Our two backyard composters don't have the storage capacity we require for the organic waste from our garden beds and borders, so it's just as well that the municipality encourages people to put out garden waste regularly in huge paper-compostable bags for weekly pick-up during spring and summer. They maintain composting facilities and will, when all that organic matter has been sufficiently composted, sell the valuable product back to anyone interested in using the recycled organic matter for their gardens, at a modest price. It's simply amazing how fecund nature is with the right ingredients of soil, sun, wind and rain, and our modest property produces more than its share of organic matter.

So far, I've only almost-thoroughly cleaning up our backyard garden beds and borders, but still have to completely finish it before moving on to the front of the house. The backyard looks fairly forlorn, shorn of its faithful perennials and their colourful offerings, much less the plucking of the wan and worn, extremely tired and overworked annuals that have given us such great pleasure all spring, summer and early fall.

I'm counting on enough days without rain in the coming weeks to enable me to begin working at the front of the house, though I did sneak in a little head-start a few weeks back. It's a time-consuming and methodical enterprise, getting around to everything that needs to be done, to tidy up and prepare for winter.

Yesterday the weather was perfect for garden work, with full sun, light wind and a moderate high-for-the-day temperature of 14C, but yesterday was one of those busy-busy days for us that didn't allow for time spent in the gardens. And while I can keep delaying cleaning up the garden, we simply cannot, must not and will not miss out on traipsing through the woodland trails with Jackie and Jillie.

Yesterday being no exception, when we set off in late morning to spend an hour-and-half in the ravine, where our little dogs met quite a number of other dogs, large and small, whose days simply would be incomplete without exposure to the natural setting they all without fail are accustomed to being taken to, to make their day worthwhile.

Being there is so enticing for dogs to explore the inner woods off the trails, satisfying their curiosity of what lies beyond the tameness of the trail. Jillie is disinterested in veering off the trails for any reason, whereas her brother constantly streaks off in graceful leaps and bounds to investigate odours or movements that just call out for a little dog to romp into the piles of fallen leaves on a discovery tour every few minutes.

Invariably when we bring them home, we've got to remove detritus stuck to their hair, or they'll have gone through a prickly minefield of dried flowerheads, some of them tiny enough to inveigle their way between their pads, to be carefully dug out, relieving them of their irritating presence. And when sap is running from the pines and spruce and they step on a patch of sap, they invariably pick up all manner of leafy detritus.

Returned home afterward it's time to hazard an inventory of tasks awaiting, not the least of which will be emptying the many and varied garden pots and urns, some of them left hosting a fraction of the original annuals planted in them, others bursting with mature versions of those same annuals, all of which have managed to endure anything the weather could throw at them, and thrive throughout all those months. Viewing them now, there's a reluctance to disturb them, still vibrant and beautiful, particularly the begonias, but the first deep overnight frost will extinguish their verve for life pretty instantly.

And it's obvious that the hostas are preparing to close up shop for another year. We've so many hostas of so many sizes, types, conformations, colours. And while some of them have already faded and begun to yellow in tone ans shrivel as they bid us farewell, others remain verdant and healthy in appearance, their flowers still proudly aloft.