No doubt this has been a rain-suffused year for this geography we live within. Once winter finally departed, taking with it a larger-than-normal snowpack, spring gave us an extraordinary number of rainfalls. Following spring, summer was not barren of rain, either; unlike some summers there were no rumours of impending drought and for good reason. Now that fall is fast approaching we appear to have settled into a routine of rainfalls interspersed with dry sunny days, far more than is usual.

So that's one of the reasons we decide when to take a chance by going into the ravine at times we imagine will be clear of rain, to avoid the rain that does eventually darken the skies and irrigate our landscape. If we ever had a regular routine time-wise of venturing out into the forested ravine it has been entirely upended this year.

Yesterday we were out again before breakfast to take advantage of an early morning appearance of the sun, back by popular demand. The weather forecast was for showers in the morning hours and the possibility of thunderstorms throughout the afternoon. We chose that brief break of sunshine, although it was also fairly cool and breezy, at 13C.

Jackie and Jillie now anticipate any time of the day could be right for a sprint out of the house toward the ravine, hoping to beat the clouds gathering on the horizon. The wind usually blows from the west and we site impending weather conditions from that direction. Sometimes the visible sight of iffy weather bypass us and sometimes it doesn't. But our pups don't really care, they're just happy and eager to be out and about as long as we're accompanying them. Or vice versa.

The treats that await them are plentiful, from intriguing odours intensified by wet conditions, to the prospect of coming across friends new and old, and encountering the delights of the forest bounty in fall giving them the opportunity to relish proffered apple bits courtesy of my obliging husband who also doesn't mind delving into the forest understory to rummage about the thimbleberry shrubs in service to those puppies' never-satiated appetites.

We did come across two companion dogs; a boxer whom we've seen on one previous occasion not long ago and an aging lady pitbull, ambling along with their humans on the shorter circuit of the forest above the ravine. Jackie and Jillie behaved themselves for a change, restraining for some reason their compulsion to harass a dog they aren't familiar with, and they had a brief walk-along with the other two until we reached the descending trail again into the ravine.

Once we were home again and finished breakfast, I decided to bake a pear pie, to use up some pears that had been in the refrigerator for a while. And so I cored the pears, 7 medium-sized ones, cut them into small chunks, mixed 2/3 cup granulated sugar with 2 heaping tablespoons of cornstarch and a 1/3 cup of cranberry juice, in a deep saucepot, covered it and set it over a low heat. While I cleaned up from breakfast, stirring the pot contents occasionally, the mixture slowly thickened. When the liquid content had turned transparent and thick and the pears were semi-cooked. I shut off the heat, added two tablespoons of butter, a half teaspoon of cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon of cloves and let it all cool.

The crust consisted of one-and-a-half cups of all=purpose flour, a half tsp.salt, 2/3 cup Crisco, worked with a pastry blender until a mixture of pea-shaped forms resulted. Then I added two teaspoons of lemon juice and about two tablespoons of cold water, and kneaded it all together until a firm yet dry ball of dough resulted which I halved, then rolled out one half for a bottom crust to fit into the old pottery pie dish our younger son made for me so many years ago. The second half of the dough was rolled out, and with a pastry cutter cut into strips. The filling went into the bottom crust and the strips were fitted over. Instead of a plain lattice top I decided to twist the strips as that results in a crisper product. I baked the pie in my little countertop convection oven at 375 for a half-hour, and that was that.

Before going up to bed last night I took a little video of the rain pounding down. It had been raining for hours, would continue through the night, and on into the morning.