Ever since we were children we listened in to CBC radio. It was, and remains to this day, our radio station of choice. While we were still living in Toronto, as adults, we would occasionally tune in to other radio stations like CFRB, but the dial kept itself stuck on CBC. Now, though we still listen to its programs, usually early-morning ones, on line I search out news on the BBC and other resources while my husband listens in to NPR preferentially.

From the very first time I heard radio host Jian Ghomeshi on his "Q" daily program I took an instant dislike to the man. His breezy self-confidence perhaps is what threw me off, though there's nothing inherently wrong with self-assurance. There was something about him that I disliked, and I seldom tuned in to the show. In fact, I'd make haste after listening to the ten o'clock news to turn off the radio rather than hear his voice tinkle "Happy Monday", so I never heard him sign off for the day: "To be continued...".

News of his downfall is surprising, a nasty, ghastly personal predilection for violent sex finally catching up with him. Though I had no idea and wouldn't have been particularly interested in seeing or hearing gossip circulating that seemed to be common knowledge among radio interns assigned to the CBC as part of their professional earning credentials in completion of their courses, little word appeared to have leaked out generally.

And that's quite the comment about just how free men in positions of trust and celebrity must feel, from the infamous Jimmy Savile and those others of his ilk latterly revealed, to the NPR-recognized interview talents of Jian Ghomeshi. Rumours circulated, there were women working on his program who were aggressively sexually persecuted by him who reported to their superiors and they were ignored, one even chastised for her lack of commitment to the program and the CBC.

This is a man fully dedicated to gratifying his sexual urges through the application of sadistic treatment of women unaware of his penchant to inflict pain on sexual partners, only to find themselves victimized by him and in remorse and shame and fear, saying nothing, just retreating into themselves and trying to get on with their lives.

His reaction to the firestorm of revelations that have tarnished a once-admired personality who still depends on his fame to squeak himself out of the controversy, and who has engaged a pricey PR firm and lawyers to help in his defence which largely depends on a scaffolding of claims of an innocent pursuit of 'kink', no longer in the dungeon of public opinion, and in the process slandering the women, threatening obliquely that the $55-million lawsuit he is pursing against the CBC for breach of contract could have similar suits launched against them, may assure silence.

But can anyone rescue themselves from the court of public disgrace by having pursued a clearly psychopathic avenue to sexual fulfillment short of murdering someone in the process as his pathology would demand greater levels of violence?

Well, as the saying goes ... to be continued....

It's that time of year again. And it never fails to elicit a surprised "already!?", followed by a "I can hardly believe six months has gone by" from my husband. Who is himself quite meticulous about household chores. Let alone performing with diligence many customary actions which I will not name, having nothing whatever to do with the seasons.

But yes, it certainly is that time of year. And faithfully, twice yearly, since we first bought our comfortable Queen-size pillow-top mattress, guaranteed for a lifetime (hah!) we have followed instructions. Silk-side up in the spring through summer to fall, and wool side up in the fall through winter to spring. Not that eyeballing the mattress leaves you any the wiser. Whichever side happens to be up seasonally, they both look the same.

As for turning over a mattress on a regular basis, it makes good sense. We used to not only flip it over but also turn it from bottom to top, to ensure that our sleeping patterns were equally distributed over time on the mattress, so no dips and bumps occurred, should they secretly conspire to appear. We don't do that any longer; too awkward, too heavy, too difficult to manoeuvre. Flipping the mattress is enough of an endeavour, we figured.

And so it was that today was the day for wool-side-up. And just incidentally a change in the ornamental-function bed-covering as well. From the cheerfully-patterned floral, light quilt that we have been using through the summer months to a still-cheerful and bright floral patterned, much bulkier quilt that we throw over our feather-duvet in the winter. I haven't yet placed the winter-weight duvet on the bed. The lighter-weight polyester-fibre duvet we bought several months back still gives us sufficient warmth before the real onset of cold.

Now the bed, our night-time comfort to aid us in deep slumber ensuring adequate rest for us to tackle each day ahead, has been dressed for winter. For the first few days it will present as a pleasant little shock to our eyes, and then we'll be accustomed to the visual change. Meanwhile, it's a perk-up.

As morning verged into afternoon and the heavy rain that had begun the night before began to subside under a still-dark cloud cover, we set off for the appointment we'd made a week earlier to have our flu shots. It's a large warren, the clinic we attend, where many general practitioners have their practise seeing their patients, and there are as well, numerous other offices within the complex, with other types of health practitioners using it as their headquarters. The reception area is large, airy, attractive and clean, much unlike the one I'd gone to a few years earlier after the physician we'd depended on for forty years retired and we had to find a new family doctor.

After checking in with our Ontario Health cards, we never have to wait for periods of time such as we'd long grown accustomed to in the decades previous. Although we thought the world of our former family doctor, we had long grown accustomed, even when our children were very young, to having to wait interminably to finally be ushered into the doctor's examination room. Obviously, he was popular as a physician in a close-knit suburban area that hadn't in those years many general practitioners to serve the population, limited as it was. And if there was an emergency of any kind it was always possible to see that doctor immediately; he would set aside anything else he was involved with, to respond to that emergency.

Although it seemed his receptionist must be over-booking, we also knew that the kindly, personable doctor whom everyone wanted to see, spent far more time than was allotted to his patients, explaining matters unfamiliar to them, allaying concerns, obedient to his perceived need to have his patients leave satisfied they had the requisite information to understand any diagnosis, with their encounter with the doctor concluded.

The friendly atmosphere of that location with that doctor's deserved retirement led me to a multiple-physician clinic closer to where we had moved twenty years earlier, in a multi-storied building given to a variety of health-providers' services, including blood laboratories, X-ray labs, and a huge pharmacy. At the offices of the physician I had chosen to attend, the receptionists were harried and rude, the facilities unclean and unappetizing. I chose to leave that physician and those premises for a variety of reasons.

The doctor that had taken my husband on as a patient agreed to serve as my physician as well after an interview had been conducted, and that led me to attend the same clinic and doctor as my husband. A large, clean well-organized establishment where everyone, from the receptionists to the multitude of nurses and other physicians are unfailingly courteous, empathetic and totally dedicated to their patients' well-being. We had also discovered that the doctor whom we ended up with, was also the personal physician-choice of our now-retired, elderly and long-time family practitioner.

Yesterday full sun illuminated the day which without its glowing warmth would have been exceedingly cold. The sun mitigated as it is wont to do, the stiff wind that came bellowing through the atmosphere. Entering the confines of the ravine with its protective screen of trees, the wind abated and though the ground underfoot was utterly drenched from weeks of unrelenting rain, our resulting ramble of the day was a gratifyingly pleasant one.

Clear skies weren't meant to last, however. We had earlier in the day watched as a dove settled itself contentedly within a stone urn close by one of the bird feeders. A large wooden tray that my husband had put together for that purpose last winter to help the overwintering birds. And just incidentally the neighbourhood squirrels, raccoons and wild rabbits. The dove sat there placidly as grey and black and the occasional red squirrel who, we recognize as the entitled caretaker of the seeds and nuts, busied themselves all around the area.

It's mostly slate-backed juncos that now come around in numbers; they and the chickadees are the most common avian visitors. The juncos are ground feeders and it is for them primarily that the tray is placed on the patio bricks in front of the porch. The chickadees, sparrows and cardinals tend more often to use the bird feeder atop the long pole my husband set up for winter use.

And then there is the roof-topped feeder he has positioned on a small wrought-iron table serving as a stand, meant for any wildlife who prefer to take shelter from the rain (and eventual snow) while feeding. A week ago we watched two juvenile raccoons in the dark of night who had ensconced themselves in that feeder under its roof, busily snacking. A change for them from the contents of the backyard composter, visited nightly.

Last night, however, just after midnight, we stood watching awhile as a very large, fully mature raccoon accompanied by a much smaller juvenile sat within the tray placed on the ground, to busily have their fill of the offerings. The weather had turned and it was teeming rain. But that didn't seem to bother the two raccoons, as they sat on the feeder tray. From time to time they would stop and look directly at us through the window separating us, before returning unperturbed to their midnight snack. I tried to snap photos of them in the hope that the overhead lantern would throw enough light to at least show their outlines, but the result wasn't the least bit successful.

We lucked in so to speak on Saturday morning when we set out for the ravine just after breakfast. The sky was completely closed in, dark clouds menacing rain, but it remained relatively mild, at 14 degrees, so we suited up for rain and meandered up the street to the ravine entrance. We saw no one else throughout our ramble among the still-colourful trees, dripping from the rain of the night before.

The landscape in there is not yet quite as sere as it will become once November enters, since many poplars and oaks, bass, cherry and above all the beech, still have plenty of foliage left to drift down under expected volumes of rain and accompanying winds. Colour is still manifest though most of the maples and birch are now bereft and stand naked against the backdrop of the dark sky. The forest floor liberally littered with bright shades of yellow, orange, greens and still-lingering reds.

Now it is that the grandeur of the great towering pines that proliferate in the ravine come to full notice, their needles robust, green and appealing against the backdrop of the remaining foliage. Accompanied by the presence of spruce and fir, the conifers sturdily celebrate green. The hills in the ravine are covered with native yew, noticeable now that all the underbrush has been swallowed into the forest floor in preparation for winter.

No need, after all, for the raincoats we wore, since the rain held off for the hour-and-a-half we moseyed about in the forest, seeking paths alternative to our usual ones, our approaches hampered by the stand-still, but ongoing municipal work being carried out in there. Principally that of the removal of the bridges enabling us to ford the ravine creek, to extend our circuit beyond the trail's near reaches.

We haven't seen nor heard woodpeckers in awhile, and there we heard and saw that day hairy and Pileated woodpeckers thrumming away at the insect grubs that live their secret lives within the inner bark of diseased trees. All of the ash trees in this area are being assailed by the Emerald Ash tree-borer, yet another imported threat to our greater biosphere. Like the demise of the elms before them, we've got quite a few ghostly skeletons of elm now being joined by the forlorn spectacle of large, dead ash trees.

The day was about to dramatically change though, since bare moments after we left the precincts of the ravine, the air seemed to become denser and rain followed. It followed us as we drove to the campus of Carleton University. And there we decamped to enter its indoor sports arena where rows of 'antique' dealers had set up their stands. And as we moved along the aisles surveying the offerings, we judged them to be pathetic, quite unlike the display of nature we had so latterly enjoyed.

The remainder of the day resembled a large fishbowl, rain compellingly, furiously copious; the day becoming darker as the hours progressed. A not entirely unpleasant atmosphere, since we were by then snuggled into our comfortable home, the fireplace blazing.

Last evening we viewed the Israeli film Room 514, vaunted for its 'best new narrative director win and special jury mention Tribeca Film Festival'. The result is that we are both agreed it would be best to avoid any such future temptations to view such recognized Israeli films, and perhaps take a wider arm's length of any Israeli-produced films. Their invariable soul-searching dilemmas and unveiling of the dark side of Jewish values where the conscience is such a haunted room of hand-wringing excess it inevitably reveals an exercise in moral relativism beyond absurd.



The plot of the film, an Israeli Army investigation into a complaint lodged by a Palestinian family and the rumoured brutally ill behaviour of a platoon commander against Palestinians cringing before the the dominating Israeli military who do wrong to people who have committed no sins themselves against a neighbouring country seems the specialty of Israeli film-makers prostrating themselves before Western public opinion, grovelling in the hopes of achieving special recognition for their humiliating revelations of human fallibility.

In the film the alpha-male platoon commander is accused by a truth-invested female investigator who contends in her own way with Israeli misogyny that prevails in the culture both of primitive religious orthodoxy and the male-pugnacious military of having assaulted and insulted a Palestinian man by slapping his face in the presence of his children, of making off with the family vehicle, and a host of other corrosively uncivilized acts.

This, in the face of Islamist menace that has caused the deaths of countless Jews, let alone even greater numbers of Muslim civilians and Westerners unfortunate enough to fall into the psychopathic hands of dedicated Islamist jihadis, represents some of the head-banging claims of Israeli malfeasance against an innocent Palestinian public who in the aggregate majority approve enough of terrorist groups like Hamas to usher them to power.

Contrast that to the United States where a trial was held in 1970 finding high ranking American Army officers covering up the My Lai 1968 massacre of 500 women children and elderly Vietnamese, resulting in 14 U.S. officers being charged of crimes specific to the event. Contrast that to the Syrian regime using starvation, torture, rape, chemical attacks, artillery and barrel bombs against its own people, Syrian Sunnis whose original protest asked for equal benefits in Syrian society.

Contrast that to the terroristic fear engendered within Western democracies, and no less in Muslim-majority countries of the world by the decades-long advent of Muslim Islamist jihad and its attraction for disaffected Muslims who embrace the ideology of violence, martyrdom and international conquest. Contrast that to the revelations contained in The New York Times' latest expose on the horrors inflicted on Western hostages by the Islamic State: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/world/middleeast/horror-before-the-beheadings-what-isis-hostages-endured-in-syria.html?emc=edit_na_20141025&nlid=26862448&_r=0

We became accustomed many years ago to seeing Leonard walking along the street, ambling aimlessly about. He was then a young boy approaching his teens, always smiling, always looking for someone to chat with. If he'd see you out and about in the garden or on the street he would stop by to engage in conversation. Although you knew, speaking with him that he was developmentally delayed, you'd often be caught by surprise hearing him repeat, as though by rote, very sensible statements. This was, we knew, an echo of something he'd heard from his parents.

We knew his parents albeit slightly, mostly because when they moved in down the street from where we live, we saw Leonard's mother walking a little dog, and soon afterward, two little dogs, sweet-tempered little Lhaso Apsos. Every time I knocked at their door canvassing for one medical charity or another, I would be greeted amiably and a long neighbourly chat would ensue while they made their donation to Heart & Stroke, MS, Cancer, or whichever charity I was volunteering my time as a door-to-door canvasser to at the time.

Yesterday, on our way to the ravine, Leonard's father Abe was on his way back from retrieving his mail at the group mailbox adjacent the ravine entrance. We knew that they had lost their two little dogs, six months apart, and I'd spoken with them proffering condolences. Abe wanted to pet our little Riley and we spoke about the pain involved in losing our little companions. He ventured the opinion that though they're dependent on us they also don't demand all that much of us; their love for us seems unconditional. Unlike, he said, smiling wryly, that of children.

Leonard, living 'independently' now for several years in his mid-20s, in an assisted living apartment, calls his parents continually throughout the day for advice though he sometimes rails that they're trying to 'control' him. His father said that he's capable of doing ordinary everyday things for himself, but that he keeps them busy guiding him with more complicated matters like banking, paying his bills, attending medical appointments. Leonard was adopted as an infant.

Their natural-born son is several years older than Leonard. The two were never close. The older son, a genial, well-mannered and friendly young man attended Algonquin College as a mechanical engineering student. He was employed and seemed to be doing very well for himself for several years. But then things happened, he lost his employment and at age 30 moved back in with his parents. Now, his father said, he's working as a supermarket clerk.

It's the tenor of our times, it seems, ups and downs, lowered expectations, job losses, and unanticipated turns of events. Just as well Abe is philosophical in his outlook and extremely patient. He spoke of his wife wanting to get another dog to join the family, but he's hesitating. They so miss their two little dogs. On the other hand, the pain of losing them is unbearable, and he doesn't want to go through it all again. What did we think about it?

The always-tedious and ongoing fall necessity of wintering our property is in full swing. I've yet to empty all the garden pots and urns of their soil, enriching as I do so the gardens with these fresh offerings. I'll get around to it, and then my husband will set about gathering them and storing them under the deck, covered with a tarpaulin, to over-winter them safely. Some of the clay pots are particularly susceptible to freeze-and-thaw breakage, and this preserves them.

This morning my husband has been busy disassembling the canopy over the deck. While in the summer months it prevents excessive sunlight from dazzling us in the breakfast room and provides a certain amount of privacy, as well as shelter when we sit out on the deck, and it doesn't matter whether it's raining, we're kept dry thanks to its presence, in the winter the climate that we live in would soon destroy it. Taking it down every fall preserves it for ongoing use, as well.

I'll collect the last of the parsley this morning, nightly frosts aren't far from our doorsteps now, although the last few days have been balmier and today we're enjoying full sunlight.

Now that my husband has completed installing the wildlife feeders, the first thing we do in the morning and before we go upstairs to bed at night is peek out at them to see who's around. It seems to us that their memory has served them well; we think we recognize last year's birds with some of their offspring, and the same for the squirrels.

Two nights ago we watched two juvenile raccoons making themselves supremely comfortable under the roof of the squirrel feeder, delicately picking away at the offerings, a delight to watch.

This is the day after 24 hours of national shock. Canadians are wondering what has become of their freedom to trust that our security forces at every level of government and our national leaders are aware of any potential threats to our reason to continue trusting. Events sometimes move beyond the  apparent control of all cautionary measures to protect society.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle   Police investigators carry equipment at the National War Memorial after a shooting in Ottawa on Wednesday, October 22, 2014. 

 

Perhaps it's the threats from without that lull us to the understanding that our complacency has been penetrated from within by outside sources determined to wreak havoc in liberal democracies by their assaults on our values, deriding them as decadently corrupt, and celebrating their own nihilistic, totalitarian ambitions as the only values worth preserving.

To that end they mount violent atrocities whose results horrify and instill fear in their victims, their reputation for inhumane infliction of death and destruction afflicting not only their own communities but those geographically distant.

The infiltration into democratic societies by migrants from far-off failed states whose agenda is to spread the dysfunctional belief in the superiority and inevitable conquest of the West by the malign forces of fanatical Islam has created a world wide web of intrigue and Byzantine operations to use the West's own heritage values of justice and equality to exist on the fringes of lawful operations while they spread their violent ideology.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld    Prime Minister Stephen Harper shakes hands with as Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers in the House of Commons on Thursday October 23, 2014 in Ottawa. The House of Commons is back in action, kicked off by an exhilarating show of support for the sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons, who was among those who opened fire Wednesday on the gunman who stormed Parliament Hill. 

 

That the government of an advanced Liberal society celebrating its immigrant heritage and its ability to absorb people from all over the world as Canadian citizens in a pluralistic society based on equality, liberty and trust, could be taken hostage, by someone subscribing to the odiously violent and dangerous belief in a universal conquest by Islamists, its Parliamentarians' lives threatened, is beyond belief. But this is just what happened yesterday in Ottawa.

In this era, the two-pronged approach of infiltration of societies is aided hugely by the advent of social media whose Internet communications ease of use and wide spread contacts makes recruiting men and women attracted to the prospect of becoming agents of fear and aggression readily leads to enticing them to mount their own attacks as virulently-hateful 'lone-wolf' jihadis.

Pat McGrath / Postmedia News   A memorial of flowers and a Canadian flag and a cap at the Cenotaph. Police remain on the scene Oct 23 at the Cenotaph where a soldier was shot dead Oct 22. The gunman was later killed when he stalked the halls of Parliament Hill.

And this is just what Canada has been exposed to in the last week when on Monday a so-called radicalized Muslim convert fatally ran down with his vehicle a member of the Canadian Military in Quebec, and two days later another similar convert to Islamist jihad wrought havoc by shooting a rifle point-blank at a Canadian military reservist standing guard at the National Cenotaph, then consolidating his credentials further by striding into the Centre Block of the Parliament buildings, creating chaos and panic as security personnel responded and the entire centre of the downtown area was in lockdown for the remainder of the day until it was finally determined this was another lone deranged jihad-infected psychopath.

The question that remains is how many of these religion-deranged lunatics are out there? And what will be done about their presence?

The proceedings of this day will go down in the annals of Canadian history as an absolute first. Ottawa central is in lock-down. The Parliamentary precinct was infiltrated by terrorists. A Canadian soldier on guard at the War Memorial in downtown Ottawa was shot four times in the chest. It is hoped that he will survive.

Wayne Cuddington/Postmedia News   A soldier has been shot at the Cenotaph in Ottawa on October 22, 2014.

A masked gunman wielding a rifle commandeered a car from a driver near Parliament and drove it directly onto the grounds. He was seen by witnesses to be wearing a distinct scarf with Arabic writing. Canada as a free and democratic society with no previous such attacks has what many other countries might consider lax security in the interests of making access to such public institutions as the House of Commons approachable to Canadians. Much will change now in the eventual wake of this atrocity.

Parliament Hill is in lockdown after the exchange of rapid-fire gunshots by security forces with what is considered to be a number of gunmen, their exact number unknown. The head of Parliamentary security is being credited with shooting and killing one of the gunmen who had entered the Centre Block and had been in the main hall. All Parliamentarians, including the Prime Minister, leaders of the Opposition, have been safely accounted for.

Public transit has been in emergency transition mode. Area schools are in lockdown, including the University of Ottawa. Area businesses have also responded to the emergency through lockdown. The Ottawa Police announced the closing of their offices to the public until the situation is concluded. The busiest commercial area in downtown Ottawa, the Rideau Centre, reports gun fire from within. Emergency security responders, including the RCMP warn people to clear out of the downtown area; at the very least take protective cover. It would appear that a shooting occurred from a rooftop in the area.

The situation is fluid; reports emerged that a suspected terrorist was seen attempting to flee to the 417 on a motorcycle. All of this following the ramming on Monday morning in Quebec of two Canadian Forces personnel, leading to the death of one, by a radicalized Muslim convert who was himself shot to death by Quebec police after a high-speed chase.

Ottawa and Canada have lost their 'innocence' as a place of secure, liberal haven from the vicious predations of the Islamist jihad. We have been undermined from within.

These are morose-weather days of late. The sky is so overcast there is a perpetual gloom over the day. It has become extremely cold and windy. Damp and blustery, more like what we expect for November than October, but the month, to be sure, is indeed edging toward its conclusion when November will make its entrance. We always think of November as being the bleakest of months, and it is. As a result, we welcome December for at least then we can anticipate snow to enliven and brighten the landscape.

November is never a sunny month, but most other months are, here in the Ottawa Valley. October has been behaving too much like November for our liking. Moreover, we've been getting more than what we might consider to be our fair share of rain; it seems unending, and the result is a soggy mess.

Yesterday we were busy with fall preparations. My husband completed his construction of a bird/squirrel feeding station to complement the bird feeder with the squirrel-avoidance baffle, and set it out near the front garden where it will remain throughout the winter months. When he finished with that he set about putting winter ice-tires on his little Nissan truck.

As for me, when I finished cleaning the house, a weekly chore that I don't at all mind, I went out to the gardens to finish taking up all the annuals, and reserving the begonia corms for over-wintering storage. I discovered last fall when I was busy doing the same thing that I'm no longer able to harvest some of the new begonias for their corms, they appear to have been genetically bred to bloom summer-long, without the corms, though heaven knows how. So most of those that I am able to gather in now are comprised of the very begonias I've been over-wintering for years. Later additions to the gardens from newer nursery stock are a different story. Puzzling indeed.

And, today, another dismal cold, wet and windy day, I finally completed planting all of the spring-blooming bulbs for the year. And if truth should be told, I must admit that weather aside and the sad task of pulling up still-sprightly-and-colourful annuals besides, it remains pleasurable to be out there doing anything at all, from heading out on our daily ravine rambles to tidying up the garden in preparation for  winter. Regardless of the weather.

Hard for us to believe that our oldest son is now 55, that all our three children are now in their fifties. It doesn't seem all that long ago that we reached our half-century mark of existence ourselves, and how that felt. Not that we felt 'older', just that we marvelled we were fifty years of age, a half-century of experiences behind us, and our memory reached back effortlessly to recall the things we were exposed to when we were young and how different the world has since become.

He's on the second part of a two-week trip to Britain, on a travel grant given to a research project shared by our older son, an astronomical researcher and his partner in this project, a retired astrophysicist. London is where he celebrated as it were, the occasion of his 55th birthday, keeping contact with his wife back in Toronto through Skype. When we were still living as a young family in Toronto, at the age of nine he became interested in astronomy and his father would take him on Saturday mornings to meetings of the local branch of the Astronomical Society.

Our daughter was always oppositional, that was and remains her personality. She was 'different' than the common mould, someone who chafed at what passed for normal in society, wanting yet rebelling at being one with the common crowd. She distinguished herself when she was young by her mode of dress primarily. Partly exhibitionist, partly defiant. She was capable of applying herself to anything that took her interest and always excelled in any sphere of endeavour she became involved with. Her interactive social skills always put to the test.

Our youngest child was interested in biology as soon as he could deftly wield a delicate net. Whether it was to withdraw tiny fish from a lake in Gatineau, or a voracious waterbug from waters closer by where we lived, or fragile butterflies to acquire an inventory of various types, a practise he found repugnant, but which drew him as a budding biologist, his stream of study and employment was also set at an early time in his life.

We consider ourselves fortunate that all three are busy doing what appears to come naturally to them, deriving what satisfaction in life that they can and will from their occupations. It's all a parent could conceivably wish for, that their children find a place for themselves in the constantly developing stream of life and through that derive some measure of contentment with what they are able to achieve.

Yesterday represented the epitome of a cold, soggy fall day. Only a week ago we had been enjoying extremely mild temperatures, albeit leavened with daily and seemingly-incessant rain events, the sun playing peek-a-boo, and now we are plunged once again into precipitant winter.

On yesterday's slog through the ravine, seeking out alternate trails to those we've become most familiar with over the past decades since they're now cut off from our access resulting from the removal of connecting bridges whose reappearance, we now understand, will be delayed until at least next spring, we were pursued by a number of our familiar little woodland acquaintances. Though they know full well where the usual cache places are where we deposit peanuts for them, some of the little creatures prefer to address us directly.

They're the ones we reward by the presentation of the largest peanuts in our daily collection. We're under no illusions that they evaluate the size and desirability of the peanuts they retrieve, although it's easy enough to do so by observing the elaborate convention they display for us, turning the peanuts in their shells over repeatedly in their clever little hands before finally making off with them. On the other hand, perhaps we're wrong, in not attributing to these small animals the ability to evaluate, since we're reluctant to attribute some form of reasoning to them, lest we be accused of equating their intelligence levels too close with that of humans and be guilty of charges of anthropomorphizing animals in the shadow of human attributes.

It always gives us great pleasure to see them. To see the trust they place in us. To see that they seem to recognize us, after prolonged exposure to our presence in their environment, and to understand however they arrive at that understanding, that we are habitually inclined to place out peanuts for their taking. It's our homage to the small animals who share the world with us, so to speak.

It all began when a small black squirrel first approached us enquiringly, coming very close to where we stood momentarily, descending the first long slope into the ravine, about fifteen years ago. I had a short while earlier noted the constant presence of a red squirrel on a protruding limb of the great pine that stood at the foot of the hill, and thought why not bring along a few peanuts and stick them in the crevices of the pine's rough bark?

Perhaps Stumpy, for that's what we named the small black squirrel without a tail, understood by observing us that we carried peanuts, or more likely smelled them around us and was bold enough to convey through his body language his expectation that he'd like some, too. A bond of recognition between us emerged, and from that time forward we would see him almost daily, often pursuing us through the wooded trails, seeking peanuts.

Our two little poodles at first would chase him, then becoming familiar with his pop-up presence, tended to simply ignore him and as for Stumpy, he might scramble off when Button or Riley took a run at him, but he would never go very far before impudently returning again, while our two companion dogs implied by their own body language that they would tolerate his brief presence.

Stumpy disappeared about three years ago, after we'd enjoyed years of mutual pleasure in one another's presence. Before he did, though, we became aware of the presence of yet another little stump-tailed black squirrel, in an entirely different area of the ravine, confusing it at first with Stumpy, only to realize that though this little fellow too behaved in a familiar manner soliciting peanuts, its actions were not quite as bold as Stumpy's. Our granddaughter named this one for us, as Stumpette, and from that time onward we always regarded her as Stumpy's female counterpart, though we never saw them together and their mutual tail-lessness was simply incidental.

Now, we've come to the conclusion that Stumpette too has finally passed on. We've been missing her presence for over a month. There's a note of sad loss there, because we miss them both, both with their own very idiosyncratic personalities.

Little wonder the state of the weather is such an incessant topic of conversation among people living in Ottawa. Nature's ongoing presentations seem on a constant rampage of change, sometimes dissonant to the season. Here in the Ottawa Valley, weather conditions seem so volatile, one never knows from one day to the next what will present itself.

The last few weeks of September leading into October were extraordinarily temperate, with little rain, an amplitude of sunshine and temperature more akin to June than late September. This was followed by a week or more of pounding rain, high winds and unseasonably chilly temperature when we began to look about for mittens, hats and warmer jackets venturing out into the woods.

And then, summer returned, gifting us once again with balmy temperatures seasoned with rain events. Because the foliage is just yet in the midst of its shedding, there are still ample leaves left on the trees in the woods, sufficient to continue to give us a somewhat comfortable shelter under its canopy from rain. Mostly we wear light raingear, but it was too warm in the prevailing temperature up to last week, and often we preferred to go without, coming back home again after our hours-long jaunts more than a little damp.

Now, the weather has turned again, veering back into the normal range for mid-October, the forest canopy has declined even more, and the need to wear rainjackets obvious. We're growing accustomed to feeling the rain in our faces, as long as it isn't pounding rain. So we amble along in light rain events, enjoying the colours displayed on the forest floor with still-vibrant leaves loosing themselves from their perches and wafting down on the humid air, lazily taking their place among the piles already there.

The amplitude of yellows, enhanced greatly in tone by rain, creates a feeling of openness, light where dark prevails above in the sky, and makes us feel so fortunate to have this landscape at our disposal. Walking in the rain has never been so pleasurable. My husband smiling indulgently at me as I hummed "Walking in the Rain", as we plodded through the raw areas on trails where tracked vehicles have turned up the clay soil, our boots squishing along (unpleasantly) in the resulting mess.

And then there's the requirement to be a little more adventurous as our normal circuit has been cut off with the removal of the connecting bridges. So we've had to reinvent our daily walking routine in the ravine, seeking out other avenues of access to enable us to make what will pass for a circuit, giving us access to our old familiar trail system.

A major highway has been blocked by bumper-to-bumper traffic, vehicles full of desperate people on a mission. They are all anxious to arrive at a certain destination. A haven, a place where they will feel safe from whatever impending disaster threatens their safety and security?

A train derailment that has spilled impossible amounts of toxic chemicals whose fumes are even now, reaching the panicked people waiting in their vehicles for traffic to move?

News that Ebola virus has stricken some returning travellers from West Africa and has inexorably begun its spread throughout their community, hospitals unable to cope with the epidemic?

A terrorist attack that has destroyed nearby government buildings and with news circulating that the terrorists, apart from the several who blew themselves up in the effort, are planning another such attack within the same community within the next few fateful moments?

A disastrous flood caused by the pelting non-stop rain events that have taken over the upper atmosphere and drenched everything in sight, causing the mighty Ottawa River to overspill its banks in a manner never before seen, and threatening their community, everyone evacuating in expectation that things can only get worse?

Panic has embraced Ottawa.

Thousands of shoppers attend Tanger Outlets grand opening on Friday, Oct. 17, 2014. CTV

And the reason? The opening of a new shopping mall. This important event in the history of the western reaches of the city, Kanata, has incited people to converge en mass toward the mall for the critically important, exciting adventure of -- shopping. People are consumed with -- shopping.

Highway 417 has become impassable. Police are warning other motorists to stay off the highway. Motorists are being encouraged to make their way, if at all possible, to Canadian Tire Centre, where there is ample parking space in between extravaganza shows and sports events, from whence a bus can be boarded to take them to the new plaza.

Oh Ottawa!

The mind, truly boggles.

Natalie Pierosara @NPierosaraCTV 

Drivers tell me they've been waiting an hour to get off the 417 @TangerOutlets Ottawa. U can park at CTC. @ctvottawa

I can dimly recall the excitement of young children at the appearance of horse-drawn wagons dripping water in neighbourhood streets, carrying the house-to-house blocks of ice required to keep food fresh in kitchen ice-boxes. My mother, with her tiny kitchen on the second-floor flat of a modest downtown house in Toronto, had her own ice-box. Food shopping back then was an almost-daily requirement. The shards of ice we could pick up off the back of the wagon before the ice-vendor could shoo us away were sought-after treasures in the summer months.

Now, young Canadian women trek to the Himalayas to mount the summits of impossibly high mountain peaks, and get their fill of the sight of ice and snow, the adventure of achievement, surmounting heights, geology and inclement weather conditions to test their stamina and physical prowess in challenging such mountains as Annapurna drawing them to the irresistibility of raw nature.

From the time I can recall as a very young child my own fascination and comfort with nature was acutely part of my own nature. One of my earliest memories is discovering the beauty and placid awareness of being in a public greenspace. And my anxiety after that to have the exposure to green parks and trees repeated. Until such time as I was able on my own to seek out these hallowed places within a large city teeming with people. And so it has been in all the years since, where I have found myself comfortable within places venturing much further than urban areas, to climb North American modest peaks, to hike in forested areas, to canoe and camp in semi-wilderness areas where humans once saw as their natural homes, before civilization left as much of nature behind as it could possibly shake off.

Despite my fascination and deep awe with mountains, exploration, and the inimitable sights to be had I don't believe I would ever have had the drive to launch myself onto the Himalayan range. Though that others do deeply fixates me on their experience, manipulative skills and athletic capabilities in completing their journeys -- and the tragedies of those that don't manage to.

Contrast that time in the not-so-distant past when electricity-driven refrigerators were yet to become a common household commodity and the present time, complete with the capacity of humans able to use satellite telephones to communicate with their families awaiting information back home, that they have arrived at their destination, safe and sound.

That part of the ravine where the entrance adjoins our street leads down in either direction, once you've descended the first long slope, toward a bridge. To access other portions of the ravine through interlocking trails, it's necessary to cross one of those bridges, and there are, as one hikes along in either direction several additional bridges to be crossed to enable a ravine circuit. We've one bridge left, and once it is gone, likely some time this week, our circuits become more difficult to access, and certainly of longer duration as we're pressed to take other, alternative routes.

Access from other neighbourhoods give on to areas of the ravine that tend to be flat, the trails wider, more like cart tracks now that the municipality has contracted for the removal of existing bridges and their replacement. In the process of which, the work crews found it necessary to widen existing trails, and dump rough-cut gravel more like rocks than what a trail might possibly have scattered on it, though we would much prefer to leave those trails in their natural condition, unspoiled by gravel or stone-dust which over time gets washed down the slopes, in any event. Their concern, however, is making the trail accessible for the tracked vehicles and the large earth-moving equipment.

It was the extended forested flat plateaus of the ravine whose trails resembled Central Station on Monday, crowded with people on Thanksgiving week-end, traditionally enjoying nature and working off large meals. There were extended families, couples, groups of teens, and people out walking their pets, who would never enter the ravine under any other circumstances. It was a glorious weather day, and the trees were in full autumn colour, all of which conspired to incite people to their annual walk-in-the-woods.

Everything has calmed down now. Not that anyone but the regular trail-goers extended themselves to explore the ravine through the trails that lead into valleys and from there often physically-challenging (for those of a certain age) steep ascents. Yesterday a very emphatic wind blew continually through the ravine in quite impressive gusts, sending showers of leaves to sprinkle themselves lazily, drifting down to the forest floor. For this brief period, the trails are covered with masses of lovely-tinctured expired foliage.

Now, when we exit the ravine on our daily walks we have good reason to feel ourselves more than a trifle exercised. Our trail forays have of necessity become more time-consuming as we search out alternative passages through the woods. There are large woodland areas with interweaving trails that are not disturbed by the work that's ongoing because there are no bridges there. It's the problem of how to manage to get to them without too much uphill bushwhacking that consumes us now. The effort of which does require more physical stamina, particularly when the clay-based environment is sodden and therefore quite slippery, as it has become increasingly with frequent rain events.

Once out there, though, the pleasure of observing everything around us in the transformative stage from fall edging into winter makes the effort well worthwhile. Most particularly since the past week has edged up into the 20-degree-plus range.

It certainly took no time at all for the resident cardinals and chickadees to re-discover the sudden appearance of their winter-time birdfeed source again. Scarcely was it set up than did they arrive, to our surprise. Although we hear migrant birds like redpolls and others in the backyard sourcing food there, they have not yet appeared at the feeder. It's those who overwinter who recall the presence of the feeder that sustained them over last winter, and tend to look out for its reappearance, obviously.

And, although the feeder is now on a quite high perch, the challenge has proven not too much for the resident squirrels to overcome. At least, the more acrobatic and determined among them. One little black squirrel simply shimmied up the pole, no problem, although he slid back from time to time. Another one managed the pole but couldn't figure out how he would sling himself over to the feeding platform. And a grey squirrel was simply content to take advantage of the seed that had spilled below.

My husband went off to Ritchie Feed & Seed to acquire one of those cones to prevent the little rascals from continuing to deplete the feeder. And to Canadian Tire to pick up enough building material to construct a feeding platform for the squirrels rather than use the casual one he had put together last winter. It will come complete with a roof, shingled no less, and open sides for ease of entry. We hope to see rabbits and raccoons taking their turn at it this winter as they had last winter.

We're well on our way to preparing the gardens for winter. No longer placing protective coverings on anything usually considered on the edge of coping with Canadian freeze-ups. Those that manage to make it through the winter will, they've been hardened off sufficiently through years of acclimatization, we feel, not to require special treatment any longer; the azaleas, rhododendrons, roses, Japanese maples, tree peonies and Magnolias have done very well for themselves the past few winters, including last winter which was unusually bitter.

But cutting back, tidying up, cleaning away detritus and generally emptying all the garden pots and urns of their tender annual stock must be done before freeze-up. Yesterday morning we awoke to ice rime covering the roofs from an overnight temperature dip into freezing territory. Not so today; it rained last night, and this morning the sun is out, and we're preparing to enjoy a day whose temperature is set to soar into the 20s.

There, he's done it again. On Saturday morning while I lay asleep in bed, he retrieved the newspapers we receive daily, only to discover one of them, the National Post, was missing. When he called their office to alert them and as usual, see that one is dropped by the house, he was advised through an electronic message that the office was closed, so off he went to obtain their rival national paper, the Globe & Mail.

He does this, knowing how vital it is to me to receive the news daily from several sources, even though I also have the Internet at my service. And this morning, because neither of the two dailies we subscribe to publish on Thanksgiving Monday he went off again to obtain copies of the Toronto Star and the Globe & Mail, which do publish today. He does this, knowing the pleasure I derive, reading the newspapers during breakfast, while he pores over art magazines himself.

I hugely appreciate his efforts on my behalf, but I protest because I would far prefer he remain in bed, not rush off willy-nilly thinking to please me. He does, but he doesn't. Just as I am profoundly displeased when he embarks on a task he considers routine and I consider to be potentially dangerous, as he did yesterday afternoon changing the oil in his Honda. He's pushing 78, time to tone down, give such things a break and have them done at a garage.

Today he's busy constructing a squirrel-feeding station with the winter in mind, and a squirrel-proof bird-feeding station as well. And I've decided since it's Thanksgiving, not to do the usual house-cleaning route today. So I've made a coleslaw salad, there's a pumpkin pie baking in the oven, because it's one of his favourite desserts, and I'm planning to roast a duck this year instead of the usual turkey. The duck has been sitting in the freezer awaiting this opportunity to use it, since I bought it a few months back, at a sale price.

I'll go back out to the garden again, as I did yesterday and a few days earlier last week, to continue preparing the gardens for winter, cutting back perennials, deconstructing the micro-landscapes represented by all our garden urns and clay pots and saving whatever I can to overwinter in the basement. I've yet, when all that is finally done with, to plant the spring-blooming bulbs, the tulips, anemones, scilla, alliums and fritillarias I had bought earlier last month.