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.