The reality that this day turned out cold and overcast completely failed to persuade greater area residents that it wouldn't be an ideal day to go out to the urban forest within our community enclave. We thought that yesterday the forest trails were 'crowded' with people coming out to view the fall colours. Well, Sunday turned out to be even more thronged with people, with quite a few family groups out with small children. And dogs. Jackie and Jillie, reading over my shoulder wanted to remind me not overlook the presence of dogs, large and small, familiar and unfamiliar, this day.

After all, this day is a Sunday, a day of relaxation and leisure, that absolutely calls out to be useful to both concepts. Moreover, it's autumn and anyone knows that forests in Ontario at this time of year become scenes of great beauty. At the same time, parents want to introduce their children to the anomaly of a unique, wide-spread geological anomaly in what is essentially an urban neighbourhood, so children can see for themselves that the sidewalks and road traffic and neat arrays of houses that they're most familiar with have a natural counterpart where none of these things are present.

In a place where birds flit about singing and small furry creatures are busy foraging, and trees, some venerable giants, and others striplings, alongside wild fruit trees and shrubs grow in their natural habitat, quite unlike a garden but with some similarities in the presence of wildflowers. Some children are there reluctantly, others eager to explore the peculiar landscape so unfamiliar to them.

Their presence can be uplifting, can be amusing and can quite as easily be irritating when shouting and whining and the sounds of sticks knocking foliage off understory shrubs and immature trees resound. The quality of restfulness and silence are banished in the presence of voluble, excitable children who prefer chasing one another through the forest trails and throwing clods of foliage or twigs at each other, to contemplating nature. It is the chaos of childhood at play.

Of course, some people could justifiably take umbrage at the presence of small dogs with a tendency to bark constantly, irritatingly, at the presence of other dogs in shrill protests at their appearance at a site more familiar to them as their very private precinct where none others are given permission to intrude.

We wore warmer jackets against the penetrating cold of the day, and gloves, and had dressed Jackie and Jillie in their raincoats just in case the sky decided to open up to rain clouds. The forest interior's dusky atmosphere with no sun to relieve either the  temperature or the relative darkness did not convince us that rain was imminent until we had gone most of the way through our circuit for the day and it became quite dark.

Jackie and Jillie were focused on all the dogs they kept coming across, dogs of all sizes and breeds, including a pair of Olde English Sheepdogs, as cuddly looking as can be imagined for two large-breed dogs, quietly well-behaved in comparison to our two puppies' raucous manner. Soon after we had crossed the path of the two sheepdogs, dusk became more intense and finally rain began trickling down.

So the raincoats were the right choice after all.