We've been gifted with a week of extraordinarily unseasonable warmth this week. Through the Thanksgiving week-end and to continue to the end of the week. We won't even bother to dwell on the shock when it ends and more seasonable temperatures return. The sensible thing to do is to appreciate it while we can and enjoy it and make the most of it. Mind, the warmth has been accompanied with what we might under some other circumstances damn as excessive rain. But the package is as it is and welcome.

Rain broke out again overnight and continued on into the wee hours of the morning. In fact the rain felt so entitled to remain that it did, all morning, heavily pouring onto the already saturated landscape. It's wise to bide time and wait. Eventually it ebbed, faltered and stopped. By the look of the dark, cloud-streaked sky we knew this to be a temporary reprieve. We went about doing our business for the early afternoon, then all of us clad in rainjackets set out for the ravine.

At 17C, given how humid the atmosphere was, it felt as balmy as it had the previous days when the temperature was in the low 20C territory. All was quiet on the street, not a soul about. But in various front gardens, mostly where young children live, decorations for Hallowe'en have sprung up here and there. As for us, just as we did last year, we won't have our porch lights on welcoming trick-or-treaters. It's a necessary precaution. 

For us, at age 84, the chances of contracting the novel coronavirus through contact with raucously carefree young children who are unvaccinated and known vectors of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it's a risk we don't have to take, and we won't. It's a bit troubling to contemplate. With the lights off chances are that anyone approaching the porch -- if they choose to ignore the lights-off message, could come accounter the raccoons or skunks that come around. They'll be surprised, and the raccoons/skunks will quickly scatter. Even if we didn't put out anything for our neighbourhood creatures, they'll come around out of habit since they visit nightly. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

In the ravine, the trails were slick with rain, some dripping from the canopy, the creek running wild and turbulent. Although most of the leaf mass is still green, those trees that did turn colour are fast losing their leaves, they're piling high on the trails in vibrant golds and reds. Seeing some naked branches almost makes us feel we're at the height of the triumph of trees ablaze in defiance of incoming winter.

Certainly hikers were few and far between today. We met up with a young couple we haven't seen in quite a while. We hadn't even known they've become parents. Of a strapping big three-month-old baby boy. His robust size identifies his father as a firefighter. We'd seen his mother with her little terrier on the trails about a month ago and she hadn't mentioned anything at all. So we were taken by surprise.

Another person we know from the wider community, through our shared hiking passion, was out with her little apricot miniature poodle. We walked awhile together, nice company for Jackie and Jillie. It's how neighbourhood news gets around; on our part with other people living in far-flung areas from our own house location, and J&J in contact with their canine counterparts filling in local news gossip, gaps not imparted by sniffing pee stations.

 

From her, news of more sightings of coyotes in the ravine. They've returned. They were sighted frequently last winter and the winter before. Not only at dawn and dusk, but during the daylight hours, even when people are normally out and about. And we heard all about the coyote-dog encounters. Those living in homes whose backyards back on the ravine, hear them howling at night. We like the idea of coyotes living in the forest we're fortunate enough to share in the community, but aren't great fans of having to leash our two little dogs to ensure they're kept safe and secure.