Indian Summer Re-Visited

It has been granted us by a sporadically indulgent Nature the pleasure of indulging in deep draughts of summer renascent.

We woke this morning to fog once again, but a light fog this time, and the prevailing winds swiftly blew it away, allowing the sun to burn through and do its work. It's the temperature inversions, warm sunny days succumbing to cool, even frosty nights, boomeranging back and forth that bring us these moist, foggy mornings.

In the ravine it is extremely quiet and we treasure these days where we no longer have to wear hats and gloves, wrap scarves around our necks, pull little coats over our two little dogs to face the elements.

There are still little pockets of rotted snow left here and there, despite a week of temperatures soaring to 18 degrees and plenty of sun. The snow is reluctant to melt entirely. Best to ignore its presence.

Everywhere now there is a monochromatic blanket of leaves, faded from their freshly fallen colours of gold, orange, red and bronze, to a uniform sprinkling of pale-to-dark shades of beige. We ruffle their dry essence, as we rove through them, piled high on the trails, their acrid odour pleasantly wafting toward us.

We hug ourselves in delighted disbelief at the clemency of the weather. Thank you, kind Nature, gifting us so pleasurably before the final onslaught of cold wintry weather.

November can be such a dark, damp, windy and altogether unpleasant month. So wearily colourless and cold that we finally long for the snow to appear, to soften the cold angularity and sere presence of late autumn. Scant few leaves still cling to branches; a light breeze rattles them.

At this time of year we've often remarked on how peculiar it is that some poplar trunks take on the aspect of birch trunks, they're that white. At other times those same poplar trunks are painted in pale green, but not now.

The creek is running clear now, it has lost the urgency and roiling motion it had latterly taken on, with the heavy rain and the snow that followed it. Its banks are slowly, steadily collapsing. As occurs with such an unsubstantial combination of
clay and sand.

As we reach the half-way point in our daily perambulation, a pair of doves lift off from the trail, wings whirring. We've become accustomed to seeing them here, just as early in the summer we observed a pair of cardinals whose territory it had been. And just a bit further we're surprised to see a flock of doves rise from the ground into the surrounding trees.

Nuthatches and chickadees abound, their bright chirping painting the landscape with sound. Ash keys hang plentifully, pendulously, and we wonder whether any birds value them as they do the spruce cones that the squirrels so assiduously gather and separate into careful piles of eaten and soon-to-be-eaten, atop the flat surfaces of tree stumps.

Spent asters and goldenrod flower heads have dried completely and they've been transformed into little lethal torpedoes, sticking to Button's and Riley's haircoats. The dark trunks of deciduous trees, naked of leaves, are a counterpoint to the dark green of the conifers among them and the bright, still-fresh green of mosses, ferns.

Beneficent Nature has sent us yet again the temporary sweetness of sun and ambient warmth. The bright sun illuminating her fall tapestry. The staccato hammering of a woodpecker punctures the still air.