It's always a treat when Irving tells me of the presence of some of our visitors. He checks several times once night falls to see who has come along and whether the offerings on the porch need topping up. Peanuts during the day for the squirrels, chipmunks and the little brown rat and the birds. Broken biscuits in the evening are preferred by the raccoons, though they'll eat the peanuts, too. The skunks prefer cubed bread or biscuits. So the offerings are more or less tailored to the audience. During the winter months Irving used to put out dog kibble, and that was agreeable to our night-time visitors.

This morning I wasn't sure who I was looking at. I thought it was a song sparrow with something orange in its beak. Wrong, it was a very small female cardinal; drab colouration unlike her male counterpart, but that might be a factor of age. Usually the females are larger than the one I saw -- though on closer inspection she had a red crest as well -- and usually there's a red tinge to their feathers, just not as bright and clear as male cardinal wings. 

We've noted that the small chubby black squirrels are being bullied by a larger red-tailed black squirrel. Who will actually physically attack them when they're on the porch. The red-tailed one has taken as well to just sitting on a branch of the magnolia nearby the porch, swinging its tail like a jerky metronome and daring the little black ones to approach... We should consider putting up a sign warning that peaceable behaviour is a requisite to be enabled to extract goodies from the porch floor.

The crows are no longer as nervous when they land on the porch to take their share of whatever's out. The song sparrows are never nervous about our presence or that of Jackie and Jillie. Like the squirrels they've become accustomed to our two little guardians' barking offensives when they see wildlife on the porch. Sometimes when we see a family of raccoons out we're pleased to be able to offer them something in addition to their browsing diet.

But when, like last night, the littlest of the raccoons usually on his own comes around, a tinge of sadness enters the picture. He's half the size of the other kits and differently coloured. When we first saw him he was in the company of the mother raccoon with her five kits, leading to a lot of speculation on our part. Now he no longer accompanies them, but comes along on his own, and we think how lonely he must be, that little creature, the size of a cat.

Later in the evening along came a skunk; I hesitate to say 'the skunk', since there may be more than one. The one we saw on the porch last night was small, but  another visit last week was by a skunk that seemed quite a bit larger. So far there's been nothing to allow us to distinguish one from another and it may very well be that there is only one. They may be more territorial than the raccoons who seem not to be; sometimes juveniles come along in pairs, sometimes singly.

I did some baking this morning. Decided to put together a cheesecake, and since I had a pint of fresh blueberries, thought I'd glaze the cheesecake with the berries which haven't been too sweet lately. I like deciding on the spur of the moment, as it were, what I'll be baking for dessert for Friday night dinner. It's always a special dinner for us. What is unchanging is chicken soup with rice. And chicken featured as the main dish. Tonight it will be accompanied again by a potato pudding and roasted cauliflower. Mushrooms done to a crisp with the chicken breasts.

When I was finished with everything we went out with Jackie and Jillie for a pleasant saunter through the forest trails in the ravine. Granted, we don't 'saunter' up the hills, more like haul ourselves up. But then there's always the spine of the ravine, nice and flat, and the choices of off-trails leading to other parts of the forest, and more hills. What goes up must also come down and the entire circuit though taken at a pace much slower than in previous years, offers ample exercise for all of us.

Irving was in popular demand today, as is proving increasingly expected. Dogs appearing as though out of nowhere -- struggling off-trail up the hills to reach him -- by other hikers' companions who have become familiar with his query: 'Want a cookie?'  Jackie isn't eating any cookies today. He's a little under-the-weather with an upset stomach. He's had a difficult gastro-intestinal adventure as a chronic condition since he was a puppy. These stomach-upset occurrences are far less frequent than they used to be. We're thinking he is outgrowing the tendency for stomach upset; hoping, at least.

A beautiful day, warm and sunny, albeit humid and close, as well. More like a mid-summer than a late-summer day. Yesterday there had been some mosquito activity; bothersome little pests. Today, when we expected high humidity to result in more mosquitoes being present, that actually didn't occur. It has been a strange summer insofar as the usual mosquito presence is concerned. We've gone months, not days, with no mosquitoes pestering us this year.

When we were  almost finished with our circuit Irving stopped me briefly. There was a very small garter snake sunning itself on the trail. For the first time in our memory both Jackie and Jillie saw the little snake; usually they don't notice them. And Jackie approached tentatively, cautiously, wanting to discover what this strange creature was. The snake removed itself speedily from its vulnerable position, streaking into the underbrush, a beautifully yellow-striped little fellow.

It wasn't the only time we witnessed nature's perfection on this circuit. The bottom portion of an extremely tall old oak completely covered with layered shelf fungus; a meticulous display of nature's artistic creativity. There was a single mushroom growing alongside the shelf fungus, an odd pairing, and a strangely beautiful example of the degenerative process of renewal.