Surprisingly, this doesn't appear to have been a good year for acorns. Despite ample numbers of oak in the forest of our wooded ravine there's a paucity of acorns, and nor do we see many pine cones. But there are spruce cones aplenty, so many that they litter the forest floor in great abundance. Yesterday not far from one of the entrances to the ravine quite distant from our own, we came across a middle-aged couple each with a bag brimming with spruce cones. They were happily looking for more under the conifers; people intent on making their own Christmas decorations for the festive season to come.

It was a lovely day to be out hiking, just hovering below freezing at minus-2-C, but with the sun full out and scarce wind to ruffle the cold. Now that the foliage has left all the deciduous trees and winter will soon arrive there is a forlorn atmosphere about the forest, particularly on heavily overcast days. When the sun shines, however, it's a different story. The sun appears like an immense glittering jewel as a backstop to the otherwise-gaunt-appearing trees, dark and bare.

And because the tree branches are free of foliage the sun's rays are now free to shine fully through the forest canopy, lighting up the atmosphere, creating bright shafts of illumination falling on the floor of the forest and colouring even the now-faint-of-shade, desiccating foliage. Mind, it's an increasingly ephemeral vision, since it doesn't take long for the sun to begin setting; the difference in the light can be detected on the approach to four in the afternoon when dusk begins to descend, and it does so swiftly. Taking us by surprise, actually; we have yet to once again become accustomed to this late-fall phenomenon.

Yesterday we also met, for the first time, a galumphing big Labradoodle named Gus. You cannot see Labrador in Gus, the Poodle strain in the breed mix usually predominates. And so, Jackie and Jillie were introduced to a distant member of their family, as it were. Introductions all around, followed by casual acceptance and the scents on all accounts stored away in canine memory.

A brief romp, the giant dog overwhelming the two smaller ones, but careful as large breeds tend to be, that they don't cause any physical harm to the smaller ones resulting from size-and-weight disequilibrium.