We evaded frost last night, but it's anyone's guess how long it will be before the annuals are well and truly 'frosted'. From how the weather has been turning out this early fall, it seems clear at this point that we can expect to have to begin clearing away the annuals and cutting back the perennials earlier than usual. 

 

We can hardly believe that this is the penultimate day of September. Where has the month gone? True, we managed to pack quite a bit of activity into September, but it seems to have whizzed by. For that matter, so did summer in its entirety.

 

 

Looking about us at the remnants of the summer garden, I recall how excited we were at the first sign of spring bulbs pushing their young green presence through the warming soil of early spring. And we talked about how avidly we looked out for the first return of foliage in the forest canopy as early spring gave way to mid-spring and a light haze of green appeared everywhere we looked. 

 

Now that summer is well and truly gone for 2022, our evening menu has transitioned back to comfort food. Meals not quite as casual in content and preparation as those we accustomed ourselves to over the summer months. Last night we enjoyed a fresh vegetable salad as a prelude to fish and chips. Salmon fillets and oven-'fried' chips, reverting to the kind of meal reserved for Thursdays in this household. As a further concession to the need for more 'comfort-type' food, we had a pear compote for dessert.

 

As I cut up the pears in preparation for production of the compote, Jackie and Jillie kept nudging me to remind me they were there in the kitchen with me, and they love pears, too. So they had chopped-up fresh pears, despite their twice-daily vegetable salads. No such luck for them today, since earlier in the morning I baked a strawberry pie, and that's not fare for little dogs.

 

We went out earlier than usual to the ravine this afternoon, finding the warmth and glare of the sun irresistible, despite the cool temperature. Here and there, we see bright red patches of maples and glowing yellows and oranges of birch and poplar, with the sumacs coming up close behind in autumn colour. The most common wildflower still in bloom are the asters and the pilotweed. We did come across the maturing feral tomatillo we had identified in early summer, growing alongside a minor trail next to the creek.

 

The weather was simply glorious, inviting us to remain out longer and take our time threading our way through various interconnected trails on a perfectly lovely day. It seems we've stumbled into a series of such days, to compensate for the dark, dreary rainy days without end we went through in mid- to late-September. Tomorrow is on track to be even more beautiful, given the advance weather forecast.

Not that we would want to, but it's hard to escape the reality of a sudden change in season. We recall fondly Septembers and even Octobers with mild temperatures and plenty of sun, along with a reasonable amount of wind and rain. This year is definitely not one of those. It has been abnormally cold and rainy. A signal that it's time to begin pampering ourselves. Thinking up more substantial and comforting meal menus for one thing.  Last night which verged on the very cusp of frost begged for a beef stew, cous-cous, green beans and strawberries.

And today mandated it was time to change our bed linen and coverings. So, out with the light summertime quilts and in with the lightweight duvet. Which will itself be replaced by a winter duvet in another few months. It's a tricky exercise to enfold a duvet into its covering, but manageable. And worth the effort for the soft, light pervading warmth the results on chilly nights.

Irving brought in a few more tomatoes from the backyard. They've taken their time ripening, and there are far more green tomatoes than those than have begun blushing toward red and ripe. But they're our favourite tomatoes, the cocktail variety, so we can be patient, augmenting those we buy at the supermarket. Jackie goes a little berserk when he smells that compelling tomato flavour on our hands from handling a tomato vine. It's one of the vegetables they most clamour for in their daily salads.

We were out for an extended ravine hike this afternoon. We haven't had rain today for a change, nor was there overnight rain and that really is a change in the pattern we've become accustomed to this unusual fall. In some areas the forest trails are beginning to dry, but for the most part they remain sodden. Poplars, birches and maples are starting to change the colour-view of the forest canopy; gold and crimson respectively. The hawthorns and apple trees are fast shedding their foliage; not many apples this year to tumble onto the forest floor.

There was no shortage of dogs, large and small suddenly appearing before us, alerted to our presence by our noisy little dogs who tend to bark at everything. Irving soon found himself running out of dog cookies, meeting up with dogs who temporarily abandon their humans to rush over to visit with us and patiently await their rewards, the further we went, the longer we were out the fewer were left to hand out.. 

These last few days when we come across one or another of our ravine-hiking acquaintances and friends, people have tended to want to hang around and talk for longer periods. Consequently, we're out longer in the forest. It's as though everyone is resisting the thought of oncoming winter, making an effort to relish and access time in the forest, more than usual. Because of the hilly landscape (it is a ravine, after all), snow and accumulated ice make it difficult for some hikers to work up any degree of enthusiasm for winter hikes.

 

 

With so much tumult and upheaval in the world, we are strikingly fortunate. To live where we do, to avoid experiencing the enormous stress that people elsewhere are under. From both internal conflict and externally-imposed conflict, from the fallout of natural disasters caused by rampaging climate change, from tyrannical exploitation of populations by dictatorships and theocracies. Events inimical to human rights happen worldwide. If disasters aren't human-made, they're the fallout of extreme weather events.

 

In Canada, people living in central and western provinces have connections to the East Coast of the country, through relatives and friends, or having themselves formerly been resident or born in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick or Quebec, where Hurricane Fiona has wrought tremendous property damage, but thankfully one death only, although to those involved one is too many.

And here we are, secure and safe in our little corner of the world. A little bit of introspection now and again certainly places one's life in perspective, with a focus on gratitude for what we have, and relief for escape from what others suffer through. 

 

We resort to grumbling about issues as dynamic and mundane as daily weather conditions. We're not accustomed to ongoing, persistent overcast skies, encroaching cold weather too soon to suit our recollections of winter's onset, and the work involved in winter preparations. None of which stops us from going about our daily lives in relative comfort and ease.

 

We're grateful we don't suffer from food shortages, and thankful as well that medical emergencies have given us a free pass, since the state of health care available now in Canada, in the wake of the pandemic and its consequences, has left hospitals struggling to meet seasonal illness demands, and physicians are in short supply, leaving millions of people without a family doctor.

Crime statistics are on the increase, but if one really focuses on the typical victim, both the perpetrator and the victim tend to come from socially and economically deprived backgrounds. The  larger middle class  seems exempt from the violence that breaks out in assisted housing projects, new-immigrant and refugee communities, among the homeless and areas more common to visible minorities than those who blend into the general community without notice.

 

 

We're able to live on a quiet street where neighbours know one another, where access to services is unquestioned. We salve our conscience by making donations to charitable causes; above all, donating to area food banks accessed by people under economic duress who live within our communities. We can leave our home for brief daily excursions to a beautiful natural wooded area adjacent to our direct community, enabling us to stay healthy and connected to others in the larger community who share our passion for nature.

For us, and for others whose lives are socially parallel to ours, life is fairly uncomplicated and rewarding, aside from the occasional irritant or concern around untoward family affairs. Today was no exception, a fulfilling, satisfying day of domestic comfort and outdoor activities with two little dogs sharing our home with us. Happenstance and good luck.

Our pantry and refrigerator remained well-enough stocked even after our week away, that we felt a partial food shopping expedition would do well enough for the week.Our focus was on fresh fruits and vegetables. Although at Farmboy we also picked up milk and cheese and a small corned beef roast, along with a challah and a French stick. Cauliflower, corn, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and just about everything else is in high season, abundant and inexpensive. 

There's still Quebec-grown strawberries in two-quart baskets, and avocados, pears, kiwis, raspberries and grapes at great prices, though you'd pay just about anything for their fresh goodness. Cantaloupe and Honeydew sizes are huge and we love them for breakfast. They have the freshest mushrooms you can buy anywhere. And the choice of unripe and ripening bananas unlike other supermarkets where you've got to wait a week before bananas are ripe and sweet enough for the table.

Shopping done, on a cold, darkly overcast morning following a night of rain, we rescued Jackie and Jillie from their self-imposed purgatory of abandonment. And as we unpacked, treats were in order for them, until we could sit down to the breakfast table where they enjoyed an extra portion of breast meat with their kibble from yesterday's largish roasted Cornish hen. They should have been well stuffed, but they hung around until their hard-boiled egg was chopped and ready to eat.

We were expecting a serviceman to come by in early afternoon. We'd made an appointment because our automatic garage door openers are malfunctioning, but he failed to show up. Which left us the option of heading out to the ravine with the puppies a bit earlier than planned. And it turned out to be a good idea since despite the cool ambiance of the dark overcast, the sun began to evidence itself now and again and it seemed a perfect afternoon for a prolonged hike.

We've been surprised lately by the number of people who've begun coming out to the forest. All the more so that the days have been so cool and rain-threatening. In the previous two days we just managed to make it back home from our ravine hikes as rainbursts began coming down. For a refreshing change, it wasn't rain that concluded our hike today, but the emergence of the sun amid a wide blue backdrop of clear sky.

We came across so many of our hiking friends today that we tended to linger and just talk. It's on occasions like this that you fully realize there's a hiking community of like-minded people living in the larger community surrounding the ravine. People we've known for years, and their dogs, everyone comfortable with everyone else. And questions of concern raised at the extended absence of one familiar face or another.

Our pups burst with excitement when they see, hear or smell their own doggy friends in the distance, long before we become aware. With the exception of some of those dogs suddenly appearing, far from the companionship they entered the ravine with, searching out the Cooke Man's offerings. Sometimes they appear dashing toward us in their eagerness not to miss out on a treat, and sometimes they suddenly appear behind us, surprising us by their silent, but no-less-eager approach. We know them all by name, greet them, and treat them.

And by the time we reached home after leaving the ravine with our pups, the sun was out in a blaze of glory, treating us to its seasonal warmth and brilliance, drying out the garden and inviting us for a stroll around the garden to see what's still left in a swiftly-diminishing colour display of tired floral offerings.

 

It was great while it lasted, weather aside. The weather, however, didn't keep us from getting out daily to explore wooded areas on trails both familiar and new to us. And the spectacular natural sites that always draws tourists to gather in honour of nature's grand geological design. Breaks between heavy rain events enabled us to do what we normally look forward to, and a good time was had by all; all being ourselves and our two little dogs.

Today was house-cleaning day, and there was a lot to be done in this house. So it was late afternoon by the time we got ourselves out for our daily hike through the forest trails with Jackie and Jillie. The morning had brought heavy rain again, a carry-over from overnight rain last night. We took our time, we always do, with breakfast. There are newspapers to read, emails to catch up with, and it wasn't until noon that the routine of cleaning began.

Before we left the house for our hike in the ravine, I popped a Cornish game hen into the oven to begin its roast period. With it, new crop baby potatoes. I prepared a few cobs of corn, and cubed pears and sliced kiwi made up dessert. It was a good hike for all of us, we always feel better, even when we're tired, to get out into the fresh air; it pumps up our energy and feels so good. And the puppies need their daily outing in a natural setting, as much as we do.

The contrast between the meal we had tonight and the chicken breast I cooked while we were away in New Hampshire couldn't have been greater. The game hen was done to perfection, its meat delicate and moist. The chicken breast bought at the Hannaford supermarket was dry and stringy, so much so it was difficult to cut with a knife at the table. Our poultry tends to go through a chilling process that tenderizes it. I had forgotten how awful chicken in the U.S. tastes.

But there are other food issues. Strange as it may seem, when we embark on a week's trip like this, we take along bread we've bought here at home, knowing how unpalatably cotton-batten-like bread is there. And though its quality is inferior to our taste, it's also more expensive than bread in Canada. There are other disappointments; boxed cocktail tomatoes and out of a half-dozen, two had to be discarded. Same thing happened in June, only with Georgia peaches, boxed and past their prime.

Lean, Black Angus beef, a premium cut, awfully disappointing; touted as lean but greasy tasting. Grape tomatoes with skins so thick they defied a knife. And American-grown oranges that were tough and full of seeds, quite unlike the U.S. oranges we buy here in Canada. So, what gives? Couldn't be nostalgia for home when we're away each time a week, no more. Fact is, we love being there, enjoying the exemplary landscape of the White Mountain National Forest. 

 Just tells you how regional food is. The corn we bought was fresh, the cobs much larger than the corn we buy here. The kernels were tough and starchy-meaty. The bicolour corn we eat at  home is smaller, the kernels also much smaller, but bursting with sweetness and beautiful to the taste. That tough corn is cattle-corn, meant for livestock feed, yet it's stocked for human consumption. Go figure.

Our family, including Jackie and Jillie, eats a lot of eggs. And we always buy Omega-plus, vitamin E-enhanced eggs. In the past I've been able to buy some kind of Omega eggs at Hannaford, but not this time. Mostly they featured free-range eggs, along with ordinary varieties, but none enhanced with chicken feed (flax) that would produce vitamin-E eggs. Our puppies don't know the difference, but we do.

Just as well there's so much more that draws us to New Hampshire than the food. The people are unfailingly friendly. Unless they're visiting Bostonians and they're everywhere at this time of year. Grumble, grumble. Hard to believe, reading this, that we love the place and the people and the exposure to some of nature's grandest landscapes...

Third day back from our trip, we're easing back into routine. The first order of business was emailing family on our return, including a brief description of the trip. Sometimes getting bogged down in telephone conversations for exhaustive discussions. But time is our friend, we're relaxed and taking things as they come. No big hurry, everything will straighten back to routine in no time.

Certainly Jackie and Jillie are happy to be home again. They adjusted quickly to our 'away' environment in the cottage, and it's likely they remember from previous years the various cottages we've stayed in with them. Their excitement every time we drove up to a trail head infused us as well with a delighted anticipation of revisiting old familiar haunts. Now that we're back on more intimately familiar trails they've known all their lives, they're equally enthusiastic.

The garden doesn't look too different than it had when we left just over a week ago. Mind, even then, it looked exhausted though still carrying on. It is preparing itself, however, for the onset of frosty nights. Awaiting that sad time when everything will be cut back, the perennials and shrubs at any rate. Annuals will be lifted and composted.

The bright colours and insouciant attitudes of the garden in its various poses will be muted and missed. The deciduous trees in the garden will see their leaves vacate their branches in a sad farewell. The crabapple trees are still shedding their fruit, and Jackie and Jillie enjoy the tiny apples as snacks after their hikes through the forest trails.

More than enough food in the refrigerator so we don't have to go shopping yet. Although Irving did pop out to pick up some fresh fruit to do us over the next few days. Not that there wasn't plenty left to greet us on arrival. I've  unpacked but Irving has yet to unpack his stuff. 

We carried on with  our ravine walks with Jackie and Jillie each day of our return, including the day we returned. The forest looks like fall. The canopy is beginning to change, and enough leaves have drifted off the trees onto the forest floor to make it quite clear that the woods are ready to bid farewell to fall in favour of winter. There's a broad emerging pale yellow cast making its way onto the green leaf mass.

Poplar leaves coloured with soft yellows and oranges and pinks have fallen, as well as bright crimson maple leaves. The sumacs are turning that typical flame-red of their species. Wildflowers have succumbed to the cold and excessive moisture. Goldenrod has turned from bright yellow to dark brown, shrivelling just as the black-eyed Susans have, though the Himalayan orchids remain defiantly bright pink. 

We've been impressed by the large numbers of people and dogs we've seen making their way through the woods these past few days. It's unusual in our experience. We more generally never would see others out on the trails in years back. The pandemic appears to have changed a lot of peoples' attitudes and habits; perhaps more people in the community have learned to value the opportunity the wooded ravine presents as a healthy alternative to remaining closeted at home.

A wider circle of dogs appear to have realized that someone who is out regularly on the trails doesn't mind handing out treats, and consequently we're seeing dogs never before encountered discovering goodies when they come across Irving handing out dog cookies to dogs long accustomed to politely asking for them. Good as a fast-track educational tool for dogs. Jackie and Jillie quickly understood that if other dogs were being treated, they would be as well.

 

Jackie and Jillie relaxing at the cottage

Amazing how chronically crankily volatile nature can be at times. Just weeks ago we were sweltering in a heat wave. We knew, of course, it was summer's way of bidding us adieu for another year. Hard on its heels, so to speak, came cold, wet, windy weather. To be expected, of course. And of course we had made our decision to go back to the Waterville Valley in September as we most often do, before the onset of winter, for the opportunity of hiking along old familiar forest trails in the White Mountain National Forest, the jewel in the crown of the state of New Hampshire.

After our long drive brought us to the Franconia Notch it was the first time in many years that there was no fog, no overwhelming mist rising, to enable us to see the tops of the mountains as we drove through to our further destination. The irony is that for the entire trip we had driven under dark-streaked clouds and a few rain events on our way. It was not only unusual to see the summit range clearly on an otherwise rainy, cloudy day, but that mostly our introduction to the Notch on arrival was one of a  hidden landscape.

For the  week we were in New Hampshire rain was relentless each day, with the exception of mid-week's Wednesday. Then, though most of the day the sky remained cloud-dense and dark, as the afternoon wore on to early evening, the sun did reveal itself. Leaving us with one day out of the week when we were able to plan for an entire day's outing, when we drove on to Sabbaday Falls and from there to Rocky Gorge and the Lovquest Trail to give our little dogs the opportunity for a longer hike than we were able to manage with them the other days of the week when more modest hikes were called for in brief periods of light rain or between rain events.

It was different on our return trip. We left the cottage we rented for the week under almost-clearing skies on a very cold and windy morning. We had said goodby to our hosts whom we've known for decades. For a change it wasn't raining. Jackie and Jillie settled down quietly, seasoned travellers that they are. We saw a doe in a clearing, and now and again wild turkeys singly, in pairs and in groups as we passed.

On our daily drives to various hiking spots we had seen turkey vultures circling the sky over the highways not far from the forest verges and the mountains beyond. But on this occasion we were surprised to see a large group of turkey vultures wheeling about on the wind, over a forest canopy. We'd never seen such a large gathering of these birds before, but now know that as birds liking companionship among their peers, such a gathering is called a 'kettle'. They're scavenger-feeders, carrion-eaters.

What was peculiar was that when we reached the Franconia Notch this time driving in the opposite direction to our arrival, we drove directly into heavy rain. Thick mist and fog enveloped the summits and rose into the rain-saturated sky. Odd, because most often when we're leaving New Hampshire and passing through the Notch, it tends to be clear. This time Eagle's Cliff could only be glimpsed through the rain and fog and mist, while Mount Lafayette was completely shrouded.

We arrived back home at 4:30 p.m. Taking into account our stop at the Vermont rest stop where we always take grateful advantage of their amenities, including being able to exercise our puppies in a bit of a walk along their grassy verge. It 's also where we use their rest room, and their picnic grounds where we take our leisurely time eating brunch; actually the breakfast we hadn't eaten before leaving the cottage. Our little dogs enjoyed a hard-boiled egg between them, and offered to help us eat our tangerines and bananas and crunchy peanut-butter-on-whole-wheat-buns breakfast.

Once home again, we decided to unpack the truck the following day, and instead take ourselves and the puppies out to the ravine for a restful hike through the forest to exercise our travel-weary limbs and relieve the stress of the drive back home. A cold day with a high of 10C, 40mph wind, moderated by a warming sun that had been absent all week long.

 

The sun just couldn't be persuaded to maintain its vigil today. We thought it only fair that since yesterday's rain was relentless, never offering us an opportunity to get out into the wild green of the ravine, the least nature could do to compensate was offer us a full cloudless sky today. But she has her own agenda and doesn't take kindly to offers of help in arranging natural global events.

If she decides the earth should shake, it does, volcanoes to erupt, they do, the moon to draw the tides, it does, hurricanes and tornadoes to howl through the atmosphere and flood the earth, they obey. As for whining over a day lost to rain, well just forget it. Who do you think you are, anyway?

We were given options for the next best and acquiesced with, we would hope, adequate grace. And so it is that we have a quite cool and windy, sometimes-overcast, occasionally sunny, threatening-rain-again Wednesday. No complaints from this quarter. Well, perhaps a few very discreet ones, but they have nothing whatever to do with the weather.

The frustration quotient was fully given over to Immigration Canada today in its impossibly-irritating registration process for ArriveCAN. That's the truly dotty protocol this government of Canada has set up to frustrate and infuriate both Canadians returning from abroad and foreigners wishing to travel to Canada. My efforts at registration this afternoon stalled at the very first steps; email and password.

Not to fret, the program assured me, an email will be sent to enable you to reset your password. Only it wasn't. I waited and I waited and I waited, although patience is not one of my scarce virtues.  Try re-registering? Oh, you're kidding, right? There is a complaint mechanism at one's disposal where a number of listed complaints can be checked off; conveniently for the program, inconveniently for the complainer, no space to lodge a specific complaint. Simmer in silence.

However, we did enjoy a most pleasant trek through the forest trails with Jackie and Jillie. In yesterday's local paper there was a cautionary story. In the city's west end coyotes have been making their presence known in the most horrendous of ways; snatching small pets that are never again seen. One coyote in particular appears to have lost reserve for the presence of humans. At a neighbourhood outdoor gathering a very small dog leaped off its person's lap into nearby shrubbery.

When those present saw a coyote loping off with the ten-pound, two-year-old pup, it couldn't be retrieved. This evidently is a coyote so accustomed to the presence of people it can be seen during daylight hours on streets, in schoolyards. We're in the east end of the city. We've had no word of the presence of coyotes since last winter. During our hike through the trails today, Jackie and Jillie were uncomplainingly kept on leash.

 

Amazing, took no time at all for summer's last-gasp heat wave to be overtaken by early fall. All week we've been languishing in overheated humidity. Deep humidity, under mostly overcast skies, but rain held off. When the sun did succeed in banishing the clouds its heat was powerful, pouring down on humidity-exhausted mortals below.

Fortunately we had the escape function of the forest to lavish shade and the occasional whisper of cooling breezes on us through our usual daily forays along the forest trails in the ravine. Where fungi are slowly beginning to evidence themselves on the vegetation-clearing forest floor as they tend to do in spring and fall, and berries of all kinds have surpassed their ripeness stage, now beginning to shrivel and dry up.

Jillie

But no hike through the forest today for any of us, a rare occasion when weather calls the shots and we react. From early morning throughout the day rain came pelting down. The forecast advised that the rain would be heavy at times in an on-and-off pattern for the day. That was the forecast. The weather decided it had the final say and decided to cancel the 'off' portion of 'on-and-off'.

We had planned in our innocence to get out earlier than usual for our daily forest hike, but that's a plan that was soon scuppered, the expectation drenched in ongoing rain. We'd meant to take Jackie and Jillie out before their afternoon groomer's appointment. Instead, we engaged ourselves in plenty of indoor things, mostly in preparation for an upcoming trip.

Jackie

Well, there were other things; J&J's bedding to be washed along with their towels. And given the transition to cooler weather and certainly wetter weather, we moved our summer clothing to make room for fall and winter clothing. I pre-prepared dinner by making  up cheese blintzes to have with a side dish of green beans, and blueberries for dessert, and just refrigerated the blintzes, the final frying to be finished off at dinner time.

While the puppies were at the groomers we did some grocery shopping, not the usual full shopping since we'll be away, but mostly fresh fruit and vegetables to carry us over for part of the week. An hour and a half after delivering our two sprites to the groomers we picked them up, their barking greeting us as they watched through a window as we toddled up the walkway to the spa.

The rain failed to repent its intrusion into our day and just kept coming down. So what do you do on a persistently rainy day? On impulse I'd bought nail polish, something I haven't used in decades. I thought I'd do a little primping. So after putting all the groceries away, preparing little vegetable salads for an avid J&J, I painted my fingernails. 

It's interesting how quickly my nails grow, despite all the housework (washing dishes, and floors and doing laundry) and gardening work the season offers. But come winter that changes. The rate of growth is slowed, and the quality of the nail formulation is affected, even though we take vitamin D supplements daily.

Here's hoping the nature will tone down the rate and level of rain tomorrow. We won't count on it, though. Looking online at the ten-day forecast for Waterville, N.H., it's clear that the weather we're having and the weather there won't be all that different. Cooler days, heavily overcast, but mostly light rain.