These are beautiful late-summer days. The Autumnal Equinox officially begins in two days' time. Not that fall hasn't already arrived; nature has her very own schedule, independent of notions that humankind cherishes that it has the authority to maintain a schedule that reflects nature's own. One with which nature dare not deviate from. This fall's entry was gradual and no surprise, but it was also gentle; no adverse, long-lasting weather events to fully mark it.

But we see all the symptoms of a fading summer, they are everywhere around us, from the trees that surround us in a forest, to the gardens we nursed so assiduously through the summer months and rewarded us so amply. The change is a slow process, one we can see with our aesthetic appreciation, smell with our olfactory sense, hear in the rain and the serene whispers of wind coaxing coloured foliage to descend in a lazy spiral to the ground.

Fall is a busy season, it's when thoughts of putting the garden to sleep are manifested by vegetation completing their cycle of production and looking peaked and worn. There are some plants that enjoy the cooler weather and work overtime to produce a fond spectacle to greet fall with; roses have been sending out new growth and preparing for a last flush of blooms before they acknowledge the long winter slumber before them. 

There's no end of tidying up, removing old dead stalks of perennials, cutting back foliage, bringing some order to the gardens slumping back from their summer celebration of robust growth patterns.
And once the gardens have been cleared of their last remaining holdouts, the annuals still gamely producing flowers will be composted, more work awaiting the gardener. All the spring-flowering bulbs that were collected anticipating colour erupting in garden beds and borders must be planted. All in good time, for there is time, perhaps another month before all should be completed.

Meanwhile, we've been gifted with beautiful weather and there are few things more relaxing than to saunter along woodland trails to note the changes taking place in a forest. Where the trails are damp with the remnants of overnight rain, random splashes of colour greet the eye from early-turning maples, and a confetti of early-falling poplar leaves.

 There is a marked difference in the bracken on the forest floor; much of it has disappeared, absorbed into the soil, and some of the vegetation is a soft yellow, waiting to wither and disappear. Jackie is more inclined now to pursue some venturing to satisfy his curiosity, up hillsides, his sense of adventure piqued by more ready access than previously. His sister keeps to the straight and narrow, but for those times when squirrels plead for some excitement, however brief the encounters.