The inevitable time has come. No longer will we be able to casually look out our glassed front door to look out at the gardens and the urns at the front of our house, to take in their fresh greenery, brilliant flowery colours and shapes and take deep satisfaction from the scene.

All has turned sere, the leaves dropping with each succeeding touch of light frost that night-time brings, preparing us for that eventual hard, killing frost.

And finally, I've had to remove all of the still-spectacular flowering plants, the wonderful begonias, the ever-blooming lobelia, the trailing petunias that were still faithfully colouring our fall world. All to be deposited into the compost pile which will later, when transformed into ready, rich compost, be used to further enrich the garden soil.

And the begonia bulbs will be taken down into our basement for over-winter storage, to be brought out again once winter has blown its last cold gusty winds and covered the landscape with a thick blanket of snow for the last time. In the spring, out come the bulbs once again, to be planted in readiness of preparing us for yet another summer of glorious shapes and colours.

In the meantime, we look out now on a bleak, green-absent, flamboyant-flower-less landscape and dream about the season that will herald another year of extravagant growth and joyful ease.

Well, he said, coming to a complete stop before us, a twinkle in his pale blue eyes. How old would you say my cousin is? Which seemed rather out of character for him, judging by the usual conversations we normally have with him, meeting out in the woods, each of us on our daily rambles through the ravine.

We've known him for a number of years, as a chance acquaintance, a pleasant man with a slight European accent. Winter or fall he wears a light red jacket, and a light cap, irrespective of wind, snow, icy rain, chill temperatures. Mind, he's always chugging along full speed ahead, with the aid of two walking sticks, one in either hand to help propel him along, determined to shorten his time as he has built up a formidable level of energy, post a serious heart surgery.

We, on the other hand, simply forge on, our two little dogs in tow, accommodating our gait to that of our companion animals, getting on in age, reflecting our own situation. And we'd always called him "the youngster" because of the gap in age between him and us, just under ten years. He's fit now, and thin as a rail, but because he keeps up such a head of steam, remains warm enough garbed so inadequately, to our way of thinking.

I responded first with a hesitant 68? He grinned widely and motioned with his stick-encumbered hands to raise my estimation. And so I did, by five-year increments and still he grinned and said "higher, higher". We'd gone well past our own age, and I could hardly fathom that the cheerful, clear-eyed, petite woman we'd seen with him last week was older then us by such a degree.

But she was, our friend said proudly, fully 87 years of age, and more than capable of holding her own on a brisk walk through the ravine with its hills and valleys, protruding roots and uneven trails. And she'd travelled on her own, from Switzerland, to visit with extended family, a brother-in-law in Toronto, and now visiting him as well, preparatory to a visit to Niagara Falls.

Quite a comeuppance, actually, to my pride in negotiating all of that at merely 75 years of age.

We're no longer required to inconveniently seek out another source of food supplies with the closing of the supermarket we've long used as our major food shopping venue. Gone is the original store; closed, and moved to another nearby location much more commodious and able as a result, to stock far more choices than the other.

Under construction for a relatively short period of time, earlier in the week the new venue was opened, and there were many advertised food specials to attract a crowd.

How much of crowd we discovered for ourselves when we finally drove over to the new location, about a five-to-seven-minute drive from our house. At that new location where all manner of merchandise can be purchased from any number of large new box-style stores, located along a stretch of major roadway, the new parking lot of the new store was packed with cars, more coming by the minute, all vying for parking spots. There was a cadre of parking attendants in evidence, no doubt hired to help things move along smoothly for the first week or so.

Inside the store the shopper is greeted with an immense space and aisle after wide aisle of foods of various types, with store employees desperately attempting to pack shelves that were being steadily emptied by hordes of shoppers. Everything is gleaming, sleekly new. There is so much to view, to select from, that it becomes confusing, one is assailed by a sense of sensory- and attention-overload.

It's nice to see a wide array of food products available, and the cleanliness and neatness of the new facilities are admirable, but shopping that was once a relaxed affair is fast becoming a harried one, with too much to see, to choose from amongst, and end up with, the weekly supermarket venture becomes a chore.

The only thing that can be said to favour this new location of our old shopping choice is that it is sticking with the stocking of food. Unlike other big-box stores it has not ventured into other than comestibles, offering linens and electronics and other non-food items for sale, further distracting from the original purpose of a food market.

We're fortunate in a sense, since our doctor of 40 years having retired, leaving us at age 74 without a personal physician, that we were both taken up singly, by other family doctors. Judging from their names and their accents, our new doctors are symbolic of East Europe's loss, and Canada's gain.

The shortage of general practitioners in Canada is acute, in some provinces more than others, since our medical schools are not churning out enough MDs to meet the challenge of an ever-growing population - and mostly through immigration to this country. As long as sufficient trained physicians emigrate from their countries of origin, along with other types migrating to greener pastures, as it were, we can keep our heads above water, so to speak.

But because of the shortage, many people, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, are without primary health-care specialists. That has led to a situation of overcrowding at those doctors' offices which have accepted possibly more patients than their practise can comfortably service. But there is also a growing trend toward multiple practitioners operating out of clinic-like offices, as opposed to the traditional single-physician office.

That too has led to an atmosphere where patients are being treated as though they represent widgets on a production line - to be serviced as expeditiously and impersonally as possible, to ensure that as little time as possible is spent on the needs of any single patient.

Hopefully, without impairing the level of treatment and attention required by any single patient.

We were taken aback a few days ago while making our way through the ravine, in approaching the creek to discover that a number of poplar saplings had been 'beaverized'. Not surprising in a sense, since we've got beavers just downstream of the area we were traversing.

It's obvious that the beavers, just like the squirrels that abound everywhere now, are busy gathering food for winter storage. Most of the trees in the ravine, but for the evergreens, have now lost their leaves, and we scatter a colourful confetti of leaves as we progress on the trails, heaped with the leaves, some of them still beautifully red, orange, yellow, and those underneath become brown and crisp in their decay.

We saw quite a number of immature poplar that had been taken down completely, their thin branches obviously collected and placed within the beaver lodge. Others had been neatly 'wedged', the trunk still there, awaiting the coup de grace and final abduction. We thought we'd take a trail offshoot that led to that part of the creek they had co-opted and dammed and ambled along over there. As we approached we could see signs of a lot more young trees that had been appropriated by the beaver in their nocturnal forays.

And we saw also a garter snake, soaking up the late fall sun in a bit of a clearing by the side of the forest, unperturbed seemingly at our close passage to where it lay. It stayed there, unwilling to budge from its comfortable perch; the only sign it was aware of our presence, its flickering tongue, gauging us and our intentions.

It's a nice non-meat meal to make once in a while, one that my husband is very fond of. It just takes a few minutes to prepare, then it can be set aside, covered in plastic wrap in the refrigerator and when the final step is to be taken, brought out and the previously-filled blinis quickly browned in a frying pan, and served.

They can be served up with a garnish of sour cream, or applesauce. Or, as in this instance, with nothing at all to diminish the already-complete flavour of the cheese blintzes.

For just two people, a half-cup of flour is more than enough. A bit of salt, two eggs, a half-cup of milk and that's all it takes. A quick cooking of the pancakes themselves, flipping them on to a dry tea towel, once done, and then they can be filled.

I decided this time, instead of the conventional cottage-cheese filling, to try Silani's new ricotta cheese. Adding honey and cinnamon, then filling the blinis with the resulting mixture. The end result was a lighter filling and a wonderfully good tasting finished product.

Prefaced by a fresh garden salad, and concluding with a dessert of fresh mandarins; a perfect, light dinner.

We're well into fall now, it's cold, though we haven't yet experienced a deep frost. The barbecue has not been used in at least a month. It sits, covered, on the deck. It's a gas barbecue, directly linked to the natural gas pipeline that also heats our house, so it's clean and easy to use.

Because yesterday was my regular cleaning day, after hours spent cleaning the house it seemed like a break from cooking mightn't be a bad idea, so we agreed to use the barbecue; my husband would do most of the food preparation and cooking.

When he uncovered the barbecue and lifted the top he saw something tiny out of the corner of his eye, and then it began frantically scurrying about. We've had mice there before, over-wintering. He thought that by lifting the coals and making a bit of a disturbance he would encourage the mouse to vacate its winter premises and allow him to use the barbecue one last time.

But as he lifted the coals and set them aside, he saw a nest. And in that nest was a family of young mice. They too began scurrying about the bottom of the barbecue in confused fear, always returning to the nest, the home they know and found comfort (and, hitherto, security) within.

My husband carefully returned all the coals in orderly fashion as he found them. Closed up the barbecue and re-covered it.