, one-third cup of butter, sprinkling of salt, 2 tsp.vanilla, and the pecans. Decadent doesn't begin to describe the taste, texture and mouth-pleasing flavour. I baked it in the pottery pie dish our younger son had made for us fifteen years ago and it was divine.

Earlier in the week we had gone out to Ritchie's Feed & Seed to pick up more peanuts. We re-discovered Ritchie's in our search for industrial-sized bags of peanuts at a decent price. It was a place we had gone to for garden nursery plants 40 years ago. They've since expanded their inventory substantially.

And there I truly indulged, buying corms and bulbs to plant for spring-time pleasure. Among them Siberica blue scilla, blue poppy anemones, "shogun" tulips, blue muscari, purple allium, and a fritillaria mixture for the rock garden. Now, all I have to do is plant all those future promises. Eventually, when we do the garden clean-up in mid-October.

In late summer of last year for some mysterious reason our beloved begonias hadn't done very well. They started the season robust and thriving, colourful, lovely to behold. By late summer they were in the kind of doldrums we had never before seen, and we had no idea why that might be. Those we had planted at the front of the house in our many garden planters and urns were the ones that were languishing, while at the back of the house in containers and in the gardens, those that I usually overwinter in the basement were thriving. So perhaps it was just a bad crop, last year.

On second thought, perhaps not, since I also overwintered last year, all of the begonia bulbs and have long since planted them in the following spring, and all of our begonias, those freshly purchased and those that overwintered, including the ones that did so poorly last year have been blooming furiously in their usual overwhelmingly lovely manner. Whatever the reason for their decline last year, we're grateful that this year they're thriving, giving us the usual pleasure we derive from their colourful, textural beauty.

In fact, the garden looks pretty good, still. At this time of the garden year many of our perennials have done their duty and are in decline. But roses are still blooming, and the echinacea are in full bloom as are Japanese anemones, black-eyed Susans, asters, Monkshood, ligularia, chrysanthemums, Turtleheads, hydrangeas and hyssop, so there is colour wherever we look, still.

These ongoing eye-candy treats send us into ecstasies of delightful viewing whenever our eyes happen to wander toward the outside, from our dining room windows, the front door, or from the backyard deck. Approaching our house from a ravine walk, the view of the gardens provide the finishing touch of satisfaction with the season, the environment we are ensconced within, and our good fortune altogether.

Now that our gardens have been long established there isn't all that much work associated with their maintenance. Mostly, it's cut-back, weeding and tidying up. And the occasional plant replacement. The really arduous times of focus and work relates to spring and fall, when winter clean-up takes place, and when spring planting of annuals is done and then, finally, when the last growing season has elapsed, cleaning away the spent annuals, and cutting down the perennials in preparation for winter.

Meanwhile, there's still plenty to enjoy and we relish doing just that.

The entrance to the ravine off the street where our house stands has become a bit of a problem. For one thing, we come in walking conflict with the tracked vehicles being used to forge a new trail above where the old one has increasingly come under the influence of slumps where the shoulders of the creek banks increasingly fall into the creek itself, narrowing the already slender margin of the trails running alongside the creek.

And since the various types of vehicle are mostly tracked, they churn of the floor of the forest and the trails become chunky with moistened clay, making walking there somewhat dicey. Add to that the large pieces of rock and stones that fall off when one of the vehicles conveys them, that turn under out boots, making walking progress difficult in some areas, particularly on long descents.

As well, the mechanized beasts used to dismantle and rebuild the bridges, and their handlers must stop courteously to allow people taking their recreational opportunities as usual to pass, amongst the noise and the mayhem; not that they 'must', but they invariably do, and we're grateful to them for that kindness. But we prefer to bypass those incidents, rather than appear a nuisance to the workers, so we have decided to use trails we don't generally take advantage of, alternatives that re-introduce us to parts of the trail system that were once, long ago, familiar and other areas where new trails were forged, or that we hadn't formerly been aware of, though they're not many.

It has meant a little bit of experimentation, but we've been content enough to do that. And bored little Riley picks up interest and momentum any time we take a trail that's unfamiliar to him. He reacts similarly when we choose to take short cuts, bypassing areas of trail that take longer to pass through. Sensible little chap that he is, he prefers the shorter routes to the more prolonged ones we usually take in our daily circuit, that are so time-consuming. He savours a penchant to take shorter, no-nonsense treks, coming home sooner, enabling him to snuggle up in one of his little beds sooner, in undisturbed comfort. Until, that is, he becomes aware that it's mealtime and he is suddenly converted to a hungry little creature impatient to be fed.

So yesterday we re-acquainted ourselves with a part of the trail system we hadn't ventured toward for many years, in a studied move to access yet another part of the trail we also hadn't gone by for at least a decade or more. And from there took yet another, casual trail that had been forged by hikers over a period of time, alongside a much older one that approached the very same route. It was all different for Riley and as a result, though it was a longer route in the end, his interest had been piqued and he was fairly jaunty about it all.

It's interesting to note that though we appear now in unaccustomed areas, some of the ravine squirrels will still boldly approach us for peanuts, identifying us either by the fragrance our bag of peanuts throws off, or by our voices, even our appearance - who knows?

For some reason we cannot fathom, last year the municipality public works department, parks and recreation conducted a survey that concluded the bridges in our neighbourhood ravine, no more than six years old at that point and conforming in construction to highways safety standards, were safety-compromised, their footings no longer secure. So at first rigid wooden barriers were put up across the bridges, a precaution that infuriated regular ravine users because as far as we were concerned the bridges remained stout and reliable. Some enraged walker kept tearing off the barriers and throwing them aside; as often as he or she did that, the municipal workers replaced them.

Until a compromise was reached and the wood barriers were replaced by chains with the same warning signage, but which made it somewhat easier to clamber over to continue using the bridges as usual to get from one trail to another, one height and then plateau to another. This has become the 'norm' over the past year and more. And finally, the municipality has decided to take action and replace the bridges.

During our time living here and using the ravine on a daily basis for our physical recreation and woodland appreciation, we've seen three sets of bridges, and now the fourth is in process of construction. When the last bridges were installed, replacing others that appeared secure enough, but obviously not meeting the standards that the municipality felt would leave them free from possible injury-related lawsuits, (if you're going to use such an area it's your choice, why then take legal action if you come acrop accidents that might have been avoided with care or simply use-avoidance?) there was ample damage done to the environment.

At that time we were amazed to see trucks entering the ravine, using pathways clearly not meant for them, and destroying many trees in the process. That changeover of the bridges was done incrementally, one bridge at a time, and didn't really interfere with our daily rambles. If memory serves, the entire process took no more than perhaps a month and a half. Rumours flew the circuit this time that all the bridges were to be removed at one time, making access to regular trail circuits neigh impossible.

And then a small newspaper article in the local paper informed that the $250K enterprise would remove all the bridges or at least the four major ones in one fell swoop, and the estimate of completion of the project would be December. Shut out of our ravine for three months? Not likely, we scoffed, then planned alternate routes in our minds to get ourselves across and around and through the dilemma.

Yesterday we encountered a work crew -- more likely the work crew - and when we queried, we discovered that they would proceed logically, just as had been done previously, removing one bridge at a time, constructing the new one, then moving on to the second. In the process, another partial trail would be built through the sloping woods above the creek, to enable access to one of the bridges where the banks of the ravine kept slumping into the creekbed, leaving a narrow trail for egress to that bridge.

Trees were felled, and those, along with the perfectly healthy mature trees that had come down during last Friday's intense thunderstorm activity has transformed parts of the trail; where formerly we had maintained a specific cache-route for the peanuts we leave daily for the squirrels and chipmunks and birds, some of those places have now disappeared.

In any event, though we feel it's an unneeded waste of tax funding to replace those bridges that we are certain would last for at least another decade, the work is underway. This time the footings will be planned to counteract the deleterious effect of the soil throughout the ravine and in the creek bed comprised mostly of water-soluble clay and sand. Previously, rock-filled mesh caissons had been tried, and wood- and metal-beam footings as alternates and both appear to have failed. Now the favoured method is to be concrete pilings as footage, and let's see what nature has to say about that.