When our daughter was born, our second child, she was in a hurry. We'd entreated with the nurse on duty at the maternity ward to call our doctor; she had, but had informed him there was no hurry; he could turn back over and get in another hour's sleep. By the time he eventually arrived he was ten minutes late for the delivery. The nurse who'd assured him, trained in Britain as a midwife, had told my husband to slip on hospital greens and assist her in delivering our daughter.

When, 34 years later, I watched our granddaughter slip from her mother's womb into independent life, we'd had to impress upon nurses that birth was imminent; a gynaecologist-obstetrician who had just finished delivering her patient's baby had to be co-opted into another delivery, before our daughter's obstetrician had arrived. The memory is acute in my mind of a tiny baby with long slender fingers and toes.

She was, in fact, a tiny girl as she grew toward school-age attendance, spending every day of the working week with her grandparents. When she entered the world I was just about to enter my 60th year. And for the next decade her day-time care was in our hands.

Yesterday, as she folded me into a big hug, she smiled down at me, saying she was convinced that I kept growing smaller every time she saw me.

There is no denying the obvious. Nature speaks to us and only those oblivious to seasonal transition are not affected. At night, from our backyard under the cover of darkness, we can hear the incessant tiny peeps of migrating songbirds calling to one another, leaving us for warmer climates in anticipation of oncoming winter. During the day, we hear the unmistakable, skyward-distant sounds of geese flapping their formations to the south, drawn by their instinct to survival to leave our northern climate before winter arrives.

The evenings now are cool, and the mornings the same. There's a chill on the air that only a clear sunny day is capable of dissipating. Several days ago we got caught out while on our ravine walk, in a powerful wind-and-rainstorm. We had dallied, talking too long with others we met along the way. It hadn't seemed likely when we had set out that we would encounter rain. We did see what looked like thunderheads far off, however.

I'd taken the precaution of stuffing little Riley's raincoat into one of my pockets, and took along as well a single umbrella, as I'd done on many previous occasions. We'd had many close calls with thunderstorms this year. Some of them amazing; beginning just as we concluded our daily ramble, and had reached our house.

This time the thunder rumbled far off. And after awhile there occurred suddenly a single loud clap nearby, when we'd parted with someone we had chatted long with, deep in conversation. At that point we were almost halfway through our daily circuit. And at that point we decided to double back, to return the way we had come because though at the half-way point, it represented a straighter, less arduous journey back to the ravine ingress on our street.

But the rain beat us out. Despite which, though we put Riley's raincoat on him, we didn't bother unfurling the umbrella because the forest canopy succeeded wonderfully in keeping us dry, but for the occasional large plop that landed on us. It was only when we left the security of the forest and embarked onto the street that the umbrella was lifted, protection achieved in part. Where our bodies met in communion as we paced ourselves down the street to our house we remained dry; the outside portions as we strode along quickly became drenched.

The wind did its malicious best to see to that. And the rain, dropping heavily from a now-darkened sky was more than happy to comply with the urging of the wind. Our brief exposure was all that was required for us to arrive back home, half-dry, half-drenched, and laughing all the way.

Today we've no sun, unlike yesterday when Riley spent most of the day, however cool it was, basking in the sun he so loves. Today he must make do with lying alongside the fireplace in our family room, taking from its flaming heat whatever comfort he can.

At one of the bridges, where the barricades had been set aside for several weeks by some nearby resident who had taken exception to their having been closed off for access to the ravine trails, we came across a crew of two municipal workers who were busy taking soil samples from the area under the bridge. The purpose, of course, was to try to arrive at a conclusion about the rate of erosion. The bridges, sturdy affairs far more costly to build than their predecessors and meant to withstand the effects of erosion for a long time were erected a scant five years ago.

And now they were deemed by the local parks and recreation ministry to be in danger of collapsing as a result of steady environmental degradation? I recall about ten years ago coming across provincial environmental engineers who were taking samples and evaluating the extent of changes taking place in the ravine and who, when I'd mentioned the erosion and other types of environmental damage we had ourselves noted over the past years, had laughed. Nothing out of the normal for the area, they had assured me then.

The bridge closures have been a real irritant to those people who depend on the ravine and its trails for their leisure-time activity, their accessible and enhanced enjoyment of nature. Time and again the municipal employees have put those barriers in place, and just as often some local has taken the initiative to remove them. Not destroying anything in the process, but removing the lag bolts or huge nails that have been used alternately to put them in place.

Day before yesterday we came across someone on one of the trails, a tall, elegant-looking man, and I called out to him that his height must present as a challenge ducking under the bridge barricades, that  had just recently been re-installed. He stopped, grinned wryly and said he was an employee of the parks and recreation department. He also lives nearby and has done so for decades. He knows the ravine intimately, he has taken his own children over the years through it.

So we stood there, talking and explaining the irritation of trail users and he commiserated in complete understanding of our frustration. He had himself suggested, he said, that they simply post signage reading "use at your own risk", but his superiors had shrugged it off. But, he said, it was useful for him to be able to discuss the issue with others resident in the area who often use the trails.

And, as far as he is aware, there is no intention to block off access to the trails indefinitely. A solution to the issue of soil degradation leading to slippage of the main support posts holding the bridges in place is being looked for. And eventually, he said, the bridges will either be placed under reconstruction or replaced. But the cost and the work involved won't be attractive to city administrators nor to city council. Prepare for taxes to rise.

On the return portion of our circuit we discovered that someone had, in the interval, kicked down several of the barricades. Then taken the trouble to flatten the nails in the downed barricades to ensure that no one might be injured.

One of our neighbours remarked admiringly a few days back how good our gardens still look this late in the season; fresh and colourful. Compared to what? I asked myself, while responding with a thanks but rebutting his perception (not meaning to seen churlish, just relieving myself of my own impressions).

With my own remarks on how disappointing the gardens have turned out to be this summer. I've noticed that generally speaking most gardens, like our own, looked pretty exhausted, and anything but colourful. A certain amount of that should be expected at this time of year when late-blooming perennials still labour to pepper the garden with colour, while annuals continue to pump out their floral displays.

This year, unlike all others past that I can recall, the annuals have long since seen their better times, and the perennials are struggling to put some colour into a monochromatic scene of greenery. Green, we have lots of it, in various shadings.

It's the foliage that has done well, not the flowers, this year. And in a sense, that's kind of odd. There's been a lot of rain, so much that we have hardly had to water the gardens, the garden pots and floral urns; nature has done that for us.

There's also been no deficit of sun, since we've had plenty of that too, the sun beaming down hot and bright just as we're accustomed to seeing it in the summer months. So it's a bit of a mystery.

Our tomato plants have rendered few fruit, despite an initial burst of offerings. There's been runaway growth on the vine-and-leaf portion of the plants, though. And it's only now, fairly late in the growing season that they've been covered with flowers. There won't be time, I'm certain, for the fruit to develop and ripen before real fall with frosty nights kick in. We've already had intimations of their onset.

So, it's a bit of a puzzle. Aside from which we enjoy and admire whatever the gardens continue to entertain us with; winter remains a way off, yet.

Sixty years ago I last sat in a school classroom. I completed Grade 10 high school, and that was when my parents felt I had achieved a high enough degree of academic education to prepare me for the working world. I was expected to find a job, to earn what I could, and add to my family's financial fortunes. Although my parents by then owned their own home, it was a modest one to house two adults and four children with the occasional room rental to perfect strangers. And some of them were, to be truthful, perfectly strange.

I had wanted to continue school, although I was a mediocre student at the best of times. And when I was informed that I could not anticipate returning to school it upset me terribly for I had no wish to leave the educational environment, just at a time when I felt I was beginning to at last hit my stride, I had no option but to obey my parents. I attribute my love for literature and my voracious reading habit to my informal, ongoing education from that time on.

So it strikes me as rather awry to see obvious spelling and grammatical errors commonly published in newspapers, on product labels, on signage. Canada boasts a literacy rate (basic functionality in reading and writing) of 97%, although that would surely be open to scrutiny. Canada rates 7th out of 16 peer countries in university graduation rates.

Close to 27% of working-age Canadians have a university degree, above the 16-country average, but well below the leader, Norway, which has a superior university completion rate of 35%. Norway, the United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia all have higher university completion rates than Canada. It's debatable from my personal experience with the use of the language whether the United States surpasses Canada's dismal record in media expression.

Which leads me to a little pet peeve of mine mentioned above; the spelling and grammar errors too often seen in the public arena. Two of my three children have university certification at the doctoral level, one has a college degree. The two who write countless scholarly, academic papers practise exquisite writing skills, while the third does on occasion slip into spelling errors that cause me to wince.

One would think that having a well-remunerated professional position in advertising or public relations would require a sound background in English, in flawless writing techniques. So I was rather taken aback when I bought a Canadian-manufactured-and-bottled shampoo (as opposed, say to the far more ubiquitous product manufactured and imported from China) and to my dismay saw an obvious and inexcusable error in spelling:

A trifling thing perhaps, but a symbol and symptomatic of gross ineptitude, inexactitude in language proficiency and an unforgivable oversight by the producers and distributors of the product, none of whom appear to be the least bit aware, oblivion being the obverse side of public relations.

The error a reflection of the inability to differentiate between the possessive and plurality.

Yesterday we were delighted, as always, to be confronted by Stumpette. She has taken the place that Stumpy used to occupy for us, in anticipation of an encounter, the delight of observing how he would interact with us, and our response to his expectations motivating us to continue to bring with us bags of peanuts on our daily ravine strolls, because of his sense of personal entitlement and his boldness in approaching us.

Stumpy and Stumpette had much in common, although their personalities are quite different. She lacks his boldness, though not his overt sense that our presence in his environment required that we offer tokens to him of our appreciation of both his antics and his tolerance for our encroaching upon his home in our daily excursions.

They are -- were, in the case of Stumpy, our original friend, whose presence we have missed for two years, and whose friendship we prized for the previous six years -- both small black squirrels. And each of them absent a tail. Presumably because, in the nest when they were newly born, they had become twisted together with those of their siblings, and nature's solution was to have one nibbled away so all could survive. I recall friends who used to operate a wild animal shelter informing me years ago that they would on occasion receive such nestlings and have to spend frustrating hours trying to separate the intertwined tails.

We named our little black tailless friend for obvious reasons, differentiating him from all the other squirrels that abound in the wooded ravine. And when we had made a tentative acquaintance with the second little black tailless squirrel years after our initial introduction to Stumpy, our granddaughter had named that little creature Stumpette, on the assumption it was a female, a conceit that we have maintained in the subsequent five or six years.

She is now approaching the presumed age that Stumpy had attained when we no longer had the pleasure of his intermittent company on our ravine walks. Although there are other squirrels, grey and black, but never red, a far more edgily suspicious little breed, with whom we've become familiar and who similarly confront us for peanuts, not satisfied to visit the usual cache spots where they're left daily, it is the two little squirrels sans tails that managed to grab our affection.

Yesterday, while I was cleaning the house, my husband went out to do some shopping. He went to the bank, he went to Home Depot; then; because they didn't have the lumber he was looking for he ended up at Lowe's. And there was surprised to see well-finished pine boards selling for an irresistible price, so anticipating future projects, on top of the one he's currently involved with, he bought quite a bit of that stuff. Good thing he went prepared, with the car-top carrier in place.

He was by no means finished. From there to Farm Boy where he saw more irresistible buys, coming home with a giant cantaloupe to join the other cantaloupe sitting in the refrigerator along with a honeydew melon, and of course we'd had cantaloupe with our breakfast that very morning. They're locally in season, and delicious. Also, like producing a rabbit out of a habit, my very own magician showed me proudly the fresh sausages he had bought and was proposing to barbecue for dinner. They needed buns to go with them and they also were produced.

And dropping by the bulk food store as well, gained us a large bag of muesli. Oops, it had slipped his mind that he already had a bag of the stuff and didn't particularly like it all that much; the raisins tend to become mushy when the muesli is cooked however briefly and he could hardly find any of the advertised hazelnuts that were supposed to be in the mix.

When my housecleaning was done we set out for a ravine walk, and on our return I plopped on the sofa with the newspapers and he dispatched himself into the kitchen. I could hear him banging things around, being very busy doing something, which I assumed was making preparations to use his bread machine. I asked, and he confirmed. The ingredients he carefully assembled, he informed me later, were yeast, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, candied fruit, spices and flour. What eventually came out of the bread maker was an indigestible sweet-loaf, much to his crestfallen disappointment.

What's in the oven at this very moment, is a yeast-raised coffee cake that I put together this morning and left to rise while we went out for a morning walk. In it is grated orange zest, a bit of orange juice, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, along with walnuts, raisins and cinnamon. When we left, the mixture filled a scant one-quarter of the tube pan I'd prepared to receive it. On our return from the ravine walk, the volume had more than doubled.

My husband has such fond memories of the yeast-risen buttercakes his mother used to bake. He's looking forward to this one.