We've had our first serious taste of just how close we are to winter. We're still in summer, of course. Everything is green, the gardens are bright with colour, the sun still warms us nicely. But last night the temperature dropped pretty close to the frost mark. In the evening we put on the fireplace to take the chill out of the family room. For a change, no windows were open in the house.

Going out with our little dogs to the backyard first thing in the morning before breakfast requires shrugging on a warm jacket.

When we went out for our daily ravine walk, we wore jackets. The last several days have been decidedly cool and windy and a few of those days saw little sun. The apples on the wild apple trees in the forest are already ripening. As we walk through the trails and reach those places where the apple trees thrive, we reach as  high as we can to retrieve the occasional apple and enjoy biting into the juicy, sometimes sweet, occasionally too-sour apples.

Which, of course, our two little dogs demand their fair share of, and who are we to disappoint them? We're still able to find red, ripe and juicy thimbleberries, and Jackie and Jillie have developed an especial fondness for those berries. As soon as we reach one particular grouping they know what we're fumbling about with and the level of their excitement reaches fever-pitch.

Surprisingly, there are still a few thimbleberry flowers coming to bloom. The most beautiful of the fall asters -- the deep purple-pink, large and well-shaped ones -- are beginning to bloom. And we watch as bees fly around them, landing to load up with their bee-delectable pollen to fly back to their hives industriously in preparation for winter hibernation.

We haven't seen many dragonflies this summer and have no idea why, but we miss them. They are such delicate and beautiful creatures, and their colours -- blue, green, gold or red and their exquisitely transparent, iridescent wings shimmering in the sun are a delight to behold. I thought I saw one in my peripheral vision yesterday afternoon, and there indeed was a large blue dragonfly which, when it landed on a tree trunk, invited some quick-reaction photography.