In a spirit of consultation and inclusiveness Jackie and Jillie let it be known that they wouldn't at all mind taking ultimate advantage of a truly splendid fall day, just to keep on ... trundling along. Trails long familiar to us, but not quite so to them. Although they've been there before on more than a handful of occasions, just not frequently.

To get there we leave the main trail when we're half-way through our usual circuit, and descend deep into the ravine when we come to a very old bridge which is on its way to complete rot. Jackie trots over the bridge along with me, and Jillie as has happened before, stalls. She will not set foot on that bridge. Perhaps it's because the old boards on its bottom are set too far apart for her sense of comfort. So she's carried across.

Then comes another ascent to take us up to an area once familiar and familiarly trod many years ago, which has undergone many changes since then. Both natural attrition and man-made manipulation. The old trails we  once took have fallen into the ravine as the hillsides have deteriorated over time and weather events. Up there on the plateau there is a large open area and beyond it the forest continues. At one time we poked about the interior discovering faint old trails from a time before us. Some of them remain, many have been grown over.

Because the terrain is different, and the sights are unfamiliar, Jackie and Jillie are quite enthused and run ahead in little spurts, stopping often to sniff about, picking up those interminable olfactory messages that have meaning to them and remain hidden from us, as they make use of senses nature bestowed upon them and withheld in her great wisdom from us.

Because the area is partially open and the sun doesn't have to compete quite as much with the forest canopy, wildflowers grow in great abundance, particularly the large pink asters that are so scarce in the part of the ravine we frequent. Here, there are large colonies of the asters, alongside ordinary white and mauve ones of lesser size and presence, lacking the brightly colourful appeal of the pink variety. Goldenrod is everywhere.

Close by are houses that were built several decades ago, when we had already been familiar with the  hiking trails for a decade and couldn't believe that the field adjacent the forest that hosted so many rabbits was destined to become a small housing complex. Beyond the houses, the field bordering the forest has been developed to almost park-like proportions, but not quite. The wildness there has been tamed, but remains in its natural state even though wild grasses are regularly mowed in a large loop for a walk-through.

And that is where we went, to walk along beside the overlapping forest, looking for the wild grape vines that grew there away back when, which have since become even more mature and spread more widely, hanging over spruces and hawthorns, dangling bunches of grapes alongside the bright red haws of the hawthorn trees.

Partially entering a grown-in  trail overlooking the ravine's forest we see far off the occasional tree, its foliage bright red in a sea of stubbornly dark green foliage; mostly indicative of the presence of a maple growing within a concentration of evergreens. 

And then, further on, another ridge, the top of which hosts what is likely the oldest pine in the forest, dating in all likelihood to the time when this was still virgin forest, and logging spared its life because unlike most other pines this one's trunk grew not tall and straight, but forked and crooked, its massive lower trunk supporting huge limbs reaching out beyond, expansively.