A lot of people don't take notice of the very small animals around us, in a natural setting. We do. And we've noticed that there appear to be a greater number of woolly-bear caterpillars around this fall than is usual. They're not about in abundance, but their numbers are noticeable to us, crawling about on the forest floor, on a road, just about anywhere as they search out prospects where they can cocoon before the onset of winter. Often my husband will pick one up if it seems to be in a particularly vulnerable place, to carry it over to the dense undercover of the forest floor.

It's just early fall, true enough, and we're just into the first day of October, but the forest is beginning to seriously consider changing its wardrobe in celebration of fall. Poplar and birch foliage is beginning to turn yellow, save for the occasional poplar leaves that turn shades of orange, from light to bright and tumble to the ground. Maple saplings have certainly heard the call, many are turning bright red. In fact, on one of our neighbours' lawns, at the top of the street directly across from the ravine entrance, there's a mature maple already flaunting a bright crimson in preparation for discarding its foliage.

We've seen some oak leaves down already, turned bronze, as well as bass leaves, though the oak is among the last to shed their fall foliage. No sign yet from the beech trees, they tend to take their time. Most of the deciduous trees in the forest are doing likewise, nurturing bright green foliage until they no longer can.

As for the evergreeens, there are ample offerings of cones from hemlock, spruce, fir and pine. The forest squirrels will be kept busy gathering and storing them for winter. It's a good year for nuts and seeds. There isn't a hazelnut left to be seen on the hazelnut shrubs. And the trails are now deep in offcast pine needles, lending a bright orange quality to the look of the pathways through the forest, particularly after a rain, and we've had plenty of rain.

We were looking forward to a sunny day yesterday, since that what was forecasted, but clouds scuttled about in the sky giving us an overcast, cool day of 14C, until mid-afternoon when the sun finally deigned to bless us with its warmth and light. When we set out with Jackie and Jillie for a hike yesterday, it was on a windy, overcast afternoon. But, as often happens, nature decided to smile on us and offered up the sun finally, banishing the clouds and giving us a bright-blue-sky late afternoon. Until evening brought us rain again.

There are still some stray stands of goldenrod, amongst the plentiful fall asters alongside the trails. But at this time of year the forest floor is speedily becoming deserted of foliage, as vegetation turns yellow and shrivels and becomes absorbed within the welcoming leaf mass. All the signs are there of impending cold and snow. We're never quite prepared to say a sorrowful adieu to the green of the forest. But when it's inevitable we manage to muster a welcome for the change into white.