October already. The month our two boys were born. The oldest will be 62, the younger 59, their sister turned 60 back in April. Can't believe another year has gone by. Just amazing. We heard the furnace come on this morning, for the first time. The temperature had dropped to 6C last night, but by morning it had risen to 10, and by afternoon with the sun out it was comfortable enough. These are yet early fall days.

After breakfast I worked up a bread dough  to refrigerate for use later in the week, and then put on a chicken soup to simmer away for our evening meal. I grated a big horse carrot and began putting together dessert cupcakes for tonight. Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Irving had gone out briefly in the afternoon and brought back a case of fresh California figs, so I'll peel some of those and they'll accompany the cupcakes. 

When we set off for the ravine we were wearing light jackets and it was only once we were in the forest that the cool atmosphere really penetrated, thanks largely to a cold wind annulling the effects of the sun. But it was, nonetheless, wonderful to be out on the trails. The leaf mass is beginning to show signs of fall change with foliage still on the trees turning pale yellow. Poplar and maple leaves, however, are falling more steadily now, colouring the forest floor. 

We came across a woman we'd never seen before, walking a small Pomeranian-mix. It was evident looking at the little dog that it was quite elderly; its haircoat was sparse and it trod the forest floor with especial care. It was unleashed and unheeding of Jackie and Jillie's robust greetings, just plodding along but with enough energy to get there.

This was the first time we'd ever seen a dog aged 20 years, six months. Originally, the woman told us, she had two sibling females. The other had died at age 18 when her  trachea collapsed, leaving her sister inconsolable with grief. But this little girl was a survivor; blind and deaf, she navigates by small just as she identifies the presence of her human by smell. An amazing little creature.

For a Friday there was an unusual number of people out with their dogs of all sizes and breeds, young and old. And everyone managed to get along. The usual sniff-fest ensued and then the gatherings dispersed, people and dogs going their separate ways.

Tramping along the main trail on the spine of the ravine, we decided to do a little bushwhacking. What appeared to be a faint trail that had been created a year earlier when the community was in total lockdown and people began entering the ravine, some of them forging new trails particularly in the winter months with snow covering the landscape, beckoned to us.

It was a meandering pathway forged through areas of least resistance, between trees and over some pretty challenging terrain, but it was interesting and we didn't feel we were contributing to erosion or stamping on vulnerable vegetation; most it was cleared forest floor where if bracken had grown, it had already been subsumed by the changes of fall.

And then, exiting the forest and making our way over a familiar bridge, the very last one we mostly take before emerging from the ravine, we discovered the tree that had fallen yesterday, the screeching, grating sound of its fall as it ripped through other intact trees alerting us to the crash that followed. It was an old poplar, a tree seemingly in good health, with a good green leaf mass, that had broken from its roots in a bank over the creek.

In falling, the trunk crossed the creek, its top mast hitting one end of the sturdy bridge, crashing into the top rails and destroying their integrity. In the interim between when we saw the bridge and tree and when we had heard it the day before, municipal crews (we assume) had cut the tree away from the bridge rail, cut and hauled away to the side the mass of leafy branches. It will be interesting to see if and when repair of the bridge will commence, although the bridge floor and most of the rails remain intact...