The perennialy longed-for but still unexpected fall gift from nature has arrived. And it's taken us by surprise, even though we've been accustomed to their occurrences most falls, when the ambient temperature is reduced from frigid to balmy and the winds seem more like breezes than imperious aggression. We've gone from afternoon highs of 6C, and night-time lows of 0C, to this afternoon's high of 18C. Where two days ago we bundled up against the cold, heading out for our daily ravine jaunts, today a light cotton jacket sufficed.

 

We basked in the warmth and light of a benevolent sun casting its blessings down upon us -- light, white wisps of cloud swirling through the wide blue sky. My frenetic activity yesterday afternoon trying to wrap up the gardens for their winter sleep and not coming close yet to finishing the job sees a reprieve. If this weather means to linger for a week, even more, I should have ample time to get the job done.

 

I used a wheelbarrow myself yesterday when trundling the garden soil from the huge garden pots at the front garden over to the back garden for disposal. The emptied pots will be assembled and covered with a protective tarp overwinter. Accumulated snow will build up around and over them. I've still tons of perrennials to cut back. Now, I'll have the time to do all of it, graciously offered by this mediating weather event.

 

But it was the industrial-size/weight wheelbarrows of the fencing crew that left us with huge sticky clods of clay all over the walkways. Thanks to the weather, Irving saw an opportunity this morning to get out with a hoe, a long-handled scrub-brush, the garden hose and pails of soapy water to scrape it all off, then wash it down, returning an ugly mess back to its 'clean' condition where neither we nor the puppies will track the muck into the house any longer.

 

We went off to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie after we both completed our household work for the day. I've planned for a lentil-vegetable soup and sesame-seed/cheese croissants with smoked salmon for dinner. Both to be prepared on our return from the forest. It's the kind of soup I use an immersion blender with to render it into a smooth slurry. And the croissants to go into the oven just a short while before dinnertime.

 

Colours in the ravine are fast being drained, the foliage on the forest floor transitioning to that dark, bleak grey, the leaves crisping as they dehydrate and become this year's compost over generations of fall foliage enriching the soil of the forest. What had fallen and had been bright gold, red and orange, is now becoming a uniform dark grey. Novembr is like that; dark and grey, and it's on the way.

In the meantime, however, we're into Indian Summer, and very much appreciated. Anyone we encountered in the ravine today had big smiles on their faces. The atmosphere was so balmy, the wind so gentle, no one could sustain a bad mood. 

 

When we returned home and did a walkthrough of the garden, we marbelled at the fresh flowering presence of dahlias and begonias. I had meant to leave them rather than compost them until the very last minute. Which would be when the cold and penetrating frost had finally established in the ground. The flowers look so fresh and beautifully colourful it would represent a botanicl crime to shorten their lifespan, so I won't, just yet.