As comfort foods go, some of my favourites are all-in-one casserole dishes, when  you can just pile everything in nicely layered, then scoop it out once it's bubbling and plate and enjoy it. Pasta lends itself to that kind of thing. So the dish we had yesterday hit all the right notes. Mind, I served French beans alongside the casserole contents, but separately and it more or less complemented the main course, big on savoury cheese sauce.

 

Later in the evening the rain that had held off all day decided to make its entrance. But it wasn't just ordinary rain. We became very much aware of an approaching thunderstorm by the rumbles and claps moving ever closer. And when electrical strikes began lighting up the dark night we knew we were about to be treated to one of nature's occasional hissy fits. She must have been really annoyed at something because the entire night was consumed by an ongoing reiteration of thunder, sheet lightning and heavy rain.

 

Like comfort food, there are comfort natural phenomenon and for us, thunderstorms fall into that category. I should, of course, qualify that by adding -- as long as we're safely and comfortably ensconced at home, out of the rain's impact and the inherent potential of threat in lightning strikes. A bit of alarm for Jackie and Jillie; not exactly cringing, they don't do that kind of theatrical nonsense, but succumbing to the urge to warn nature that she mustn't send her elements within to disturb their rest.

 

Yesterday when we drove to Ritchie's Feed and Seed, Irving decided that since it took less than a month to dispose of a 50-lb bag of peanuts, he'd get two of the bags this time around. All I can do is roll my eyes; it's impossible to convince him that outside of the winter months, the wildlife do just fine on their own in their natural element, browsing for food. He takes his position as custodian of the peanut-porch quite seriously. The birds and the beasts would never forgive him for forgetting their treats.

 

While we were at Ritchie's I browsed about myself. And fell head over heels in love with some of the new bulb cultivars. So I bagged quite a lot of them, actually, torn between petal shapes, sizes and colours. Mostly tulips, but I bought three quite wonderful bulbs, the extraordinary fritillaria imperialis. We had planted several once, many years ago and were more than pleased with its regal splendour. They're not cheap; the larger of the three was $7.99, the smaller two $5.99 each. They'll have to be planted deeply to match their size. As for the tulips, I ended up with about three dozen, so I'll really have to look carefully for suitable space for them all...

 

Today has been cool, the temperature not reaching above 18C, and breezy, mostly overcast. But a lovely day, after all the rain. In the forest it's surprising, though it shouldn't be, to see how much random foliage change there has been. A lot of the bracken plants common to the forest floor are turning yellow and they'll just shrivel and disappear in time. But there are poplar and maple and sumac that are in a hurry to blaze forth in bright autumn garb that strike our eyes.

 

The forest had been fairly dry judging from the cracks that appear in the compacted soil after a long period without rain, so it was more than able to absorb the tremendous amount of rain that fell continually throughout the night. Only in a few areas did we come across parts of the trail that were muddy. There were no standing pools of water as occurs when the forest has absorbed all that it can.

 

For the first time this late summer we can see the tiny bright red berries ripening in the partridgeberry vegetation growing on the ridge of the ravine. Fall asters are in their prime, they're everywhere, all kinds, white, mauve, pink, minuscule in size to large and everything in between in various gradations of size and abundance.