Our mornings usually begin by listening to the news, and of course the weather. Both are important to us, and occasionally, but not often, rewarding in the sense that on rare occasions the good news balances the bad. More generally, it is depressing news that tends to dominate. In some measure this is because there is 'normally' more unsettling news within the global community than uplifting news. And there is also the factor of decisions made by news corporations to publish what the public appears to want to be made aware of, and whether it's the titillation value of bad things happening elsewhere, lending those unaffected a sense of personal comfort to be living where nasty events are not happening -- the wretched misery of others becomes highlighted for public consumption.

It's the old adage of giving the public what it wants or demands, in support of selling the product. When the mental indigestion passes slightly, it is relieving. And then we spend the balance of the day blithely 'forgetting' the unsettling news, focusing our minds on what is closer to us. On what we wish to accomplish that day. And of course, routine beckons. We are in a sense unaware of our dependence on routine, but it is what guides us through life.

Routine usually equates with an orderly progression of things needing our attention, little everyday events that occur and take our minds off other, unappetizing things that we are helpless to do anything about. The regularity of certain of life's personal events lends comfort to us, living in a sometimes unfriendly world.

Nature too seems a little standoffish in the fall, heavily reliant on cool temperatures, plenty of rain and wind and the transformative effect of those in combination. There is the uplifting side of the results of course, the landscape which responds to the signals nature is sending and in its response, dressing itself in its finest raiments before shedding it all and retreating for months on end.

We appreciated that all-too-brief and too-soon-gone transition period today when we were out in the forest on an otherwise-gloomy-weather day. A low cloud ceiling of unrelieved grey imprisoned the sun today, keeping it out of our sight and throwing a pall over the landscape. But the landscape has tricks up its virtual sleeve in how low light in the inner forest translates to a deepening richness of prevailing colours. Colours that take on a jewel tone to take  your breath away.

The understory vegetation of sumac and dogwood cannot be overlooked in their lovely red/green displays of bright, deep colour, fully complementary of a background of deep green of the conifers, the pine, hemlock, spruce, fir and cedars that flourish in the forest. Those ash trees that managed to escape the predation of the Emerald Ash borer now flaunt brilliant gold foliage in tune with the forest's more wide-sweeping golds, yellows, and bronzes verging on orange of the maples, poplars and beeches. 

Jackie and Jillie trot along -- in front of us, beside us, behind us, veering from left to right, right to left as their sensitive noses pick up tantalizing smells so irresistible to them. Their senses of smell, hearing and sight are infinitely more powerful than ours, but we wonder do they 'notice' the changing environment as we do, or simply, fatalistically accept it without musing about the whys and wherefores. 

Animals that still live within raw nature, those that haven't been domesticated certainly have an ancestral and genetic memory of the seasons. Cold, shorter daylight hours, signal to them that it's time to gather food for the lean seasons of winter. We have largely drained the instinct of survival and adaptability out of the animals we have for generation upon generation brought into our homes to share our lives with, making them completely dependent on us for everything from an indoor habitat to food foraging and protection from the predation of others in the food chain of survival.