Sere Fall on a Sunday Stroll
Well, it is fall, after all, so we've just got to become accustomed to the new look that surrounds us now. Fully one-third of the mature trees in our neighbourhood have already lost their leaves. Some of these trees turned delightful colours of nuanced rose and yellows, others remained green, but all invariably, were loosed by the impetuous wind that arose during our many rainstorms of late.
And so, walking up the street toward the ravine, we see some of our neighbours out raking their lawns, restoring order from autumn leaf-loss. One neighbours, with small children, raked all of his leaves up against and around the trunk of the tree from which the leaves fell. There the considerable leaf-pile will remain until Hallowe'en is over, or the winds play fast and loose with the pile and restore them to their former place on his lawn - or generously scatter them as decoration onto the lawns of his neighbours. Meanwhile, his children also have the option of diving into the pile in an excess of childjoy.
In the ravine, suddenly much is revealed. Too much, in fact. We value the fact that we can quit the street, enter the ravine, and the streetscape is lost to our view, the surrounding trees smothering sound and concrete. Now, with so much of the canopy fallen to ground, we are able to see further and our gentle conceit of being adrift in a wilderness of trees is revealed for the silly ruse that it is.
As we walk along the trails, the wind howling above on this too-cool-for-the-date Sunday, the leaf mass above is diminishing even more, twirling downward as it descends to add to the leaf-confetti already claiming the trail. The clouds scuttle above, also under the influence of the wind, and there are dark clouds that look to promise more rain. A nuthatch calls out from a pine and we strain to see if there are chickadees with it.
Button and Riley are both wearing warm sweaters against the cold wind; she ahead as usual and he bringing up the rear. Because it's a Sunday afternoon there are other occasional strollers enjoying the fall day and a brisk walk through the ravine. They cast amused glances after little Riley plodding along behind, and a short chat ensues; nothing like companion dogs on a wooded trail to break social ice.
Squirrels are busy scrambling about in the underbrush; they're all represented today, the tiny territorially-clever red ones, the larger grey and black. All busy with the season's ritual of search-and-horde. Now that the trees are becoming increasingly bare it's easier to make out the presence of their truly sloppy nests high above. One imagines the tiny red squirrels house themselves more intelligently in hollow tree trunks because of their size, while the others make do and hope for the best through the winter months.
We pass several young boys off their bicycles - they must be about ten, eleven years of age, and they're looking intently at the ground as they proceed. We ask, have they lost something? Yes, one of the boys lost a Loonie and they're trying to spot it. Impossible, given the loose leaf coverage, and they agree, but continue their disconsolate search. Had we loose change on us we'd restore the boy's lost coin.
Later there are two smaller boys on bicycles, and behind them a girl with a scooter. Beside her toddles a tiny girl, dressed exquisitely in fashion, clever on her tiny feet. The boys hurry off, exiting onto a street, the girl on the scooter far behind. One cannot help admiring the duo; tiny girl and older minder. She is not the infant's sister, only caring for her. How old, I ask? and she tells me the child is two. At which the tiny toddler holds up two fingers and I guffaw.
"I taught her that" said the older girl proudly.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, October 15, 2006
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