Well then, today being laundry day my favourite old (very old) hot-weather, mosquito-repellent outfit has been salvaged. Tossed into the wash, then the torn leg mended and the outfit ironed, it looks as good as new and will continue to give me good service. As long as I manage not to slip and slide on my knee again descending one of the trails in the forest. My knee now feels pretty good and the ripped-across knee of the pants to the two-piece outfit looks just fine. Mind, my husband obliged by threading the needle for me to enable me to do that mending.

So we went off early this morning though the torn pants were still serviceable pre-mending; one could think of the gaping slash in that worn cotton fabric as being obligingly air-conditioned on a sunny, hot morning, even though when we're tramping through the forest the overhead canopy keeps us well in deep cool shade. We often see people driving up to the entrance to the ravine, parking, opening vehicle doors so their dogs can do a mad dash into the forest for a romp through the trails, and we know just how fortunate we are just to exit our house to walk up the street and into the ravine.

 

As we did today, the day before, the week before that, and before you know it, another year has gone by. The aura of spontaneity will be challenged fairly soon. Already, we can see that we're losing daylight hours. Where previously dusk didn't arrive until well after nine, by eight it now makes its entrance. Nature doesn't consult.

Well, we take it all in stride. Just as we have living with the endless threats associated with the global pandemic. Again, we're more fortunate than so many other people, hard hit when their lives were overturned, the unemployed, those who became ill with the coronavirus, hospitalized and still recovering. The relatively small inconveniences in the need to alter lifestyles that have impacted us can be irritating, but better irritated and coping than the alternative.

So many people are more considerate of others now. And that, I believe, is a result of the concern that everyone feels. Social distancing has placed a weight of responsibility on everyone, and for the most part people have come through, understanding the necessity of keeping some measure of control over community transmission rates. Health experts, epidemiologists and other specialists in disease control are now musing over the possibility that with the arrival of fall and winter the muted number of cases will be set to reverse. 

That will be the anticipated result of people returning to the workforce, which is to say those whose employment won't permit for continued working from home. And the return of students to schoolrooms presents another constant worry about contracting and transmitting the virus. So the potential for community spread is very real, and hospitals are in the process of gearing up to meet the challenge. Their concern is being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

For us, strolling through the quiet calming atmosphere of the forest is a way of letting such concerns drift off at least temporarily. We watch our two little companions disport themselves, curious about everything they come across, from new odours to the presence of squirrels roaming about the forest floor, and the occasional meet-up with dogs they're familiar with. 

We take special note of the vegetation surrounding us, the trees, some of which are already shedding the occasional leaf that has turned colour; poplar and maple mostly, premature and dismaying as August wears on into September. The thimbleberry shrubs that have offered up ripe, sweet berries for weeks are still putting out their delightful pink blossoms to produce more berries in good time.

Queen Anne's lace is still in bloom, and black-eyed Susans. We see the occasional clump of fleabane, and a few purple loosestrife plants in flower. They've proven not to be the invasive plant that would squeeze out all the native wildflowers; their spread has been minimal. Himalayan orchids, on the other hand have outdone themselves this year in colonizing one of the hillsides of the ravine. And pilotweed has really flourished this year; appearing everywhere, even on people's lawns, their bright yellow flowerheads visibly calling out their colonizing entitlements.

And then, after our lengthy ramble, we turn toward the completion of our circuit through the forest trails and make for home. The rest of the day stretching luxuriously before us to do as we will. Needless to say, that included the laundry, the mending of the pantleg to my 35-year-old summer outfit. I know how old it is because of the special circumstances of its purchase, in Tokyo, at a traditional transparent-roof-enclosed 'mall', an hour's walk from our home in Fuyo Compound.