Nights have been so cool lately, brisk winds entering our bedroom window persuading us to pull up a blanket and even then we're not warm enough. So I decided yesterday it was time to outfit the bed with a light-weight duvet. And surely it's much too early for that? Oh right, the last day of August. The month just flew by. My mind is left back in June, so I'm not certain where July and August spent their time. I'd ask Jackie but he's annoyed with me and isn't inclined to have a serious conversation at the moment.

And wouldn't you know it, the temperature descended only to 14C last night, so it wasn't all that cool and there we were, stuck with that too-early duvet. Well, it won't be long before we begin to feel yet again that for a sound night's sleep we need something a little more guaranteed of warmth. But today, the first day of September of the the truly astonishingly dysfunctional year of 2020, turned out to be reasonably warm and unreasonably humid.

When we left for the ravine in the early morning it was still cool enough for light jackets. By the time we exited an hour and a half later, the jackets felt a trifle confining. Still cool enough, however, to enjoy the warmth of the sun shining directly on  us whereas during the frequent hot and humid days of summer we did our best to avoid direct sun contact.

The creek is now running a low level. It's finished carrying all the rain dumped in the forest in the past several weeks down on its  journey to the Ottawa River. Companion dogs coming through the forest steer directly for the cool water of the creek to tramp about in it, and it's shallow enough that the bottom of the creek roughed up by happy paws of large dogs turns turbid with the particulate matter of clay and sand. There's always a wet trail from certain access points leading up from the creek to the banks sitting over it.

A few mushrooms have appeared on the forest floor, now assuming shades of a pleasing yellow. And odd looking fungi grow here and there on rotting tree stumps. Bright red haws have ripened on the area of one of the trails where groups of Hawthorns grow.

A few others were out this morning, unlike the morning before when we saw no one. People move about in a bit of a fog, as though they're not yet, and likely never will be, accustomed to the thought that a highly infectious virus lingers everywhere, that people passing by might be carriers shedding the virus and a social distance must be maintained. 

On return home we showered, had breakfast, cleaned up, and bade Jackie and Jillie sayonara for the brief period it would take to get our grocery shopping done. By some odd alchemy of emotions they know long before we think it should become evident that we're leaving the house in their custody. And they want no part of it. It's the only time we'll hear Jackie whine, while Jillie hangs back forlornly. Usually when we prepare to leave the house they're excited, leaping at us for inclusion, wearing their collars as a signal that they're coming with us.

That excitement is not just subdued it's entirely replaced by hopeless resignation that we're leaving them, poor tykes. When we pull up into the driveway and the garage door goes up we can hear them barking excitedly. They race out to greet us as we haul in the groceeries, relieved they haven't been entirely abandoned. 

A frenzy of leaps and appeals ensues until eventually they calm down and begin rooting about in the plastic boxes holding the items from our grocery shopping. I have already precipitated their curiosity removing the two cauliflower heads to the top of the kitchen counter out of their reach, before Jackie can begin tearing into them. Nothing else excites them as does cauliflower. And for a treat, they get a little bowl of cauliflower florets and feel mollified.