I don't believe it's an exaggeration to say that Jackie and Jillie met more dogs yesterday strolling through the forest trails than they would normally come across throughout the course of a normal six months of daily hiking through the ravine. Mostly, these were dogs we've never seen before, and neither had they.

They were an entirely mixed group, from Chows to Pit Bulls to Chihuahuas and Portuguese Water Dogs. All of them were, of course, accompanied by their human companions and all were well behaved. Surprisingly, so were Jackie and Jillie. They mostly evinced superficial interest in one another, with the usual ritual of circling and sniffing front and back, and then were content to go on their way.

Just another day for most of them, but for their companions who brought them there into the confines of the fall woods, it was obviously something of a special day, since for them it was a rare occasion. A linkage to the past, primarily. Delving deep into the subconscious to recall sights, sounds and smells that impress themselves on a child's memory of autumn.

We'd never ourselves seen so many people out on the forest trails in the ravine. Jackie and Jillie could be forgiven for being confused at the sight and the sound of so many people trailing about. Quite the departure from what they've long been accustomed to.

Many people taking photographs, because of course they were there to observe the change in the season, the heralding of the entry of winter soon enough. It's colder, windier, and just as trees respond to the vast physical changes that impact them with temperature and light changes, so do we.

It's as though many people are compelled to at least one day a year devote several hours to tramping along a woodland trail, to smell the fragrance of tannin scenting the air acrid, filling their nostrils with memory as they shuffle their boots into the leaf piles sparking up at them in bright and pastel colours in the irresistible tradition of summer fading into fall.

There was one familiar dog among the many we saw, Rufus, the terrier whose instinct is always to corner Jackie or Jillie with the intention of using one of them as a foil for his misdirected romantic rituals. That's usually a signal to either of our targeted little dogs to ask to be picked up, when snarling, and attempts at evasion have failed to dissuade Rufus who has earned the nickname 'Doofus' from my husband.

We keep marvelling to one another at the kindly temperament change that nature has bestowed upon us. Suddenly the cooler, wetter, windier weather has ceased and been replaced by this benign spate of glorious weather and we can hardly believe it, but are supremely content to luxuriate in it. And for me, the urgency of taking all the colour and texture out of the garden provided by still-blooming annuals has been set aside for the time being.

When we arrived back home, Jackie and Jillie did a turn in the gardens and pronounced them satisfactory in reflection of the time of year, assuring me that I need not devote any more time to my intended task of deconstruction, until such time as nature returns to her late-fall rage and compels my attention once again to clearing out annuals and cutting back perennials yet in bloom.