Today, another generous gift -- and likely the final one before the onslaught of winter --from Mother Nature. The high temperature this afternoon was 21C, absolutely balmy; almost tropical, our minds tell us. Too warm for jackets for any of us. A delightful breeze and now and again the sun breaking through a light cloud cover. What to do with this beautiful day? 

 

For us, the obvious answer is to get out into the forest and make the most of the warmth and the gentle breeze that accentuated it. The forest remains a sea of colourful foliage laid down on the forest floor. Depending on the deciduous trees dominating any given area, the emphasis of the leaf mass can be warm browns, golds or gold mixed with pinks. The entire mass viewed with filtered light caressing it looks like parchment.

 

 

Jackie and Jillie, free to wander where they will, as long as they remain in sight, amble about here and there, sniffing here, shuffling up the leaves over there, alert to a squirrel in the opposite direction.  Now and again greeting friends, or welcoming new ones. Like the Great Dane that came into view and was briefly and mildly interested in our two little shrimps. The Dane was just about the size of a doe and almost as graceful, its coat sleek, its chest deep and muscular.

 

We stopped briefly by the skeleton of a dead Ash tree. A remnant of the once-thriving Ashes growing in the forest until the arrival of the Emerald Ash borer that within a few years destroyed the trees. Many of them were cut down, many others left standing, silent sentinels reproaching nature. A few of those trees left for dead began to develop 'branches' some three feet up the trunk of the tree, well below the dead crown. The 'branches grew rapidly, a dozen or more encircling the trunk; the tree making an effort through its still-living roots to prolong its existence.

 

It occurred to us that we might soon see manifestations in the forest of the just-past Halloween. And sure enough, down one of the hilly slopes there lay a pumpkin, rolled from the height upon which we stood down to a densely treed sloped 'valley' of the ravine. It's possible some animals will find nutrition in the pulpy flesh of the gourd. In the winter it will freeze, when spring arrives it will begin the process of serious decay and become part of the forest compost.

 

After our hike through the forest trails, it was time to apply ourselves to finishing up preparing the garden for winter. There were still several garden pots to be emptied; a wheel-barrow-full of garden soil to trundle over to the backyard and spread out on the garden beds there. Then the lawn was raked of its fallen leaves. And finally Irving mowed the grass for the last time before winter's arrival. 

We're destined to slip from today's 21C to a high of 9C in the following few days. In our experience by the time Remembrance Day comes arouund on the 11th, so too will the first of the coming season's snow flurries.