Yet again summer convinced autumn it was not yet time for cold to prevail, and autumn courteously stepped aside, permitting summer to temporarily continue its presence, warm and comforting complete with wide blue sky and a shimmering sun to further warm the atmosphere. Autumn seemed content to sit on the sidelines envying summer's popularity as it witnessed disbelief and joy on the faces of those who peopled nature's precincts.

 

We can hardly believe this weather as it continues to see the sun glow, rain sprinkle the landscape, warmth pervade and the gardens wanly responding. The garden knows its time is up for another season. It still struggles to provide pleasure, and it succeeds in its mission while understanding it is with profound regret that the gardener must prepare everything for oncoming winter. The flowers will be gone, frost will nip its late buds, the foliage will drift down from all the trees that comprise the height of the garden architecture.

 

Remaining berries and tiny crabapples will obligingly provide treats for overwintering birds. The masses of geese flying overhead on their fall migration will be stilled. They join the songbirds and hummingbirds on their annual trip to kinder winter climes. Jackie and Jillie will be slightly less amenable to popping out to the backyard on purposeful trips, morning to nighttime. 

 

The weather forecast told of light rain events for this afternoon. The sun had other ideas and it came for a prolonged visit. Not wanting to waste its effort, we took ourselves out to the ravine with Jackie and Jillie towing us along. There, we found the forest floor and the woodland trails just as steeped in as-yet-unabsorbed rainwater as in previous days. Although no rain fell today, fallen leaves continued to cup yesterday's rain, glittering like crystalline jewels in the half-light of the forest interior.

 

Despite the ambience of the day, there weren't many out on the trails today. A situation we selfishly applaud, since little detracts us from our observations of the natural world embracing us, in their absence. Jackie and Jillie run ahead, then return and walk calmly beside us or at our heels. Jillie has always had a habit of rubbing her head on the back of our legs as we all toddle along. She does this if on occasion she knows she has not behaved well. It is her way of ingratiating herself, of asking forgiveness.

 

 

They are so unalike in character and temperament, she and her brother. When she is scolded she affects to be unimpressed, sloughing it off. But it does bother her when she is not in good grace, and her tendency to rub her head on the back of our legs is her signal of repentance. Her brother, on the other hand, becomes quite demoralized when he is reprimanded for anything; his reaction is instant and alarmed; his tendency is to distance himself, then drop behind as we progress, walking at our heels. As for those dogs we did come across, they instantly recognize Mister Cookie Man.

There was no need at all to admonish them for anything today. Other than to 'shush' them when they bark hellishly at other dogs approaching. There were scant few occasions today. But what we did see was a number of new fathers and mothers from the wider community accessing the forest from streets nearby, separately pushing those tough-wheeled baby strollers on the upper portion of the main forest trail where it describes a circle, well above the ravine itself. 

Sometimes, particularly on a warm summer evening, you just don't feel like having anything complicated or heavy to eat, so it's just as well that all kinds of salads invite themselves to the dinner table for a light, satisfying meal. I tend not to cook fish in the summer months, other than in fairly light fish chowders, preferring instead to make use of tinned fish like salmon and tuna. For tuna, I turn to Irving because he makes the absolute best tuna salad.  

 

Yesterday though, we  had Sockeye salmon featured atop a potato salad. Nothing done to the salmon, it's good on its own. The potato salad along with the salmon provide all the necessary protein, carbohydrate and fats a meal should be comprised of. Yukon gold are the absolute best all-'round potatoes for any use and they shine in a potato salad, along with onion and snap peas for crunch, well seasoned with salt (lightly) and pepper (heavily) and mayonnaise.

 

Tonight is Irving's turn; I've prepared chicken drumsticks and baking potatoes (Yukon gold) and put together a fresh broccoli salad (chopped fresh broccoli, sliced green onion, dried cranberries, salt, pepper, cider vinegar, mayonnaise: yum!), for dinner. Yesterday we bought strawberries grown in Quebec and that'll constitute our dessert. Irving will nurse the drumsticks on the barbecue to a fine, crisp finish and that will represent quite the contrast to yesterday's dinner. 

 

We were out fairly early in the afternoon on this beautiful first of September. A cool temperature of 24C, full sun glimmering in an ocean of blue accompanied by the usual cooling breeze, and if that isn't summer perfection, correct me! As cool as it is out at street level, it's cooler still in the ravine toddling through the forest trails. There are more butterflies around now; mostly cabbage butterflies, but the occasional Monarch as well.

 

We came across a few other  hikers and dogs. Jackie and Jillie, the little monster bullies, terrified a large dog with their hostile, frenetic barking. Jillie instigates the harassment, and Jackie joins in with great enthusiasm. They both ignore us when we tell them to stop until my voice gets really angry and strident, and then they return to us, abashed, while I try to reassure the large dog hanging back, fearful of passing them. A few minutes later, they're all tail-wagging friendly with another large dog they're familiar with.

They are incorrigible little bullies. 

 

We come across an amusing little tableau; a ripe, red apple that has been well nibbled, left on top of a flat-topped tree trunk. Someone's dinner table. Close by the forest floor under a patch of wild apple trees, is littered with fallen apples, bright red ornaments, every one of which has had at least one bite taken out of it.

 

When we eventually reach the meadow, which we've bypassed while the landscape was drenched from heavy rains, it just doesn't look quite as it did a month, even a few weeks earlier. Many of the black-eyed Susans are in deep decline. The purple loosestrife flowers are now a bedraggled grey, many of the compass plant flowers have gone to seed, very little is left of the once-prolifically-budded evening primrose. There are a few clumps of fleabane looking pretty fresh among the long grasses. Along with some late-blooming B-E Susans.

 

But on the other  hand, the well colonized area taken over by the Himalayan balsam remains a crowded tenement of happy little pink orchid faces, row after row until the hillside they've expanded within gives way to the forest beyond.

 

After Jackie and Jillie have scarfed down their afternoon vegetable salad, out I go to the garden. It's a perfect day for anything out-of-doors, including awarding our hard-working garden pots with a fresh infusion of fertilizer and that's just what I planned on doing.