We're approaching what is invariably for us a somewhat sad time of year, a wistfully nostalgic time, a time of regret that summer which seems so fleeting in this northern land of long winters and hurried summers is swiftly approaching its decline. Oh of course there's still September with its moderate weather, and then October isn't all that awful, made spectacular by the show of foliage turning splendid colours in the landscape, but the following month will bring us cold and snow. Already the mornings are cool and overcast, too many days rife with rain events.

Already, some of the low-growing plants on the forest floor in our neighbourhood forested ravine are beginning to turn yellow, and it won't be long before they shrivel into the ground. The appearance of fungi at this time of year also heralds change. Sensitive ferns will wither and die. And before the end of September, on into October, wind will create a confetti of falling foliage.

The Hawthorn trees are boasting their bright red haws, the Staghorn sumacs their candelabra of bright red berries. The wild cherry trees have dropped their fruit, beloved of little Jillie who enjoys lapping them up on our daily walks; found edible treasures. And the wild apple trees are dropping their ripe fruit, the underbrush peppered with bright red apples, many of which slugs are quick to invade.

There is one tree, though, whose apples are a dull green, not a speck of red anywhere in them, though they're ripe, and they are the sweetest of the apples we've come across. My husband has taken lately to pausing under that tree, led by Jillie, who waits, face upturned, for him to take the expected action. Which is to pluck one of those green apples from a low-hanging branch, and shine it on his shirt, then begin the process of biting small pieces from the apple to offer Jack and Jill bits. Bits of bites; large ones with skin intact for Jillie and smaller pieces with skin removed for Jackie; their preference.

There are always surprises in the ravine. At a part of the creek banks which had never before hosted jewelweed, this year that flowering plant is rife. As an antidote to poison ivy, which is also present here and there in the forest, it's nature's way of balancing threats, one supposes. And close by, we've now seen for the very first time, turtleheads flowering in the ravine. Likely a bird dropped seed from someone's cultivated garden, and a sudden influx of the plants is the result. Once, we saw a few mountain bluet flowering under a tree in the ravine; same likely source, but they didn't return the following year.

The turtleheads in our garden are a bright pink while those in the ravine are white; perhaps not from our garden, but someone's. Nature, after all, is one gigantic garden.