With the swooping in of cold weather, it was time to change so many things, from the clothing we wear, to the covering on our beds, to the food we eat. So yesterday we had chicken soup with noodles for a change, and chicken thighs, deboned and skinned, baked with mushrooms done to a crisp. Also in the oven was a potatonik (potato pudding) and roasted cauliflower, all good hearty winter alternatives to the lighter fare we have in warmer weather.

For tonight I put on a soup featuring broccoli, and that'll be a cream of broccoli soup. I saw a recipe in the 'Living' section of the newspaper a few days back that I thought was really intriguing, and felt it would pair nicely with the soup. I hope it was worth the bother. By the time I was finished with preparing it, I had an amazing number of kitchen implements, bowls, frypan, blender, measuring cups and other cooking helpers to wash. But it looks fine, and I hope it'll taste that way. With two cups of corn kernels, cornmeal, flour, butter, eggs, sourcream, honey, and a dash of cayenne pepper, it will be different. Not cornbread, but corn pudding.

Just before I started that, I took out a package of cranberries I'd frozen, and decided to make cranberry sauce. That done, I won't have to think about it on Monday when I roast a turkey breast. And before that, I was out in the backyard cutting back vegetation, especially around the fencing, hoping to make it a little more accessible for the fencing crew coming in on Tuesday. Rose canes were cut back, and most of the hostas in the backyard, along with lily streamers and peonies. I ended up with five huge compost bags for pick-up on Wednesday morning.

And even before that, we had gone out to the ravine for our afternoon hike. A cold and windy day, but a sunny one, as well. Jackie and Jillie were geared as colourfully as the colour-transforming backdrop surrounding us, the forest canopy brilliant with green, yellow, red, pink and orange. It isn't only the deciduous trees that shed their leaves in autumn, so too do pines and there are plenty of pines in the forest. Their needles are piling high on the forest trails.

When we set out on our hike, there was a tiny woolly-bear caterpillar just pas the entrance to the ravine. The tiny creature had stalled itself in the middle of the trail and just sat there. When we returned from our hike over an hour later, it was still sitting in the same spot. Miraculous, it hadn't moved and yet hadn't been stepped on. Irving gently raised him into his hand and carried him over to the bracken on the forest floor; he had curled into a little self-protective ball, but there he would be safe from human foot traffic.