Ambling about on forest trails together gives us the opportunity to watch Jackie and Jillie as they interact with other dogs they may happen to come upon. It exposes us to  the minuscule 'landscapes' that every turn in the trail reveals, to discover something new and interesting we hadn't noticed before on our many forays into the ravine. And it affords us the opportunity to discuss an entire range of topics together. Usually my husband, reading a book that fascinates him, will relate to me passages in the book, or its thesis, or describe characterizations of diverse people and how their times and their actions influence history.

And there's more mundane things to discuss. What, for example, each of us plans to do with the hours of the day following our return home after our early morning run in the ravine. For me, Friday is baking day. And so I asked my husband which of the two he would prefer; a raisin pie or a pecan pie. Silence. Thoughtful silence, as he weighs his response. He's careful about such responses. And he knows how much I detest it when his response is "What about you?' and then I respond as though by rote, it was I soliciting his opinion.

Such a simple question. Put forward to assess his preference. And on the basis of his preferential response I would proceed. Hedging; well, on the one hand, raisins are nice and on the other hand so are pecans. Perhaps use the pecans since if they stay too long in the pantry they can go rancid? Well, how about me, what would I prefer, came the irritating hedge. So I baked a pie after breakfast to enjoy for dessert at dinnertime, and it was a compromise; containing both raisins and pecans.

I suppose in some measure discussion-and-compromise, from silly little unimportant issues to really vitally important ones work to smooth out the lifetime passage of intimate relations; being aware of one another's 'choices', caring about them in complete empathy from the sublime to the ridiculous means being sensitive to one another reflecting how we feel about one another. We're heading toward our 66th year of marriage.

The morning was cool when we set out before breakfast. No need for any of us, Jackie and Jillie included, to wear a raincoat this morning. No rain in the forecast, just cool and dry and mostly overcast. The water level in the creek running through the bottom of the ravine much reduced from yesterday. The forest interior a little on the dusky side as a reflection of a mostly cloudy sky. The sound of nuthatches in the trees.

And the occasional appearance of someone else going through the trail network, with a companion. Large dogs, we notice, tend to be more playful with other large dogs. Inviting one another to run about through the trees in the time-old game of catch-if-you-can. Smaller dogs tend to be standoffish, rarely do they invite other dogs, large or small in our experience, to indulge in shared activities in the relatively brief time available to them before their humans carry on.

With Jackie and Jillie there's a perfunctory resumption of a friendship-at-a-distance, but no shared activity of any note. When they're in the presence of other dogs they know, and those dogs happen to be large and happy-go-lucky, chasing one another about, our two little dogs receive a puzzling mixed message to which they bark frantically as though concerned that the other dogs are fighting, not playing. They are, nonetheless interested in the presence of other dogs, happy enough in their low-key way to see them. But they reserve ebullient physical interaction between themselves.

Because of all the rain events this month, large white mushrooms are beginning to appear on the forest floor. They're not particularly attractive, other than that they emerge from the soil large and flat, carrying a lot of soil with them; black-on-white. And squirrels seem to find them an interesting tidbit. We see some of the mushrooms upended, gill side up, with tiny nibbles taken from the edges.

Fall asters have joined other wildflowers blooming alongside the trails. These are the early-blooming white fall asters, unremarkable, not particularly attractive. Other, later-blooming asters in tones of mauve to bright purple usually follow, more shapely and regular petal arrangements. There are larger blooms and infinitesimally small ones,with  exquisitely delicate. And there are the beautiful ones, large, pink-purple blooms, perfectly sculpted, the very last to bloom.