The out-of-doors has been transformed doubly, once on a long-term basis, though temporary, the other shorter-term and also temporary, though both repeat themselves interminably, year over year. Today is as raw a day as can possibly be imagined for fall. All of nature's elements in a bad mood, displaying a truly truculent face to the world. Heavily overcast and dark to begin with, then rain began and continued for hours, and with it a hostile wind to tear away foliage otherwise not prepared to depart their hosts just yet. The daytime high of 7C, seemed much, much colder. 

Not much we can do about the weather, that's nature's precinct and she brooks no interference from mere mortals. But October is fast disappearing, and soon November will arrive, with colder, wetter, windier days and by then there will be no leaves left for the wind to distribute through the landscape. Before that happens, the end of October has to come and go and with it the traditional kids' holiday of creepy Hallowe'en where normally nice children learn that threats work; if they shout trick or treat, invariably they're treated to the wherewithal of dentistry's worst nightmares.

Some of our neighbours have transformed their front lawns beyond preparations for winter by putting their gardens to sleep. They've conspired to give neighbourhood children a chill thrill. In place of traditional pumpkins, symbolic of the season and the wicked celebrations, and the witches flying high on broomsticks they never imagined their mothers capable of when sweeping up the detritus they bring indoors from the great outdoors, the morose imagination of homeowners has turned to the final frontier of life; death.

Oh yes, there are ghosts and goblins and ghouls galore, but there are also tombstones, graves, skeletons turning ordinary lawns into cemeteries. If that doesn't frighten innocent little kiddies with the apparitions of the afterlife, what would? Even little dogs respond. On one lawn sitting very comfortably not far from ours is a newcomer to the community whom Jackie and Jillie had never suspected existed. On their way up the street this afternoon padding along to the ravine, they were suddenly confronted with a pumpkin-headed bumpkin seated on a chair, surveying the streetscape.

Puppies don't scream in fright, they bark in high decibels of fear and back off from near proximity to the threat. The bumpkin failed to respond, obviously considering itself too dignified to be outraged over two little dogs' yelping recommendations that it absent its presence from the street that two little dogs are accustomed to patrolling as guards of the public weal. Finally, they parted, Mr. Bumpkin assuring them it was prepared to take their recommendation under advisement, and the puppies reassured that soon all would return to normal.

It felt beyond cold, in the ravine, the wind doing a thorough job of making the high temperature for the day as miserable as possible. The rain had stopped, but the trails were slippery still, the sky turning even darker as though the plan was to begin wringing the overload of moisture from the raggedy grey clouds above in celebration of nature's cranky attitude today. But the rain held off, for which we were grateful.

Despite being dressed for rain, when it's this cool combined with pelting rain and nasty wind, things can get pretty miserable. And Jackie and Jillie had suffered enough today having to put up with the bumpkin-scare; they needed a break...

When we wound up our hike through the forest trails and returned home, we stopped briefly to admire our neighbours' handiwork, then surveyed our own lawn. No Hallowe'en decorations, none at all, not a one. Not even a pumpkin or two. There are still some annuals left in pots, though the perennials have been cut back severely to greet winter and their long sleep. 

In the great, wide out-of-doors the sun warms and comforts us on frozen winter days. It does amazing things to the landscape, illuminating everything it falls upon. In our interior spaces we have to rely on other wanna-be suns to do the comforting and warming, and nothing does it quite like a fireplace. Any kind of fireplace. We happen to have a gas fireplace. It's a conversion we undertook as soon as we moved into this house of ours thirty years ago. Neater, tidier than a wood-burning fireplace. Just doesn't have the authentic fragrance...

So the fireplace warms our exterior selves, and we look about for something to suit our tastes in appearance, promise, fragrance and texture, to be placed on the dinnertime table. Nothing, absolutely nothing does it quite as well as a bowl of steaming hot, fragrant, delicious soup crammed with vegetables and an assortment of beans. And to help it all go down, fresh-baked bread with its heavenly aroma, crisp texture and mouth-watering taste, fulfilling both our sensuous and nutritional needs. 

When I'm rolling out the bread dough and slathering it with butter (or margarine), a thick sprinkling of sesame seeds goes over and then a good grating of sharp cheddar cheese. Folding and rolling out again and spread and repeat and repeat again does the trick. Sitting around relaxing after a good trek through the forest trails afterward, the soup bubbling away on the stove, the croissants in the oven, is the ultimate anticipation of good things to come.

A dessert-bowl of clementine sections each, cleanses the palate with its sweet. sharp citrus taste and that completes the ritual of fortifying ourselves to face the evening and a good night's rest. In the morning chickadees on the porch and surrounding trees informed us that they too enjoyed a hearty meal, as did the unmistakable pattern of scores of squirrel tracks on the snow.

Today turned out to be much milder than its predecessors this week. Nicely enough, it's a public holiday, Family Day, which neatly enough followed Valentine's Day. We were out in the woods with Jackie and Jillie following a light snowfall which itself had followed hours of morning sunshine. Today gave us a little bit of everything on the weather front. Above all, a high of -6C, welcome after the much colder temperatures of the last week.

Because it's a holiday and one emphasizing time with family we saw quite a few family groups out on the trails. Parents dutifully dragging sleds behind them, which their children might or might not use, since they also took advantage of the natural option of sledding downhill minus sleds. We watched as one man walking alone slid wildly downhill, just managing to catch and right himself as it looked toward the end that he might keel over.

And it's awfully hard not to note that finally the days are getting longer, they really are. No longer does twilight set in just after four in the afternoon. The sun is higher int he sky now, and takes longer, later to set. We have light longer into the late afternoon/early evening. We're now midway through February. In March, an uncertain-weather month here, we're in the home stretch to spring. And although it isn't entirely unknown to have snowstorms in Ottawa in April, even May, we think it'll be smooth sailing in a month's time.