Now that the fence in our backyard is finally being replaced after the original began falling apart, we're facing a dilemma with the puppies. They can no longer be allowed into the backyard. It's become a morass of clay from the depth at which the fence installers had to dig down to securely establish the posts before setting up the fence. And it's really hard work for them. They had to do it by sheer brute labour, not enough room to work behind trees and shrubs for an auger to be used.

 

Fencing is laid out horizontally in the middle of the backyard. There are obstacles everywhere, from people busily moving about our tiny backyard, to tools of all kind. So if Jackie and Jillie have to relieve themselves we take them out the side door to the side garden or out to the front of the house, and that confuses them. They're not accustomed to using the garden area in the front or the lawn as a waste receptacle.

 

When we got up this morning, there were so many people in the backyard we knew their presence would add another dimension of frantic confusion, so we decided to alter our schedule somewhat. Breakfast could wait. We went out directly to the ravine with the puppies. Just as well it was a perfectly lovely morning. The air was calm, clear and cool. The sun making quick work of warming the atmosphere.

 

 

It's the epitome of relaxing to be out there in the forest. We hear crickets and overhead, crows coasting and cawing, a sound we both love. And the aroma of the warming earth, the fall smells of crisp-drying   foliage lying in heaps underfoot. Even the moderately strenuous work of climbing uphill ti ascend the hilly geology of the ravine, sometimes a challenge, seemed effortless.

 

Now and again we met up with one or another of our many hiking friends, and invariably someone will want to stand around for prolonged periods, talking. On one occasion there was a gathering of four groups, and the dogs, long familiar with each other, enjoyed the opportunity to contest one another for little bouts of happy interactions. 

 

We spent so much time in the woods this morning, by the time we returned home, showered, set the table, prepared breakfast, it was almost noon. Which made for good hearty appetites for Jackie and Jillie. Even the audible and visual presence of unfamiliar people working in the backyard fails now to send them into a frenzy of prolonged barking. An initial short, sharp barking acknowledging the presence of strangers, and then they're becalmed.

 

In the afternoon  I went back out to the garden at the front of the house, to begin some of the time-consuming and necessary cut-backs in preparation for putting the garden to sleep for winter. Earlier in the day the municipal gathering-up of garden waste took away five full and heavy bags of garden compost from our driveway from last week's preliminary clean-up process.

Outside for an hour-and-a-half, I managed to fill up another two of those giant bags, with cuttings of hostas, hydrangeas, pulling up frosted annuals, rose canes and other garden waste. I hauled one of the bags to the backyard to leave it in one of the garden sheds but it was like a forbidding obstacle course, and I left the second one in the garage.