There was a brief interlude of sun early this morning, and when I said brief, that's just what it was. And early this morning, there was Dan, our neighbour, out again putting more Christmas decorations on his lawn,this time rough-hewn logs made to resemble deer and more outsize lights hanging from his trees. They take decorating in the out-of-doors seriously. 

 

 

First thing in the morning it's rarely warmer than 1C or 0C these days. Unless we get some kind of reprieve, we'll go directly into winter before long. But the garden has pretty well dried out now from yesterday's morning rain, so in the mid-afternoon I cut back the shrub roses and mounded them, and did the same with the hibiscus and rose mallow. Then I trimmed the larger of our two old tree peonies. 

 

 

 

I had to snip rose buds off a recently-(spring)planted yellow rose shrub, but the buds have been in suspended animation for weeks; simply too cold for them to bloom. From there I turned my attention to sweeping up the fallen leaves from our walkways and patios, although there will be more to come down yet. The mulberry trees have a habit of holding on to their leaves and then letting them go all at once, during the coldest of overnight frosts and that happened a few nights ago. Meanwhile, the ornamental crab trees have gradually shed their leaves, and the magnolia trees are now two-thirds shed of theirs.

 

Although we haven't any maple trees, it's inevitable that wind will bring maple leaves from other gardens on to ours, so maple and oak leaves joined with those from our trees. The last thing was raking the grass of fallen leaves, and that takes no time at all. There will be more to come.

Because it's become so cold, I decided we'd have a pulses-tomato soup for dinner this evening, and what would go better with a flavourful hot soup than fresh, crisp croissants. The bread dough I kneaded yesterday came out of the refrigerator and was rolled into croissant shape. I had shredded sharp Cheddar into the dough and mixed in sesame seeds, so the croissants will add their own flavour to accompany the soup.

 

It was fully and heavily overcast with a light, cold penetrating wind when we took Jackie and Jillie out to the ravine in the early afternoon. We had bought light-weight but snug little coats for them last fall for just this kind of weather and they really are good at keeping them dry and warm. They're also nice and bright; red for Jillie and blue for Jackie, so they show up well on the trails ahead of us, since we always want to keep them in sight.

 

Although we've been exposed to the same thing year after year, it's always a bit of an aesthetic shock to see the forest canopy so denuded. The colour that was so delightful last month when trees shed their brilliant foliage is also gone; the leaf mass has dried, desiccated and reduced in volume accordingly. No longer bright and beautiful, the forest looks slightly sullen, awaiting the colour-relief that snow will bring. 

 

 

We hadn't remembered that catkins appear at this time, hanging from the wild hazelnut shrubs, but there they were, dangling stiffly, in a precursor to evolving come spring, into much longer, looser catkins that 'bloom', eventually to produce hazelnuts. The catkins are the male fruiting bodies; spring breezes will blow male and female counterparts together in the production of the nuts.

Cold as it was in the air temperature, and even colder the icy flow of the creek at the bottom of the ravine, dogs find the water irresistible. As they will do even in the winter months before the creek freezes over. Some dogs, generally the larger ones, make a beeline for the creek when they foray through the ravine trails. An important part of their forest-hike ritual, irrespective of the weather. Somehow they manage to enjoy the water even when we'd freeze in it, and despite emerging into equally frigid air.