Today is the first official day of Autumn. More or less. In that the fall equinox this year arrives in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I always think of September 21 as marking the first day of fall, it's fixed in my mind, but it's a moveable feast, evidently, give or take a day or two. In any event, this has been yet another in a series of lovely days. Mild temperatures and plenty of blue sky, and the occasional rain event. Just perfect for a waning summer and a fall chomping at the bit to enter.

I asked Irving what he'd like to have as a dinner dessert tonight. He thought about it. Hours later he asked if I had decided what I'd be baking. Given his absence of suggestion I had decided on baking coconut cupcakes, a treat we call Madeleines. When we were young, living in Toronto, bakeries in the Jewish district used to produce these cupcakes, and I bake them on occasion since they're one of Irving's many favourites.

I always use cake and pastry flour when I'm baking cupcakes and cakes because soft-wheat flour produces the lightest, airiest of cake batters and when they're baked they're beyond tender. I never did have the recipe used by the bakeries but I think the one I devised comes fairly close to what theirs might have been. Quite simple really, with a minimum of ingredients: 2/3 of a cup each granulated sugar and Becel margarine, 2 large eggs, a tsp vanilla, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1 cup of flour, 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder and a dash of salt. They can be made with or without 2/3 cup of shredded coconut.

They bake at 350F for about 30 minutes, just until they're firm and lightly browned. Once they're cooled I dip each cupcake top in raspberry jam, then in shredded coconut, and they're done!

Irving had had quite an interrupted sleep last night. Jackie wasn't feeling well, he hadn't eaten all day, and he began leaping down off the bed to wander about in the dark. Irving wakes, aware of all of this and he finds it profoundly disturbing. He goes after Jackie, brings him back to bed, speaks to him and strokes him, covers him and they both fall back asleep, but this went on several more times. By morning Jackie looked pretty comfortable and was behaving normally. And he made it clear he was starving. And ready to eat.

We took ourselves out to the ravine in the afternoon under a warm sun at 20C, with no wind. It was cooler but still comfortable under the forest canopy. The hike through the trails was good for Jackie, as it was for all of us and always is. We took a shortcut side-trail we've been avoiding this summer because it's unused and badly overgrown. Vegetation has dried and died down somewhat, leaving more of the trail clear albeit barely, and we wanted to see if some plants we'd noted there last summer had come up again.

The trail was in dreadful condition, unstable and sloping down toward the creek and quite uncomfortable underfoot. And there was no trace of the rogue tomatillos we'd spotted there last summer. But there was a small colony of big, bright-blue-pink asters, a few late-blooming daisies and a sprinkling of black-eyed Susans amongst the greater majority of milkweed, grasses, evening primrose, clover and sumacs.