Our lovely plunge into a spate of glorious fall days included yesterday with a balmy breeze, high temperature of 18C, and a blazing sun. Fridays are always busy. I've got lots to do in the kitchen, baking and meal preparations for Friday night, a quick house-cleaning of a more superficial nature than the usual weekly deep-clean, and my husband takes care of other chores. That usually includes driving about our neighbourhood making quick stops at the bank, the library, the pharmacy and anything else needing to be looked after.

He was longer than usual yesterday, and I filled in the time out in the backyard, completing the fall clean-up in the garden beds. While I was at it, I decided to tidy up the corkscrew hazel, an old showpiece in our garden now partially obscured by one of the garden sheds, sitting at the foot of our rock garden. While most of the branches grow in the traditional curly mode these trees are known for, there are also some rogue branches, growing directly from the bottom of the thickening trunk, straight up, up, up. It's those that I remove and compost.

When he finally arrived back home to the excitement of Jackie and Jillie who were basking on the deck exposed to the warming sun's rays while I worked below, it was time for us to set off for the ravine. A more perfect day we couldn't imagine. And if we felt so appreciative of the beauty of the day, so were many others whom we encountered on the trails, where most often we see no one else on on the forest trails on a week day.

Fall of course has an especial appeal to people, even those who don't normally view hikes on forest trails as special recreational treats. It's the nostalgic effect, people recalling when they were children and  how much fun it seemed to them to tramp about in wooded areas, and even more so, to find leaf piles to dive into, savouring the fragrance of aromatic organic decay, the nostril-sharp odour of green matter surrendering life for their destiny as recyclable humus to take their layered place over generations of other years' fallen foliage on the forest floor.

It's a quiet time, a pensive time, a memory-evoking time, sniffing the air pungent with meaning, reminding us of the endless cycle of life, shuffling our boots through the accumulating foliage, bright and shifting and crackling underfoot, the sound recalling vivid images permanently installed deep in memory. Around us, the slightest movement of wind creates swirling confetti as all manner of plant material is released from lofty heights on the crowns of deciduous trees, to filter slowly with the breeze down to the ground.

Pine needles fall on top of crooks of bare branches and begin to collect, like a nest awaiting a bird to claim it. Falling foliage descends no further than the upswept arms of evergreens, where the colourful leaves begin to amass, hanging on and around green needles, like someone's idea of autumnal decor aided by a wicked sense of humour.

Oblivious to all of this, but invigorated by their mad dashes back and forth across the trails, and the new smells being released of damp soil and the acridity of drying foliage, Jackie and Jillie are enthused by the intriguing and somewhat dimly familiar odours, mixed with those that other dogs roaming about the trails before them have left as calling cards.

Until the accumulating leaf pack on the forest floor lose their colour and are completely desiccated they form a confetti-bright blanket of colour-warmth in sometimes unexpected shades and variations of patterns delightful to contemplate. We delight in the sight, and tend to 'forget' from year to year, just how beautiful this season can be. And it occurs to us that the vibrancy of the blanket of bright foliage discarded for yet another year, is soon to be replaced by a deep, lofty and persistent comforter of sparkling-bright snow.