These mornings there is ample frost on the roofs, and it takes some time before the days begin warming to comfort levels. We've been experiencing night rainfalls, and overcast, chilly mornings. The gardens are devoid of form and colour, awaiting winter's blanket of snow. Still, yesterday afternoon, despite the cold, with the sun in full sail in a mostly blue sky that had banished the rainclouds until evening, and I was able to snip the last of the parsley in the garden for our evening chicken soup serving.

And by the time we got out to the ravine the temperature had risen to a nice enough 6 degrees under a light wind and full sun. Comfortable enough to inspire us to go for a longer ramble than usual, over to an opposite side of the ravine, though any low-lying areas were drenched enough to hold deep pools of water.

Most of the foliage of the fall splendour has succumbed and left their high perches. The last several days the wind was incredibly fierce with gusts that, combined with the cold, took our breath away. The rain and the high winds served to convince the still-lovely foliage of bright yellow and red that it really was time to depart, so the trails are now thick with fallen leaves, and Jack and Jill still aren't accustomed to wading through the piles. With their soft fne hair, leaves tend to stick to their legs as they mince along, and they are decidedly uncertain whether they really like the wet, clinging leaves.

Yesterday we came across a tall youngish man whom we see on the rare occasion who suffers from the effects of some kind of catastrophic injury that has left him still erect, but his back oddly concave. He walks his large black fierce-looking part-everything including hound and Doberman Pinscher, with a harness and a grip, while holding his specialized cane in the other hand, to enable him to take control when needed, although the dog does incline to obey his commands.

We have been enjoying apples for almost two months from one particular wild apple tree along our way. It too, like the other deciduous trees in the forested ravine, has been divested of its foliage, the apples left on the tree standing out as plumply red orbs, tantalizing Jack and Jill who love to feast on them, knowing that my husband will extract and offer one piecemeal for them as he's done daily during our rambles for the past several months.

Lately, he's been knocking down two at a time, and we too share one of these sublime fruits between us, after giving our puppies their due. These are the juiciest, sweetest and fresh apples we have ever enjoyed.

It brought me a sense of liberation, relief, and release to leave Facebook behind, a personal reject. No surprise there; I have never felt comfortable on most social media sites, just as being present at cocktail parties made me uneasy and feeling out-of-place. It's simply not my metier. Perhaps there's something about being casually social that attracts most people unlike myself, aside from maintaining contact with people who matter to them.

I'm not the least bit averse to face-to-face social contact among people I know well and have known for a long period of time, as why would I be? Nor do I shirk from brief and transitory social interactions with people more casually known to me. I appreciate those opportunities and enjoy them. And I tend to initiate greetings of social courtesy when I come across others whom I don't know. So obviously there's something deeper at play here. I have no patience for facade, for social conceits, for trends, and for celebrity gossip.

When I interact with those who have meaning for me, I favour doing so more privately and directly. Where once regular mail did the trick as a supplement to telephone contact (which has become more difficult for me as I have aged with the diminishing of my aural capabilities), I tend now to use email. Correspondence and conversations between friends and relatives are intimate exchanges, and not to be aired in public venues. To my way of thinking and gauging what is important in my life.

And speaking of comfort in intimate communications, my husband was given the extremely onerous and unpleasant task of selecting a baked delectable he would prefer for me to prepare this morning for dessert-time, this evening. He pored through a few cookbooks last night and came up with a recipe that appealed to him, and we agreed it would do.

So, this morning, because my husband communicated so effectively to me what his taste buds would anticipate experiencing, I baked a dark chocolate two-layer cake. I did alter the recipe slightly. And it certainly is a dark chocolate cake, with four squares of unsweetened baking chocolate giving it colour and flavour. I substituted Becel margarine for butter, and increased the amount; used two whole eggs rather than just the called-for yolks, and accordingly slightly decreased the amount of milk called for. Finally, because I detest the washing-soda taste of baking soda in baked goods, I used baking powder instead.

Voila! this evening's dessert...! Chocolate icing, of course, but I did go easy on it ....

I never felt attracted to the idea behind Facebook, and never felt an urge to join the countless throngs who make use of it. I had the instinctive feeling that this is a venue for egotists, an opportunity to strut their conceits and impress people; alternately, attracting people desperate to make 'friends' irrespective of the quality of the purported friendships. I didn't exactly resist joining the social media site, though I had received invitations over the years from friends who had signed up to it; I simply was disinterested and wondered what it was that they could possibly extract from that commitment to make it worthwhile.

When my brother was under his short-lived struggle with cancer, receiving palliative care that included rounds of chemotherapy, he would often post to his Facebook page, communicating with his many friends about what and how he was feeling (thankfully no physical pain due to the type of murderous cancer that galloped relentlessly through his body), and the procedures he was undergoing, along with his initial attempts to live as normal a life for the time left to him, as was possible. Our telephone conversations conveyed much to me, but he urged me to join Facebook so I could access his written communications.

I didn't at first, for the first months after his diagnosis and the initiation of his treatment, but not long before he died, I relented and signed on to the dreaded site. Perhaps because I was already reserved about its value, I found little comfort in it; in fact, I disliked it immensely. It was nice, in a sense, to be linked to some people who had a place in my life when we were all young, and to family members geographically dispersed. On the other hand, the constant downloads were distracting and sometimes unpleasant. There was a pretentiousness about it all that revolted me.

And then, suddenly, a day ago, a request to 'friend' someone. How do you metaphorically slap someone whom you don't know down by ignoring such a request? I complied. Was thanked. Responded. And a day later received a confounding, disturbing, presumptive message:

Hello Dear . here is all about me you need to know, My name David . i was born August 12, 1960, in Spain i grew up a small town call Tassi ,am the only child of my parents, i lost my dad when i was 29,.then 1997 my mom past out. ........life is so good when your family is complete.I lost my wife 3years ago,i really don't want to talk much about my late wife i want to move ahead and leave my past behind and be happy for good..hope you understand that please? I miss her so much due to the fact that I am playing the role of a father and a mother at the same time to my son , which is really giving me some stress, i believe that we can be friends if you dont mind , that is why i will try to put all my interests in making you understand that we can have a better life if we give each other the chance you know friendship is not something you learn in school but if you dont know the true meaning of friendship that means you have not learn anything.... i really want us to be good friend and dear i need your reply back please and tell me all about your self ...am expecting to read back from you soon.

David Luke 3:25am Oct 29 You are very pretty and sexy lady,i like your sweet charming eyes,sweet dreams

In fact, I had no need to know. I was not interested in 'knowing' anything about this man who had the gall to address me in a manner so arrogantly presumptive that I was convinced he was a predator who had carefully studied the manual on predation, since I had informed him, at his prior request, that my husband and I are approaching our 79th year, married for over 60 years, with three children, the oldest in his mid-50s.

Reading his message left me struggling; was he simply brashly naive or accustomed to manipulating people to achieve an end of his own, focusing on feeble-minded little old ladies whose empathy and sympathies could be relied upon to extract from them useful concessions of one kind or another? Was I being unnecessarily paranoid? To react like this on receiving a sexually suggestive, appeal for understanding and support from a stranger who had made contact with me only the day before?

I showed the message to my husband and it disturbed him. As I knew it would. I wanted his reaction, though I was well aware what it would be. His assessment was similar to mine. Unsurprising, since we've shared opinions, experiences and solutions for most of our lives save the 14 years before we met.

Will I feel that I have misjudged another person, perhaps one who is emotionally vulnerable too harshly in condemning him to the company of unprincipled psychopaths who prey on others? Should I have responded gently rejecting his wish to find an intimate friend? Might it have been useful to express my opinion of his crude attempt at manipulation, voiced in a cautionary tone geared to give least offence, in offering him an object lesson in human relations?

For as long as we've known them they've always had King Charles Spaniels, one after another. We've known them for almost a quarter-century, so the current little dog is only two-and-a-half years old, a lovely little thing that causes them no problems whatever. Quite unlike our two little miscreants whose middle name should be 'trouble'.

We haven't seen them in ages, though we used to come across them frequently in the ravine, during our roves in there. In the summer months they spend a lot of time on their sailing vessel, so they have distractions we don't have in that sense. They've got the typical Limey accent, though they've lived here for at least one generation. Friendly and personal, she just gushes enthusiasm and loves to talk about their daughter, now a mother of two, living in Vancouver.

A few years back they had rescued their daughter's King Charles Spaniel when she could no longer give it the attention it craved while tending to the needs of her own young children. That little male joined their own female and they lived together amicably until both of them eventually died. Before those two they had another little fellow, who was deaf and mischievous to a lovable fault.

They're excited about a trip they've planned, to India. The first part of the trip, the first week, is meant to be devoted to visiting a few large cities, Bangalore and Cochin in Kerala State, and the following two weeks they plan to spend quietly, close to a smaller town where they've rented a house and plan to live there until their time elapses in a return to Canada. Sounds fascinating, and they're anticipating the trip, albeit wondering where they'll leave their little charge.

We told them about a woman we've known for as long as we've known them, now retired, who with her husband loves dogs and volunteers to look after any dogs their owners need separation from for relatively brief periods and theirs would certainly qualify. Because the pair is so devoted to dogs they can be trusted to do what's in the best interests of any pets left with them, and without charging the moon.

Meanwhile, we're invested in more mundane things in preparation for winter, ourselves. It's likely that we have far more garden tidying-up than most because of the extent of our gardens, and now that's done, my husband has turned his attention to changing the all-season tires of his vehicles to ice tires in preparation for winter, looming close on the seasonal horizon.

He says it's a nuisance to load the tires onto the vehicles and drive them over to a place like Canadian Tire where the mechanics there can do the job. Far more convenient, he says, to do it himself. That he's close to 79 years of age seems to make little difference to him. It's a job that needs to be done and he's always prepared to tackle such things. I wince whenever he tells me of those plans.

Sunday was cold and blustery. In the early afternoon I put on a split-pea soup to cook, knowing my husband prefers whole green peas but chose the split peas since I wouldn't have to soak them overnight. I added celery, onion, garlic and chopped carrots along with a chicken cube and a small amount of salt, larger amount of pepper, and we had a good hot soup for dinner. But of course we also needed a main dish and I thought what I might do with a spaghetti squash.

I cooked three slices of bacon until they were crisp, crumbled them, then added to a small amount of the bacon fat sliced bell pepper and small pieces of asparagus, briefly stirring them, then adding to them several chopped green onions, and grinding pepper over them. I had earlier baked the spaghetti squash, removed the seeds and pulled the strands, and to the pile of squash strands I added a cup of shredded old cheddar, the crumbled bacon, and the vegetables. And then the resulting mass was placed in a casserole and baked briefly until the cheese had melted.

I liked the result quite a lot, but it's questionable whether I'll repeat it. My husband is fussy about spaghetti squash; he likes it only done one way. When it has been baked and the seeds scooped out he puts brown sugar, butter and cinnamon on his hot squash and eats it with relish; that is with the kind of enjoyment that 'relish' is meant to describe. Go figure.

Today I wanted to do something different with ricotta cheese, rather than prepare cheese-filled blintzes as I often do. So I thought I'd do a gnocchi dish with tomato sauce. The tomato sauce is a breeze; I sweat an onion and chopped garlic in extra virgin olive oil, add chopped yellow bell pepper, a tad of hot pepper flakes, chopped carrot, and finely sliced tomatoes - and the water I'd cooked a medium-sized Yukon gold potato in.

I mashed the potato, added a cup of ricotta, a third-cup of grated Parmesan cheese, an egg, sea salt and dehydrated onion, and finally 3/4 of a cup of unbleached flour, and made the gnocchi by rolling out portions of the resulting dough into elongated rolls, then snipping them into inch-size pieces, to be cooked briefly in boiling, salted water.

The finished tomato sauce will be served over the gnocchi and I have high hopes that my husband will enjoy this different way to serve ricotta.

The garden looks drab and miserable. It's no longer a garden, in fact, but one in mourning for what it once was. It is preparing for a long sleep. And in the process of that preparation it presents as a sad spectacle of the passage of time and the seasons. My husband has put out a tray on one of the stone benches full of seed and nuts. Instead of flowers we now have the constant presence of birds and squirrels and the occasional chipmunk. A frenzy of action replacing the slow-motion energy of growing plants thriving in sun and rain and mild temperatures.

A few days ago my husband emptied all of the garden pots and urns at the front of the house, quite a laborious project, undoing everything he had laboured to do in the early spring in preparation for planting and the expectation of taking pleasure in the fruits of that planting. Instead of colour we now see a monochrome of greys and browns.

In the ravine there is still ample autumn colour, though it's fast fading into darker, more subdued hues of surrender to the cold. I haven't been as assiduous as usual this year putting out peanuts as we amble along the trails in the ravine. Instead of daily, I've been placing them in the usual cache spots no more than once, sometimes twice a week. We miss our little black acquaintances, Stumpy and Stumpette; they too are now long gone. And we haven't seemed to come across as many of the little creatures appearing accustomed to our largess.

With the onset of the cold, however, far more are making themselves visible. From time to time we see some of them perched on the usual cache spots, as though awaiting peanuts to miraculously fall from the skies, so I've begun to scatter them about once again. Makes one pensive and somewhat sad to witness the annual transition, one that we never quite become accustomed to.

Yesterday was grooming day for Jack and Jill, not an event they particularly relish, but they did their best to heed my requests for patience and compliance, conditions of behaviour they are not known to embrace. A few struggles against what they must surely interpret as indignities to their persons, and then they more or less settled down to enable me to de-hair them adequately.

First the paws and pads, then their long scrawny little legs, and then attention to their facial hair, snipping steadily away, soft black hair falling everywhere and clinging to everything, them and me and the rug beneath us. I do keep a bag nearby to plunk discarded hair into from time to time, but snipping is very busy work and constant, leaving little time for collecting and plunking, so the rug does begin to grow an unruly mess of black which will eventually, once all the hair-snipping is concluded, in between little clients, be swooped up.

Face done, attention goes to tail, rear end, nether regions and the rest of their restive little bodies until the job is done and they appear presentable. In fact, when their hair grows out, as it does, swiftly and capaciously, they look puppy-like, the volume of hair giving them the appearance of being well-filled out. Jillie certainly qualifies as a well-packed little dog. She and her brother consume the same amount of food daily, and she has put on weight, but he remains lean and muscular.

We don't believe that his spare frame is responsible for his grace in motion and ability to make great leaps and champion-strength runs, but it can't hurt in that direction. It's possible that Jillie's girth keeps her grounded, convinces her she can't leap the way Jackie does.

It's likely I will no longer groom them in the sense of giving them regular haircuts as often during the winter months, to ensure that have adequate winter coverage. Unlike little Riley they don't seem to react to the colder weather by constantly shivering. Which could only be assuaged for Riley by pulling little sweaters over him to ensure he was warm enough and comfortable once September rolled around.

On the other hand, they don't seem to be completely averse to being dressed in light little pullovers under their halters on cold and windy days when we're out in the ravine; temporary measures to make certain they don't react to that puzzling plunge in temperature that seems to us too aggressively early in the season.

 Last week was a milestone achieved for our two little black scamps, they reached a full year of age. They're not all that different than they were as puppies. They're still puppies, in fact. A year of age does not confer adulthood on small dogs accustomed to ruling the roost in their own inimitable scatter-gun method of cutsey-appeal.

Jack and Jill, three months of age

They weigh more than they did when we brought them home. They're not much larger than they were at three months of age. They aren't as frantic to chew everything, but they still have an urge to chew, and our slippers and shoes remain prime targets. Jackie is still as fond of licking bare toes; ours; as he ever was. Jillie still runs off to hide when we tell her it's time for a walk. The former is explicable, the latter inexplicable, since she does enjoy those walks.

Jillie in her favourite little bed

Although they love one another and are constant companions they are also content in many ways to separate themselves from one another. They don't cuddle together to sleep at night, but during the day they do often warmly lick one another's muzzles; and they must know at all times what the other is doing.

Jillie, distinguishable from Jackie because of her white blaze; chin and chest

Jillie has it over Jackie in the brains department. She is far quicker than he is to clue into things, despite her wide-eyed, innocent look. She's also a manipulator, someone who wants to take control; Jackie is a follower. Yet neither has taken on the 'alpha' mantle; instead, they share it. Sometimes he initiates things, sometimes she does. Each is capable of pulling the other by the ear, without restraint.

Jackie's favourite perch

If Jackie feels particularly rambunctious, he will began flying about manically, inviting Jillie to join him. Sometimes she does, often she won't. And the reverse happens as well; when Jackie isn't particularly interested in having a good runabout, it will occur to Jillie that he should and she will challenge him to do just that; he may respond and he may not.

Jackie getting fitted with a light-weight walking halter

What they do have in common is an avaricious appetite. They will eat just about anything at any time. Fruits and vegetables remain their favourite snacks. Button and Riley would never accept cookies from strangers, and certainly never in the ravine. Jack and Jill insult polite manners by their alacrity in accepting offerings and then looking for more.

While they are partial to cooked chicken, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, yogurt and chicken soup they are not averse to yanking foliage off spruces; needles, that's right; to grind away at them, and nor do violets escape their notice, their very particular favourite backyard treat.

Jackie favours the back of the sofas in the family room, where he fits himself snugly into the gap between sofa back and sofa cushion, while Jillie prefers her little bed sitting on the rug. On the other hand Jack floats like a leaf in a reverse-hurry in great leaping arcs to reach surprising heights, bounding about as though gravity is no concern of his whatever. For her part, Jillie doesn't believe she is capable of leaping, though when we're out in the ravine she's perfectly able to leap and clear distances.

So when Jackie is feeling wickedly provocative, he teases her by leaping onto a sofa or a bed, while she fruitlessly and feebly jumps up repeatedly to try to reach him when they're in a wrestling/tumbling playtime mode. We're just wondering if it will ever occur to Jillie that anything Jackie does she can too?

With their two daughters having long ago left their family home to establish their own and raise their own young children, Barrie and his wife restored their family unit to greater than two once again by bringing three border collies into their home. The dogs are all from the same litter, two males, one female, and their characters are all divergent, but with one common trait: they were bred to be busy. They're working dogs, even if no longer used to herd sheep.

And such dogs are restless and easily bored if they're not challenged. They need to be busy and active, to be presented with situations they must deal with. They become dreadfully restless if they aren't walked frequently. So, in the morning Brenda takes them out for a long hike in the ravine, while Barrie usually walks them in the afternoon, and in the evening they both share what is for them a pleasurable obligation to their three charges. While they live in the community they're not in walking distance of the ravine, so they have to drive to one of the entrances.

These are dogs whose physiques are well honed as a result both of their breed characteristics and that they're actively engaged, frequently. Their nervous tension is kept to a minimum; they tend to charge off in three different directions while in the ravine, but respond instantly when they're called. Their training to be obedient is beyond dispute. They are verbally but calmly chastised when they disappoint and briefly but effusively praised by name and deed when they behave as they are meant to if they're accosted by an extraordinary event.

Barrie is somewhat like the dogs. He's a former special-duty RCMP officer; only in the 'former' category because he has little choice in the matter. He is tall, lean, muscular and given to extra-curricular activities like competitive running, intense bicycling, triathlon events; meeting his own challenges, just like his charges. When he began suffering mean headaches and episodes of nausea and dizziness, he knew something might be awfully wrong, but didn't begin to imagine the diagnosis would leave him reeling with the knowledge that he would soon be scheduled for brain surgery to relieve the buildup of water on his brain.

Now, post-surgery, a shunt has been implanted, and it is permanent. A line leads from the shunt that carries the water away from his brain to the inner cavity of his abdomen where his own body deals with the liquid to dispose of it; he produces about two-thirds of a litre of water a day. Eventually some parts of the apparatus that has been inserted into his body, from his brain to his nether regions, will have to be replaced; they will wear out. There is nothing that appears externally. There is a dire need to fine-tune the pressure gauging the amount and time-lapse of the drain, since he is still suffering those intense headaches once he stands or sits.

It's a bare few days since his surgery, when his cranium was opened and the shunt installed, but he misses his ravine walks with his dogs terribly. He plans to be back in operation by the coming week. And he regrets that he will have to go into retirement at an age and at a stage in his professional career that he never imagined would be interrupted at this point in his life.

The startlingly ephemeral beauty that is fall at its colourful height passes so swiftly, we're anxious to capture its brilliant likeness before it all fades. The bright yellow foliage blanketing the forest floor fallen from the poplars, all too soon naked to the wind and the cold, no longer shielding the sky from view when the mass of the woodland canopy succumbs to the assaults of sequential night-time frosts and shortened daylight hours quickly turn charcoal grey and begin to crumble.

The confetti-likeness of the red and the gold of maples and birch, the orange of beech leaves are breathtaking in their breadth of coverage, a generously wide and thick coverlet, their shapes and shades warming the trails even as the atmosphere bites, with cold creeping through our jackets as we amble along our daily ravine walk in Bilberry Creek ravine.

The enrapturing sight of a world transformed to bright yellows, picked out with greens and reds, dazzles our eyes. The fragrance of fall is a prod to reminiscences of countless other similar events which memory extracts from the depths of our experiences, from childhood to adulthood to maturity.

It is all new to our little dogs, they would have no memory of the year before when they were freshly born to life and largely unaware of what transpired in the world outside while they were kept in a kennel before they migrated to our world of household and daily ravine walks.

With the allure of the autumn landscape urging many people in the community to venture into a natural surrounding most ignore for much of the year, we come across people walking dogs we've never seen before, or see only on the rare occasion.

On the other  hand, we also come across people we're well aware of, since we see them fairly frequently enjoying nature in the company of their canine companions, and each time we meet it is a reunion of sorts, for us and for the dogs. Jack and Jill are overcome with enthusiasm each time they see dogs they've had the pleasure of acquaintanceship with. And each time they anticipate a great fuss will be made of their presence, by the dogs' accompanying humans.

Their 'enthusiasms' are so prevalent and absorbing we cannot yet imagine allowing them to be off-leash in the ravine. So they stand and they patiently wait while we stop briefly at various intervals to speak with acquaintances, and they watch without too much curiosity as they see Ruby down in the creek, barking to  her heart's content, that she can enjoy the now-frigid water passing by her robust little frame.

There now, summer is officially over and fall is sliding into winter. It's official because my husband has removed the canopy from the deck, and the garden furniture is now slated to go into storage. It's official because we finally finished cleaning up the gardens, cutting back all the perennials, composting all the annuals, raking up all the fallen foliage. It's official because today the grass has been mowed for the very last time this season. It's official because my husband put down fertilizer on the grass to encourage its hibernation and spring-time revival.

And it's official because a seed-and-nut tray has been placed out on the stone bench close to the bird feeder to ensure that the neighbourhood squirrels know they haven't been deserted over the winter months. And to keep them from their strenuous acrobatic efforts to reach the seeds and nuts in the bird feeder; to leave them for the birds.

Bluejays are continuing to come around; their bright blue foliage is a nice contrast to the scarlet of the cardinals. The single dove that enjoys spending its loafing time in the garden close to the food source has returned and can be seen making itself comfortable for hours at a time; even the presence of saucy little adolescent red squirrels won't make this dove move if it hasn't a mind to. We can only hope that self-preservation kicks in at appropriate times; when, for example, the black cat next door goes on the prowl as it sometimes does, around the shrubs in the garden, lying in wait for any opportunities that may present themselves.

We've now placed out for municipal garbage collection the last of the filled-to-capacity large compost bags which are used for the production of finished compost during the growing season. All that's left to do is to empty the garden pots at the front of the house. All of the garden pots at the back of the house have already been emptied, in preparation for storage under the deck, covered by a large tarp until the ice and snow of the coming winter departs and they can be resurrected once again next spring.

Although there was uncertainty as there always is, about the outcome of this federal election in Canada, news reportage and the polls taken at various times throughout the longer-than-usual election campaign did point in the direction of the Conservative government being ushered out by the electorate. This Prime Minister, who has governed the country ably and with distinction had a controversial relationship with the national press and they took every opportunity at their disposal with few exceptions to portray him in as murky a light as they could manage.

The civil service conveniently forgot that previous Liberal administrations, one as recent as the Chretien years in power, did the civil service no favours in ruthlessly cutting back personnel and services, following hard on the Mulroney years which began the process. You had to reach back to the Diefenbaker years to find a similar clamp-down on the civil service. These are fairly cushy jobs with their unions always in an adversarial position toward the employer. Outstanding workplace benefits and retirement packages that were the envy of the private sector awaited government employees, some of whom earned their keep, many of whom barely bothered taking advantage of all manner of perceived entitlements at the expense of the taxpayer. That segment of the voting population, whom tradition mandates be neutral politically worked hard to convince non-federal-employees that this was a government that needed to be turfed.

And it was. Yesterday, Canadians voted overwhelmingly to bring back a Liberal government. Conveniently losing memory of Liberal governments' penchant to wallow in corruption; even when, late in the campaign a whiff of just that surfaced portending the future, it did nothing to remind Canadians that the man who has governed us for a decade was the very exemplar of rigorous morality. Some of his unfortunate choices while in power worked to disfavour him; chief among them was the public mood to demonize a man many simply took an aversion to.

The tandem of a Liberal federal government alongside a Liberal provincial government which has been tainted with the scandal of wastefulness and corruption does not bode well for the near future of the Canadian economy and social cohesion. But the die is cast and we can no longer, with each enjoying a majority mandate, exercise a franchise alternately for the near future.

Last evening we had an exultant telephone call from our granddaughter, now in her second year of university studies in Toronto. She had finally accomplished what she had looked forward to for the past two years; made the most of the opportunity her attainment of the age of majority granted her; to cast her vote. Satisfaction at the very least, lies therein.

We are never quite prepared for the onset of winter. Yes, we're well aware of its inevitability, and take note of the passage of time made manifest by the visual, physical alterations in our environment, from the macro: shorter daylight hours -- sharper-cooling night-time temperatures -- to the micro-indications of less light and warmth impacting on all growing things, we prepare ourselves psychologically, yet the physical impact surprises us.

It's hard to become accustomed yet again to the need to pull on cold-weather clothing in protection against the cold. And when we waken to the reality of roofs covered with thick frost layers and foliage spontaneously dropping, as they do from our weeping mulberries all in one fell swoop, and the Morning Glory vines that hadn't been yet taken down wilting to death along with the tomato vines, we know that winter is on the cusp of our landscape's threshhold.

The garden looks bleak and abandoned by everything that maintained it through the growing months; the breeze that had ruffled the foliage during summer has turned into a wintry blast, in lock-step with the cold that erupted far earlier than the calendar usually prepares us for. That, throughout the course of the last few days, precipitation dropped in the form of snow squalls rather than rain was of little comfort to gardeners mourning the passing of the growing season.

We came across a highly unusual number of people in the ravine yesterday. One lovely man whom we haven't seen in a while was walking his beautifully mannered standard poodle; everyone is interested in our little black puppies who three days ago turned a full year of age. There was a reason we haven't seen much of him lately, he explained. He was separated now from his wife. While he lives now a bit of a distance he returns on occasion to see the dog, and walk him. He was concerned that their son in his late teens is interested in a career that would keep him busy in commercial kitchens. We told him that one of my cousins' sons had aspired at the same age to be a cook, and now approaching 60, he looks back on a long and satisfying career in that field. Hoping that this would reassure him.

Another group we came across was a young man with a tiny girl holding the leash of an even tinier dog. The child was in full command; confidently self-assured, and happily capable of verbally communicating in a way that much older children are incapable of. Her character, even at barely four years of age, was there for anyone to read and to admire. Another separated family, with the father living on the Quebec side and visiting his one-time family to ensure that the ties that bind remained securely in place.

Jack and Jill approach each encounter with other dogs with a vast appetite for challenging them, Jillie in particular barking furiously, and Jackie strenuously pulling ahead. Once they're in close proximity the little oafs shrink back with anxiety until they're confident that no harm will come to them as they evaluate the other dogs' intentions in the way that canines communicate. They certainly had ample opportunity yesterday to practise their social skills. They've a long way to go yet.

Winter is arriving early in the Ottawa Valley. Although it's just mid-October, and snow flurries generally appear a month later, yesterday we 'enjoyed' a number of light and (thankfully) brief snow events; just too cold, too icily windy for rain. Instead we had little snow squalls. The sky veered fitfully from dark threatening cloud cover to interludes of benign, bright sun; polarized competition.

We dressed in mind of the cold and even little Jack and Jill were outfitted with light little sweatshirts under their harnesses. They paid no mind to the light coverings, and helpfully lifted their little legs to enable us to pull them on. It's their collars and their harnesses for which they reserve their irritation, attempting continually to pull them off, biting them fruitlessly. The harnesses we're currently using are heavy-duty ones, however, and it will be more than difficult for them to destroy these as they have the lighter ones we use in the summer months.

My husband had decided to cut the carry-handles off their carrying bags, since they too are extremely irritating and our little adorables tend to stick their heads through them. We took those bags with us along with Jack and Jill and drove to Carleton University's indoor sport arena where the last decade or so the semi-annual spring and fall antique shows are held. I find the artificial turf in that cavernous building quite difficult to walk on, it can seem unstable. Those events did, initially, closely resemble genuine antique shows, but over the years they've been succeeded by shows heavier on the 'collectibles' side of the equation than antiques. And now, finally, that's how they're advertising themselves in recognition of the transition where antiques are in short supply there and the major focus is simply on the collectibles that people in this area seem far more interested in.

The result is that there are now few authentic antique dealers setting up booths there, and dealers of art are infinitely less likely to appear. We saw, in fact, few of either category. But our old acquaintance from whom we usually acquire a painting or two each season did turn out and it was lovely to see him. His large, genial frame is more gaunt than it used to be, though he told us he was in good health. His focus is mostly on the acquisition and sale of elderly prints of high quality, but he also carries oil and watercolour paintings and he knows the kind of art that we prefer. In fact, he remembers the very first painting we'd bought from him decades ago, a Mower-Martin landscape.

This time he had another landscape he knew would be of interest to us; this one of the Meach Lake-Mulvihill area of Gatineau Park. It's not of the century-old era of paintings that we usually tend toward, painted in the 1980s, but the artist is well known for his excellent landscapes and this one has joined our little collection. Jack and Jill received close attention from our friend, an animal lover who though he himself and his partner have three cats, neighbours' dogs are regularly walked by him with huge mutual appreciation.