The subtle but unmistakable signs of approaching fall remind us that the leisure summer days we've been enjoying are now limited. Night-time temperatures are dropping. We bid reluctant farewell to daylight hours so much sooner; it has all crept up on us, unnoticed until it can no longer not be noticed.

And with it a certain kind of mild sadness enters my mind. I can trace it back to when our children were young, attending elementary school, and I so much enjoyed having them at home during the summer months, and so much ached, missing them, when they returned to school. This lingers, though our grandchild is now 20.

Being in the out-of-doors has always been important to us. When we were raising our three children, from the time they were infants we were accustomed to taking them to conservation areas to make the most that we could of being in natural surroundings. We like to think that they all remain hugely appreciative of our debt to nature in the quality of our lives.

Until they were in their late teens our family did so much exploration of our natural surroundings, it all became second nature to them, just as it had to us. Our youngest perhaps carries that love and that need to extremes, spending as much time as he does outside of his working hours -- which, as a biologist also takes him into the great outdoors -- in recreational exploration of the great, wide world around us.

As for us, we now have our daily rambles in the woods in nudging distance of our home, taking our little companion dogs out with us for what is an indispensable part of our lifestyle. Yesterday was no different. We found the forest floor still damp from yesterday afternoon's unexpected downpour. When we had ventured out much earlier in the day there was no hint of rain, nor was there any in the forecast.

We now see nothing left of thimbleberry and blackberry fruit; their season has passed. But the jewelweed down by the creek is blooming happily. The haws of the Hawthorn trees are bright orange and red, little specks of brightness in the predominant sea of green. The purple asters that we so much more appreciate than the ordinary white ones are now in full display.

And a combination of impending fall with its shorter days and the accumulation of rainfalls has encouraged the pop-up growth of fungi out of the forest floor in shades of yellow, creamy white and orange. And that strangely mysterious blue-grey fungus that reminds me of death.

Jackie and Jilly are happy to be out and about always on the lookout for friends and acquaintances, joyful when they see another dog they're familiar with, and curious about people they have never before seen. It's a good life.